Alejandro González Iñárritu Has Words for Hollywood

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/movies/alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu-netflix.html

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It was the second day of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s tenure as the jury president of the Cannes Film Festival, and the weather was perfect: Outside his hotel-room balcony on the Croisette, the sky was blue and the ocean was even bluer. Still, as Iñárritu spoke about the complicated future of the film industry, you’d be forgiven for expecting storm clouds.

“Cinemas are the womb of what we are, and if we kill that womb, we will all be dead very soon,” he said.

After winning back-to-back best director Oscars for “The Revenant” and “Birdman,” Iñárritu is one of the few prestige filmmakers left whose work is guaranteed a major financial commitment and theatrical release from big studios. But as those companies continue to crowd their slates with superhero films, and auteurs decamp in greater number to streaming services like Netflix, Iñárritu worries that the experience in theaters may be on the wane.

[Jim Jarmusch takes his zombie movie to the Cannes Film Festival.]

Unlike some of his contemporaries, the 55-year-old Iñárritu has no desire to denigrate Netflix: At a news conference for the Cannes jury on Tuesday, he praised the streamer for introducing art films to a worldwide audience. (The service recently distributed “Roma,” the Oscar-winning drama directed by Iñárritu’s friend Alfonso Cuarón.) Still, Iñárritu argued that watching a movie on an iPad can hardly compare to going to the cinema.

In a long conversation with me, the Mexican director spoke about why Netflix has been scapegoated and his vision of a new film culture. Here are excerpts from the conversation.

Here in Cannes, movies are shown in grand theaters. But we are quickly reaching a point where people will watch more movies on a streaming service than they will in theaters. What do you make of that?

That’s a real problem. How many of the films we are lucky enough to have the privilege to see here in Cannes will make it to the world, accessible to Joe Smith in Arkansas? These great stories can empower him to grow in every sense, but when will they be available, and how?

Some of the films will only get to you through streaming services, but I think the big problem is that when it comes to the way films are being produced, distributed and exhibited, the system is homogenized. It leaves almost no space for other kinds of films in the world. The easy way out has been to blame Netflix — they have been the scapegoat. But my point is that there’s nothing wrong with Netflix. Netflix is capitalizing on the lack of diversity in cinemas and putting it on TV.

So the studios should be blaming themselves, and not streaming services?

That’s the point. Few studios are making that kind of middle-budget, interesting, multicultural film, so the distributors are not getting those films anymore, and the exhibitors will not show those films that get them maybe three percent of the money that the big tentpoles and franchise movies give them.

When I started [nearly] 20 years ago with “Amores Perros,” there was still a healthy market where middle-budget international films were bought and sold in different territories, and there were specialized companies that were interested in promoting that culture, like Paramount Vantage. That’s gone. And it’s because everyone is saying how do we get more money, and how do we get it faster?

Theaters will still eagerly show a big, star-driven film of yours like “The Revenant,” but could a young director today get a movie into theaters like “21 Grams,” the smaller-budgeted drama that was your second film?

If I was in this same position 20 years later, I would never have made “21 Grams,” “Babel” or “Biutiful.” Never! The way I grew as an artist was because of that possibility of being supported by a production company, a studio, or an exhibitor willing to promote those films and give the choice to the audience. They would put “21 Grams,” a radical drama, next to “Star Wars” in the cineplex!

Now it’s very hard to see that. I’m very privileged to have the position that I can do “Revenant,” but how many young filmmakers do not have the access to those budgets and films? They have to now consider TV as their only choice.

So is there still a traditional path forward for a young filmmaker?

In the arts, we are arriving at the same dilemma we are facing in the world: 99 percent of people are living in this extreme situation economically while one percent is extremely rich. It’s the same on the screens, where one percent of the megabillion franchise tentpoles will be represented in theaters and 99 percent of the other films will go directly to streaming.

I think that’s not healthy. I’m extremely concerned about that. Why should one cancel the other? If I’m in my car listening to Mozart, someone might ask, “Why are you listening through those stupid speakers?” And it sounds great to me, but why should I not have the chance to see Mozart done by a 120-person orchestra and be hit in my solar plexus and be transformed forever?

I love sometimes to watch a film on my computer with my headphones on, but I know that I am watching a film, not experiencing the film. If we only have that choice in our lives, we are losing a huge part of the culture.

At the jury press conference, you had positive things to say about the access that Netflix gives people who might not be able to see certain movies.

When a film appears on TV in every part of the world, it’s great that people have access to that. I could not have seen [“Happy as Lazzaro”] by Alice Rohrwacher if it were not for Netflix, so thanks to Netflix. But I would have loved to have the chance to see it in the ArcLight [Cinemas in Los Angeles], and that’s what really pisses me off, that we let that die.

I want to be very clear that I support Netflix 100 percent. At the same time, we have to make a point that exhibitors and distributors have a great responsibility here. We are all letting this medium die, and just becoming a franchise-entertainment park. And if those studios, distributors, and exhibitors don’t find a way forward, Netflix will eat them alive.

Can that trend be reversed?

Well, I don’t think there should even be an attempt to reverse the technology — I love virtual reality, I love that you can watch a short film in your home. But that technology should not cancel film. There has always been a fear that TV would cancel film, or radio would cancel film. That never happened before, but now it is actually happening, and it’s very scary.

I have really been advocating to find a middle point where exhibitors can bring those experiences to their theaters without losing money, and Netflix can make events of some of their films where, a month and a half later, they go to TV.

That would be fair. That would give me the choice if I want to experience theatrical or watch on my phone. Just give me that choice. Cinemas are the womb of what we are, so if we kill that womb, we will all be dead very soon.

But is it really in Netflix’s best interest to get people to go to a theater?

The real war happening for me is two divisions in the world: One is a big, multibillion-dollar industry that says, “You should never leave home, the world is dangerous, the communal experience sucks. Don’t go to the cinemas, the shopping mall, the restaurants — stay in your house, and we will bring the world to you.”

There’s another side to that war, which is the war of radical capitalism, that says, “Leave your home, have experiences, and go spend money.” But I think the stay-at-home side is winning, by far. We are isolating ourselves. This discussion is not just about cinema and the romantic vision of that — it’s a bigger conversation.

You know, we have to learn from France. 80 percent of the films here at Cannes will be accessible to everyone in cinemas very soon because they have laws to protect that. I know that’s an impossible thing in the United States, but is there some private guy who could design something? Or Netflix buying AMC [Theaters], so simultaneously you could have theaters and TV? Imagine the society Netflix could create.