Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2023 i Vanity Fair

Susan Casey, who uncovers new details about the final, fatal journey of the Titan submersible in this issue, has been participating in and reporting on deepsea expeditions for years, so when she describes Titan’s last descent as a “tragedy-in-waiting,” she does so with earned expertise. The ocean, as Casey writes, is an inexorable force against which glib tech mantras like “move fast and break things” have no traction—the thing you break is most likely to be your own. Exploration obviously carries risk, and even the best efforts at managing it cannot prevent disaster. Think of the space shuttle Challenger explosion, witnessed in devastating real time by the youth of my generation. But the story of the Titan—and the story of the Titanic, for that matter—are a reminder that the race…

ROMAN STORIES by Jhumpa Lahiri Writing first in her adopted Italian, Lahiri conjures freighted connections—a husband longs for another woman; a family weathers racist attacks—in and around a Rome humming with life. (Knopf) THE HIVE AND THE HONEY by Paul Yoon In seven virtuosic stories centering characters that include a 17th-century samurai and a contemporary New York immigrant, Yoon captures scenes of the Korean diaspora. (Marysue Rucci) OUR STRANGERS by Lydia Davis With signature wit and depth, Davis presents a compendium of flash and short fiction. Bypassing Amazon, the title is available solely at libraries and indie stores. (Bookshop Editions) THIS IS SALVAGED by Vauhini Vara A teen whose brother has died of cancer takes a job as a phone sex operator, an artist constructs a biblical ark, and more…

MARTIN SCORSESE ISN’T afraid of what he doesn’t know. “He’s the gutsiest director I’ve ever met in my life,” says Irwin Winkler, who’s produced Scorsese films for more than three decades. Scorsese may be best known for iconic crime stories inspired by his own Italian American upbringing in New York, but this is also the man who delivered Hollywood’s best Edith Wharton adaptation, darted from The Color of Money’s modern setting to The Last Temptation of Christ, and helmed a Liza Minnelli musical being revived nearly 50 years later. His range is on display again in this fall’s Killers of the Flower Moon, a haunting, real-life tragedy set in the Osage Nation of Oklahoma. “His fierce determination to do what he feels is the right thing for a movie is…

ONCE YOU’RE 200 or so miles north of London, everything seems to be bigger and bolder, including the country houses. This is Yorkshire, the Texas of England. Some of the houses are in fact palaces, with hundreds of rooms and thousands of acres, such as Castle Howard, the baroque extravaganza on which young aristocrat Charles Howard started construction in 1701, and Harewood House, a Palladian masterpiece begun by landowner Edwin Lascelles in 1759. Just slightly less grand is Sledmere, an immense Georgian house, where merchant Richard Sykes laid the first stone in 1751. Though portions of these properties are open to the public, a number of their descendants still call these unfathomably huge domiciles home. These aristocratic dynasties have managed to keep the roofs on—and over magnificent collections of art…

MICHAEL RUBIN AND Lil Baby first met in the Bahamas. The CEO and the rapper found themselves, in January 2021, sitting around the same baccarat table with their mutual friends Drake and Meek Mill. Baby had begun making music a few years earlier after serving two years related to drug and weapon charges in Atlanta. Now, like the two other rappers placing their bets, he was beginning to mix with billionaire businessmen. “We ain’t win,” Baby recently recalled. “We had a great night, though.” As with Drake and Meek, Rubin, 51, struck up a friendship with the 28-year-old rapper. Each of the three has recorded lyrics about him, but Baby put it the most bluntly on a 2022 song: “I get my advice from Mike Rubin.” “He’s got the best…

Susan CASEY “THE LAST DESCENT,” P. 62 “The Titan tragedy brought up a lot of emotions because I’d been watching OceanGate’s operation, fearing the worst, since 2018,” says the best-selling writer, whose book, The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean (Doubleday), takes a deep dive into the world of undersea exploration. Phil KLAY “WAR OF THE WORLDS,” P. 92 Klay, who explores the US military’s foray into preparing for an evolution of war, is an award-winning author, Marine Corps veteran, and professor at Fairfield University. His novel Missionaries was named one of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year in 2020. Grace ALDRICH “FUTURE TENSE,” P. 76 The Kansas City–based fine artist and illustrator’s work often wrestles with themes of the surreal, seeking to uncover the intrinsic…

1. THE ATLAS OF CAR DESIGN This rich history traces more than a century of stylish autos, from the mass-produced 1901 Oldsmobile Curved Dash to the Ford Bronco (pictured here) to the Tesla Model X—written by Jason Barlow and Guy Bird, and with an introduction from Brett Berk. (Phaidon) 2. PAULINE BOTY Marc Kristal’s illustrated biography brings the lesser-known British pop artist Pauline Boty, who died of cancer at age 28, into vivid focus: Called “the Wimbledon Bardot” at art school, she painted lush depictions of feminine sexuality and desire. (Frances Lincoln) 3. WHAT’S MY NAME? Micaiah Carter’s first monograph, with text by Tracee Ellis Ross, showcases the photographer’s emotive rendering of his subjects, from an anonymous little boy, inspired by Carter’s own childhood, to portraits of famous faces like…

