The authentic creative process
Disney
In that interview, Zhao lays down a pretty potent axiom: “I think the need for consensus is a hindrance for any authentic creative process.” The director of Best Picture winner “Nomadland” has also written or co-written all of her directorial efforts to date, and tends to follow her passions. She was an unusual choice to helm a film in one of the most commercially profitable film series in history. She continues:
“Just like it’s a hindrance for living an authentic life as a person. I have been on the receiving end of somewhat consensus, and divisiveness about my work. Neither of them has any real influence on me as an artist, because every time I’m lucky enough to create, I learn from the process. From what I’ve succeeded [at], and what I’ve failed [at].”
This is a very healthy attitude toward success and failure — that both are part of a larger learning process. Zhao also feels that the learning process is part of the individual’s growth, and not a cue to make something more commercially successful next time.
“But that learning process is a very intimate affair. Anything beyond that, for me, it’s just a part of the ecosystem that exists because of the nature of the industry we’re in. Like a flower or a rock, I acknowledge and appreciate their presence. But that’s as far as it goes.”
How much was hers?
Disney
It’s natural to assume that, when taking part of a studio-driven product — one that prides itself on a notion of studio-as-auteur — that each individual director is a mere director-for-hire, asked to move someone else’s pieces around someone else’s chess board. Zhao wants to address such assumptions directly and set the record straight:
“When people have that feeling, like they need to put order into things, they need to understand it by putting it into boxes. It is not about us, it is about them. And I say that lovingly, because they have a level of comfort [with] how their entertainment and their world — their beloved Marvel, or their beloved indie filmmaker — functions. That’s the order of the logic of their world that’s being disturbed. So I appreciate their passion, to try to make sense of it.”
But the truth is, as in all things, more complicated and nuanced, especially when it comes to art:
“The truth is that nobody is one layer. In this case, we truly stepped out of the box that I think the world put us in, and met in the middle because of our shared interests. And by truly doing that, it made a lot of people uncomfortable on both sides. But there are also people who are more comfortable with the order of their world [being] disturbed. And then they look at our love-child and go, ‘Oh! This touches different sides of me!’ I like that. So I completely understand the divisiveness coming from critics and the fans. Because when you take this to extremes that are seen as opposition — the world I come from and the world of Marvel, that has been divided in a way that’s so unfair and unfortunate — and to merge the way we did, I actually see the reaction as a testament to how much we had merged with each other; how uncomfortable that might make people feel.”
An extended period watching and reviewing films will eventually reveal that popularity, quality, and artistic daring are all mutually exclusive concepts. We live in a world where fascinating and important movies are ignored and schlock makes billions, but also a world where important movies make billions and schlock is ignored. Zhao seems to understand that ambition and ideas are vital to making an interesting movie, and that critical and commercial consensus will leave her with a less interesting work overall. “Eternals” was doing something new and interesting with a commercial film series. Hopefully Zhao’s outlook rubs off on some of her contemporaries.
Disney
By Witney Seibold/March 15, 2022 5:59 pm EST
Perhaps it was its broad scope of history (a different structure for the MCU, which often focused on origin stories and tales of recruitment into a larger team) and sense of independence that left critics and fans wanting. “Eternals” currently carries a 47% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the lowest RT-rated film in the MCU. The next lowest-rated films in the series are “Thor: The Dark World” at 66%, “The Incredible Hulk” at 67%, and “Iron Man 2” at 72%
Chloé Zhao, in a recent interview with Empire Magazine, says that she doesn’t much care. Consensus, after all, is not the purview of the artist. Ensuring that a film is boldly commercial is more the concern of executives.
The authentic creative process
In that interview, Zhao lays down a pretty potent axiom: “I think the need for consensus is a hindrance for any authentic creative process.” The director of Best Picture winner “Nomadland” has also written or co-written all of her directorial efforts to date, and tends to follow her passions. She was an unusual choice to helm a film in one of the most commercially profitable film series in history. She continues:
“Just like it’s a hindrance for living an authentic life as a person. I have been on the receiving end of somewhat consensus, and divisiveness about my work. Neither of them has any real influence on me as an artist, because every time I’m lucky enough to create, I learn from the process. From what I’ve succeeded [at], and what I’ve failed [at].”
This is a very healthy attitude toward success and failure — that both are part of a larger learning process. Zhao also feels that the learning process is part of the individual’s growth, and not a cue to make something more commercially successful next time.
