In an interview with Damsels in Distress director Whit Stillman, Financial Times Leo Robson notes the Stillman sensibility — “a mixture of irony and sincerity, affection and mocking, celebration and mourning” — along with the current success of director-writer Wes Anderson, whom Robson calls one of Stillman’s “followers.”

Stillman’s comment: “I haven’t really spoken to him so I can’t say for sure, but his name is Wes, which is presumably a contraction of Wesley, so I like to think of us as members of the tiny school of Methodist filmmakers.”

I wouldn’t have mentioned this otherwise, but Stillman’s remark tells me that either he or Anderson aren’t especially interested in saying hello or what have you. In late ’09 I met Stillman after a screening of Metropolitan at 92Y Tribeca, and then we talked a bit more and it occured to me that he and Anderson should at least exchange salutations. So I suggested this and gave Stillman Anderson’s e-mail address and vice versa, and that, apparently, was the last of it.