WHEN THE VAMPIRES are played by Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie—chiseled features, haute froideur—it’s hard not to side with the bloodthirsty. The Hunger, Tony Scott’s 1983 directorial debut, opens in a New York nightclub, as Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy sings the propulsive “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” The lovers select their prey: a sunglasses-at-night guy and a redhead with slashes of eyeliner and crimson lips. She dances, unaware that she exits the film in six minutes flat. A speed-walking cast of models made a similarly fleeting appearance at Marc Jacobs’s fall 2023 show. The designer’s ode to the ’80s manifested as bleached wigs, cropped black stockings, a striped suit fit for Beetlejuice. But it was the drained faces and brusque red mouths, together with show notes credited to OpenAI and ChatGPT, that…

WE INVENTED WHEELS AND COMPASSES AND CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM AND THE EAMES LOUNGE CHAIR AND PENICILLIN AND E = MC2 AND BEER that comes in six-packs and guns and dildos and the Pet Rock and Doggles (eyewear for dogs) and square watermelons. “One small step for man.” We came up with the Lindy Hop and musical toothbrushes and mustard gas and glow-in-the-dark Band-Aids and paper and the microscope and bacon—fucking bacon!—and Christmas. “Ma-ma-se, ma-ma-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa.” We went to the bottom of the ocean and into orbit. We sucked energy from the sun and fertilizer from the air. “Let there be light.” We created the most amazing pink flamingo lawn ornaments that come in packs of two and only cost $9.99! In a universe that stretches an estimated…

AMERICA’S MILITARY IS preparing for a different kind of war. After two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting insurgents and terrorist groups who used guerrillastyle tactics, the US armed forces have a new focus: “peer-to-peer combat.” War between great nations with large militaries. War—hypothetically—with Russia or with China. Combat of the sort America hasn’t engaged in since Korea. As alarming as it may sound, every branch of the Defense Department is currently undergoing a major restructuring, reevaluating doctrine, weaponry, tactics, and training to prepare for just this kind of war. After a recent trip to Washington, DC—to help military experts workshop peer-to-peer war—Austrian army offcer Franz-Stefan Gady, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told me that this new cultural and tactical pivot among the…

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WHEN BRAD PITT first read Damien Chazelle’s script for Babylon, it was 180 pages, which translates to about three hours of screen time. “I said, ‘This thing is a masterwork. But what’s going to get cut?’” the actor later told W. “Because it’s really hard just to get 120 pages in there. And he said, ‘Nothing.’” For better or what many reviewers said was worse, Chazelle was right. Everything the writer-director dreamed up seemed to have made the final cut, including an elephant’s explosive bowels. Chazelle had previously made the acclaimed films La La Land and Whiplash, so he was a legitimate talent to bank on. But Babylon reportedly needed to make about $250 million to break even and pulled in just $63 million worldwide. Pitt and Margot Robbie are…

41.73º N, 49.95º W NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN JUNE 18, 2023 FATE CLEARED UP the weather, blew off the fog, and calmed the waves, as the submersible and its five passengers dived through the surface waters and fell into another world. They entered the deep ocean’s uppermost layer, known as the twilight zone, passing creatures glimmering with bioluminescence, tiny fish with enormous teeth. Then they entered the midnight zone, where larger creatures ghost by like alien moons. Two miles down, they entered the abyssal zone—so named because it’s the literal abyss. Deeper means heavier: pressures of 5,000, then 6,000 pounds per square inch. As it descended, the submersible was gripped in a tightening vise. Maybe they heard a noise then, maybe they heard an alarm. I hope they watched the abyss…

BACK IN EARLY 2020, when Marvel was on the hunt for a director for The Marvels, a young director came in to pitch her vision for the project to executives and select talent. Four minutes into the meeting, Brie Larson sent an all-caps text to their mutual friend, Tessa Thompson. All it said was “NIA DACOSTA.” DaCosta, who was 30 at the time, got the job, becoming not only Marvel’s youngest director ever, but also the first Black woman to helm one of its films. “When I go into those rooms, I’m really just like, ‘This is what I want,’” says DaCosta. “I’m not trying to figure out what they want, so I don’t have those kinds of nerves.” Her friend Thompson, who knows her way around the Marvel universe,…

What is your favorite occupation? Rock star. When and where were you happiest? When I’m in the middle of my family and we’re all laughing. A very close second is when I’m onstage. What is your greatest extravagance? Having my hairdresser come out to my home to cut and color my hair and my whole family’s hair. I haven’t been to a salon in years. What is your greatest fear? To let fear overcome my life. We’re not gonna let that happen because love is always greater than fear. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Deplore is a heavy word. I don’t deplore it but I constantly feel the pull of my old Midwestern ways of eating. Boy, can I put some pancakes away. Which words or phrases…