“But that learning process is a very intimate affair. Anything beyond that, for me, it’s just a part of the ecosystem that exists because of the nature of the industry we’re in. Like a flower or a rock, I acknowledge and appreciate their presence. But that’s as far as it goes.”
This is a very healthy attitude toward success and failure — that both are part of a larger learning process. Zhao also feels that the learning process is part of the individual’s growth, and not a cue to make something more commercially successful next time.
“Just like it’s a hindrance for living an authentic life as a person. I have been on the receiving end of somewhat consensus, and divisiveness about my work. Neither of them has any real influence on me as an artist, because every time I’m lucky enough to create, I learn from the process. From what I’ve succeeded [at], and what I’ve failed [at].”
“But that learning process is a very intimate affair. Anything beyond that, for me, it’s just a part of the ecosystem that exists because of the nature of the industry we’re in. Like a flower or a rock, I acknowledge and appreciate their presence. But that’s as far as it goes.”
How much was hers?
It’s natural to assume that, when taking part of a studio-driven product — one that prides itself on a notion of studio-as-auteur — that each individual director is a mere director-for-hire, asked to move someone else’s pieces around someone else’s chess board. Zhao wants to address such assumptions directly and set the record straight:
“When people have that feeling, like they need to put order into things, they need to understand it by putting it into boxes. It is not about us, it is about them. And I say that lovingly, because they have a level of comfort [with] how their entertainment and their world — their beloved Marvel, or their beloved indie filmmaker — functions. That’s the order of the logic of their world that’s being disturbed. So I appreciate their passion, to try to make sense of it.”
But the truth is, as in all things, more complicated and nuanced, especially when it comes to art:
“The truth is that nobody is one layer. In this case, we truly stepped out of the box that I think the world put us in, and met in the middle because of our shared interests. And by truly doing that, it made a lot of people uncomfortable on both sides. But there are also people who are more comfortable with the order of their world [being] disturbed. And then they look at our love-child and go, ‘Oh! This touches different sides of me!’ I like that. So I completely understand the divisiveness coming from critics and the fans. Because when you take this to extremes that are seen as opposition — the world I come from and the world of Marvel, that has been divided in a way that’s so unfair and unfortunate — and to merge the way we did, I actually see the reaction as a testament to how much we had merged with each other; how uncomfortable that might make people feel.”
An extended period watching and reviewing films will eventually reveal that popularity, quality, and artistic daring are all mutually exclusive concepts. We live in a world where fascinating and important movies are ignored and schlock makes billions, but also a world where important movies make billions and schlock is ignored. Zhao seems to understand that ambition and ideas are vital to making an interesting movie, and that critical and commercial consensus will leave her with a less interesting work overall. “Eternals” was doing something new and interesting with a commercial film series. Hopefully Zhao’s outlook rubs off on some of her contemporaries.
But the truth is, as in all things, more complicated and nuanced, especially when it comes to art:
“When people have that feeling, like they need to put order into things, they need to understand it by putting it into boxes. It is not about us, it is about them. And I say that lovingly, because they have a level of comfort [with] how their entertainment and their world — their beloved Marvel, or their beloved indie filmmaker — functions. That’s the order of the logic of their world that’s being disturbed. So I appreciate their passion, to try to make sense of it.”
An extended period watching and reviewing films will eventually reveal that popularity, quality, and artistic daring are all mutually exclusive concepts. We live in a world where fascinating and important movies are ignored and schlock makes billions, but also a world where important movies make billions and schlock is ignored. Zhao seems to understand that ambition and ideas are vital to making an interesting movie, and that critical and commercial consensus will leave her with a less interesting work overall.
“The truth is that nobody is one layer. In this case, we truly stepped out of the box that I think the world put us in, and met in the middle because of our shared interests. And by truly doing that, it made a lot of people uncomfortable on both sides. But there are also people who are more comfortable with the order of their world [being] disturbed. And then they look at our love-child and go, ‘Oh! This touches different sides of me!’ I like that. So I completely understand the divisiveness coming from critics and the fans. Because when you take this to extremes that are seen as opposition — the world I come from and the world of Marvel, that has been divided in a way that’s so unfair and unfortunate — and to merge the way we did, I actually see the reaction as a testament to how much we had merged with each other; how uncomfortable that might make people feel.”
“Eternals” was doing something new and interesting with a commercial film series. Hopefully Zhao’s outlook rubs off on some of her contemporaries.
