Flasz On Film

Two news items (if you can call them news items even) have recently caught my attention while doom-scrolling through social media against my better judgment. One involved Greta Gerwig, the director of the upcoming Barbie, allegedly admitting she does not wish to be a great woman director as much as she wishes to be a great studio director, while the other related to Xavier Dolan, once considered a wunderkind of indie filmmaking, deciding to quit making movies.  

Both of these revelations have immediately attracted the attention of Twitter commentariat – soon to be rebranded as Threads commentariat, by the way – who collectively poured scorn on these two independent figures who had the audacity to do what they think was best for them. It’s quite honestly fascinating to observe just how tribal our societal interactions have become, especially in the context of Gerwig’s decision to advance her career by signing up to direct a Chronicles of Narnia remake instead of heading back to writing localized, semi-autobiographical pieces of indie cinema. How dare she shill out like that! The audacity – the chutzpah! – to follow exactly in the footsteps of so many other indie filmmakers like Taika Waititi, Colin Trevorrow or Ryan Coogler who also dared to make the leap to big studio filmmaking and to abandon their indie roots.

Naturally, I did enjoy Lady Bird quite a bit and I also had nothing bad to say about Little Women. Therefore, it seems I should join in on the pile-on and either contribute to the purity spiral of “she never had a true indie spirit anyway” chorus or wallow in despair at the fact she wasn’t interested in becoming a female Noah Baumbach. And it’s fine. Greta Gerwig doesn’t owe the world a debt. She’s perfectly entitled to pursue the same dream that Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott ended up chasing back when they were spring chickens. It just so happens these days that building a small portfolio of indie darlings, preferably with festival clout and critical acclaim behind their belts, is one of the main routes you can use to jumpstart a successful career in the film industry (like Trevorrow who made Safety Not Guaranteed and then bagged a job helming Jurassic World), with the other involving a transition from other types of work on set like Chad Stahelski who started as a stunt double for Keanu Reeves. Another traditional route of entry – TV – has in recent years become a port of departure as more and more filmmakers leave big studio filmmaking to seek opportunities there, specifically on the back of the streaming platform revolution.  

Point is, we tend to forget that for very many filmmakers – dare I say nearly all of them – making movies is a career they wish they could work on and advance. They are in this business because they want to make movies that people will want to go out and watch, which flies in the face of a seemingly common romanticized image of filmmakers equated to a starving poet who suffers immense internal pain, pours it into his art and then drinks himself to death so as to make sure we could idolize his work for ever more. Now, I’m pretty sure all filmmakers and artists in general do what they do because they feel the need to express themselves this way. It goes without saying. However, I think we need to remember that they also want to live their lives in dignity. For every John Cassavetes, who spent all his money to finance his great work knowing full well nobody would ever like his stuff enough for him to make a profit, and for every Cormac McCarthy who could do away with earthly pleasures and immerse himself in his work while having only beans for dinner, there are millions of creatives who want to do both – express themselves and earn a living. And sometimes (or most times) these opportunities come with trade-offs. Maybe Greta Gerwig would like to make small indie movies again one day. Maybe she will come back to make them eventually or, like Steven Soderbergh, will continue to express herself through small projects in between working on massive studio ventures. Time will tell. Because she clearly does not want to be a starving poet. She wants to be like Spielberg, Scorsese and Scott, all of whom worked in the studio system and made massive movies for money. She doesn’t want to roll the dice and hope she’d be an icon of independent filmmaking among cinephiles, because the vast majority of independent artists never get their work seen by anyone. You can’t even imagine how many movies – some of which are truly great – end up completely forgotten having been shown at one or two festivals. Not everyone gets to be Quentin Tarantino, or Steven Soderbergh. Most indie filmmakers starve without anyone knowing about their work.

And let’s be honest, critical clout doesn’t pay the bills either, which brings me onto Xavier Dolan, whose decision to leave filmmaking for good was described as petulant and whiny because he had the audacity to say he was no longer interested in making movies nobody would see. Dolan, a critical darling loved by the world of cinephiles and critics, had the nerve to sit down and refuse to indulge reviewers and cineastes pro bono. Problem is, he wasn’t interested in following in Greta Gerwig’s footsteps and start making movies he wasn’t interested in making.  

At the risk of coming across as crass and attempting to compare myself – a literal nobody – to Xavier Dolan, I fully understand the sentiment. I am fully aware of how market forces rule the world and if I wanted to, I could probably make my podcast way more popular than it is now. I could probably make this website way more popular, too. But I don’t want to. I’m more interested in the process and mental health benefits baked into the idea of expressing myself through long form opinionated writing and podcasting about movies nobody heard about, so I consciously make a trade-off here. I refuse to play the SEO game, confine myself to three hundred words per post and writing about things I am not interested in. I suppose I am fortunate enough to be in a position where this is my hobby I don’t have to ever turn into a profitable business venture, and I do it predominantly for myself.  

Problem is, Xavier Dolan seems to have understood only recently that if your interests don’t align with what’s popular or accessible, you will be doing what you’re doing predominantly for yourself and, if you are good enough, for a small circle of acolytes who happen to also enjoy your fetishes. The man is allowed to feel burned out, especially after his recent movies weren’t even all that well received by critics who would normally love his stuff. Maybe he is not interested in picking up a Marvel property or making a move to Hollywood to make populist blockbusters or Netflix content.  

It’s fine. I think it’s great that Greta Gerwig is moving up in the world and doesn’t want to martyr herself for the indie cause. Equally, I’m OK with Xavier Dolan taking a break and enjoying himself, as he clearly sounds like he’s had enough. You get only one life and you might as well make the best of the cards you’ve been dealt. I think such decisions should be cherished, not vilified. I see them as acts of self-actualization, not betrayal. Sure, I’d love to see another Gerwig indie, but I’ll gladly go and see how her big studio output fares instead. Equally, I’d like Xavier Dolan to continue his filmmaking journey, but not at the expense of knowing he suffers immense pain for me and other cinephiles to occasionally have a good time. I hope they are happy with the choices they are making. I know it might make little sense to the Twitter purity spiral brigade, but I don’t mind that Tarantino is retiring (even though he’s my favourite living filmmaker), or that Greta Gerwig wants to take a stab at studio greatness… or that Xavier Dolan has had enough of this nonsense. If anything, I want people to live their best lives and be happy. And if this means I have to look for movies I like elsewhere, so be it. Cinema won’t die because filmmakers retire or make career choices. It might die if we, the viewers, don’t turn up to watch what these artists want to show us, though.