Summer Reading. 11.

[Bryan] Buckley's pieces are often anticommercials. They lack the soaring mountain vistas of car commercials and the wistful greeting-card sentiments of ads for long-distance phone companies. They tend to be snide, visually cluttered and anarchic; they can come across as both tasteless and pointless. And amazingly, they have a theme: the attempts of ordinary folks to contend with ruthless impulses and chaotic circumstances. William Ivey Smith, the costume designer for Broadway shows, including The Producers, who waded into commercials to work with Buckley - he designed the costumes for the Oxygen spot - tells me: "Bryan is an interpreter of American fears. He doesn't make commercials; he writes haiku."

Mark Levine, "30-Second Auteur", New York Times Magazine, February 3, 2002.



Posted by dwhudson at August 1, 2003 3:24 AM