Writer/filmmaker Charlie Kaufman has spoken out about the state of modern Hollywood filmmaking and he seems rather concerned.
Kaufman, who has always written colorful films like “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” spoke at a masterclass during the Sarajevo Film Festival about the current state of the industry.
It seems a combination of the current WGA strike, the looming fear of A.I., and the major studio’s slates all playing it safe with four-quadrant blockbusters or superhero films has gotten him a little despondent.
He indicates he cares very little for the types of films that get greenlit these days and is increasingly worried about how consumers are content with subpar movies. He says (via Deadline):
“At this point, the only thing that makes money is garbage. It’s just fascinating. It makes a fortune, and that’s the bottom line. It’s very seductive to the studios but also to the people who engage and become the makers of that garbage, especially if they’re lauded for the garbage because they don’t have to look inward or think long about what they’re doing.
The diet is so corrupted and has been for so long. It’s like if you eat shit all your life, you want s—. If you eat processed food, you crave it. And you wouldn’t if you hadn’t been fed it all your life. That’s what the movie machine does and I find it really offensive. It makes me angry.”
That’s partly what fuels his concern with A.I. as the general public is being fed a diet of ‘bad’ films and thus doesn’t come to expect anything more, at which point A.I. could take over with little visible difference:
“As long as they are in that arena making that s—, then you might as well have A.I. do it. Once you give that up and allow the studios to use A.I. to write their screenplay, there’s no going back. Then there’s no hope because A.I. can’t create a moment of humanity. As long as people are doing it and there’s that struggle, then there’s always a chance that something will come out of it that will be worth something to human beings.”
He’s not the only one expressing similar comments as “Shazam” star Zachary Levi spoke with EW over the weekend and says:
“The amount of content that comes out of Hollywood that is garbage – they don’t care enough to actually make it great for you guys. They don’t… the only way for us to change any of it is to not go to the garbage. We have to actively not choose the garbage. It’ll help. It’ll help a lot.”
For now, not much content is coming at all from Hollywood studios as strike-impacted schedules are expected to make this Fall’s line-up rather slim.
Source: Deadline
