Mozart in the Jungle is an Amazon series about life in a professional orchestra. It just entered its second season, has garnered several awards, and still has us terribly confused.
Join Madeleine Davies and Kate Dries as we sort out our feelings on a show that both of us watch and neither of us get.
Madeleine Davies: Last night at the 2016 Golden Globes, Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle won Best Television Series-Musical or Comedy and the show’s lead actor Gael García Bernal won Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series-Musical or Comedy. These victories elicited two responses from the American public:
- “That Gael is one tiny, smokin’ hot babe.”
- “What the hell is Mozart in the Jungle?”
(It was also nominated at the 2015 Emmys and people were just as confused then.)
Earlier last week, I mentioned to you, Kate, that I had spent the entire weekend binge-watching all two seasons of Mozart in the Jungle. I also said that I didn’t think I liked it, but—for an undefinable reason—felt compelled to keep watching. Not heeding my warning, you proceeded to binge-watch all the episodes in your own downtime. What did you think?
Kate Dries: Well, a point of clarification: I have not binge-watched all of them, but frankly, it’s only a matter of time before I do. I went to a friend’s house Saturday afternoon and she suggested we watch the Season 2 premiere and a subsequent episode. Despite spending most of that total hour going “Huh?” I went home and watched five more, starting at the beginning of season one. I have a few theories about why, but none of them really stand alone.
- It’s only half an hour long, so that’s easy to dig into
- It seems like it’d be a show where everyone is stabbing each other in the back, but in actuality (because it’s produced by Jason Schwartzman, giving it a very Bored to Death vibe) everyone is pretty decent to one another and just wants to play some classical music and be happy?
- The cast is sort of mesmerizingly quirky
- Bernadette Peters has stunning cleavage and amazing hair
- Continue onwards for approximately five bullet points, all of them minute details that are hardly enough of a reason for a show to win numerous awards
MD: You see, I wasn’t aware of who Lola Kirke was, so I kept getting frustrated in this they think they can cast someone who looks exactly like Jemima Kirke, not say anything, and get away with it? way. But then I googled the cast, found out that Lola was Jemima’s sister, and felt very dumb, indeed. (I should have felt dumb earlier because Jemima Kirke, believe it or not, does not own her face shape.)
I will watch basically any drama about the fine arts. I even watched Starz’s Flesh and Bone up until the episode where someone takes a shit on a character’s pillow and I finally realized, “Too much.” But the thing with Mozart is that all of the drama—realistic to the symphony world—revolves around union disputes and keeping the New York Symphony Orchestra relevant to young audiences. (Note: the New York Symphony Orchestra of the show is fictional, but the series is loosely based on Blair Tindall’s memoir of the same name.) So, as that relates to your second point, it all feels very low stakes—even as Gael García Bernal (as the cool, young conductor Rodrigo) is brought in to replace the more stuffy and conservative Thomas Pembridge (Malcolm McDowell).
Here’s the real rub, though: The writing is kind of… terrible? Mozart’s pilot features a young oboist going to a cool orchestra party (in her own apartment) where she plays a classical music version of spin the bottle and all of the guests are just so. fucking, psyched. that she’s playing Bach. In a later episode, Bernadette Peters makes a joke about not understanding social media, saying that something is so exciting that it “even makes me want to twerp out an Instapic!” The moment was beautiful and I laughed a long time, but for none of the right reasons.