Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Gemma Mason's avatar

Constraint and community are such interestingly ambiguous influences on the artistic merit of a work. Sometimes the restrictions of a medium, or an industry, are exactly what give rise to creative brilliance. Sometimes it’s precisely the attempt to reach a specific audience that allows insight to emerge.

If the best that the film industry can produce, right now, is self-indulgent lack of restriction, then this is damning indeed. It suggests that the restrictions and community involvement that are available have managed to become so bankrupt that the creative tension between auteur and industry has lost its generative power entirely.

A good editor will restrict a writer; a good producer will restrict a director. If editors and producers lose their fidelity to anything other than the market, books and films will suffer for it, and creative freedom won’t fix it.

Expand full comment
Patrick Kho's avatar

“In this, Megalopolis is the anti-Barbie.” Just perfect

Expand full comment
5 more comments...

No posts