A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

I read another interview with him since that one, in the NYT, and he just said he "hates" the movie. Like I said, I think he's like a John Lennon type of artiste from the interviews I've read with him.

I don't think Eggers (or Lennon) are outliers in regards to how they negatively view what they created. The artist who creates a piece of work is almost always the worst judge of that work As it should be. Any artist who isn't aiming for some destination beyond what they believe they are capable of, are probably not worth spending much time with. And if that is what they are doing they are almost always destined to be disappointed in their end product.

Yes. Hates. He sees nothing but his shortcomings and failures to bring to life what was in his head. See enough of your shortcomings enough, the salt in the wound really starts to hurts. In that way, that language just isn't that shocking.


I'm wondering about the nature of what those things were in his head that he wished he had been able to express.


This is a pondering in terms of what Eggers wanted and may feed into guessing whatever he wants to do going forward. It might also feed into the backstory and narrative spaces one mentally creates or fills in while watching a movie (and given this is the person who directed The Lighthouse, I think it's at least worth wondering what his goal was. Even though such mental speculation may be the root of a lot of people's disappointment with The Northman.)


He says The VVitch is wanting in... something, but I have no clue as to what.


It's hard to guess on The Northman, apart from financial and career reasons, he's probably still too close chronologically to making it.


So that just leaves The Lighthouse, which feels to me to be the most different of the three. So mentally if I go, "The VVitch, but more like The Lighthouse," I mentally can't juxtapose those two movies together in my head to guess what that end product would be.


Part of me is just hoping this isn't a case of Spielberg wishing he could have shown more of the shark - since the most recent movie he did is the largest scale one, that's a reasonable thing to ask. The fact that in interviews he made the comment he'd like his next film to be a small one again, is weirdly re-assuring to me in terms of guessing the future trend of his output.


It is not unheard of for directors to revisit subject matter in their films every so often (sometimes decades). Part of me wonders if that might happen with Eggers and The VVitch, which absent of knowing what he felt he didn't realize, sounds more appealing than going back and re-editing it or using cgi to digitally modify it (though I think Bladerunner and The Cotton Club sound like examples where the general consensus is these were improvements. I can't weigh in with my own personal opinion on those examples, not having seen the latter and having only seen the theatrical cut of the former.)


Though, I can't assess the John Lennon comparison since most musical cultural references go over my head and that extends to even The Beatles (especially if the reference is the person behind the music). So maybe everything I said was redundant with that statement.


It might be apocryphal but I think da Vinci once had to be restrained from attacking his own sculptures.

That's not really my point, though.
I'm talking about aggressively negative public commentary on one's own work.
Lot's of artists of various ilks don't necessarily like all their work, particularly early work, and lots of artists of various ilks may even say they prefer not to talk about some work (Jennifer Aniston in Leprechaun, for example) or may refer to it as "not my best work", and that's all fine.
But when the most famous publications in the country ask you about work you've done that is almost universally revered by people who have experienced it and you say, "I hate it" (Eggers) or "It's shit" (Lennon), frankly, it's a little douchey. And maybe not a little.

He 'ates that movie, and he ate the mess it made on the floor.

How is that douchey? Are artists prohibited from expressing negativity on their own work without being beholden to what others like about it? Is this somehow taking something away from their audience, at least something other than the illusion that artists are somehow confident in all the work they do. Or that accolades somehow erase the deeply rooted insecurity that, more often than not, plagues the artistic process.



Being self-critical and even self-eviscerating is frequently what propels great artists towards their greatness. If someone like John Lennon wasn't in a stranglehold with self doubt his entire life, he would have been much less likely to be compelled to keep pushing his songwriting further and further. He was already killing it with I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Please Please Me. He didn't need to reinvent the songwriting handbook. But there was an inner need to keep outdoing himself. To push things further and further. To find his worth as a human being through his work. That's why there is so frequently tragedy to found in the world of musicians or directors or actors or writers or painters. When you see an artist pushing themselves to the limit, you more often than not are getting to see a window into all of the broken things inside of them which have forced them into the belief they need to be better than everyone else.



But now (if I understand you correctly) this deeply understandable and human element of the creative process, this inherent insecurity and embarrassment about the things they have put out into the public for consumption and applause, is now evidence of a being a douche when they open up about their own hostility towards their own work? Because there are fans out there who might not approve of having what they liked dismissed or criticized? Personally, I'm considerably more empathetic to the artist in this situation, who put the work into the world, than the audience members who think they have some kind of ownership over how it should be spoken about.

I should point out that I've never read the Eggers interviews being referenced here, so I'm just sort of talking in general terms.

Not speaking for Wooley, but I do see a difference between hating your early work, which is perfectly normal, and publicly disparaging it. Especially in film, as there's hundreds of other people that helped you to make it. There's a way to say "I wish I'd done things differently" that doesn't dismiss the contributions of your collaborators. That's where things get "douchy", I'd argue. Your costume designer might be really proud of their work, so to hear you dismiss the film as "shit" probably stings.

And it applies to fans too. There's one incident that happened 30 years ago that still haunts me. We had an end-of-year art show, and one of the pieces I had in there was a hideous ceramic thing I'd made, which I intended to trash immediately after the event. Well, at one point one of my classmates approached me and offered to buy it, and my response was a (sincere) "THAT hideous thing?" To which she sort of just sheepishly chuckled and walked off. We were classmates but we weren't friends, so that was NOT an appropriate response from me and I've felt like a weenie ever since. I mean, I was only 19 or whatever but still.

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I can get the former example, as film is very much a collaborative process. But while I have also not seen the quote we are debating here, I naturally imagine the failure Eggers is equating to the movie is one he is owning himself. Maybe he is dispersing that blame (which would be douchey), but if it his him taking the responsibility for what he sees as a failure, I see it as being maybe not so tactful (in the team spirit way) but still understandable. It is, after all, his name attached to the product and if he hates it, I can see why he would want to distance himself in some way.


As for your personal example, I don't think you should have anything to feel bad about. I guess, yeah, it seems like you are questioning that classmates level of taste. But anyone who creates things must inherently understand we are our own worst critics. I've frequently found a lot of the art I respond to from friends to be the pieces they would most likely erase from existence if given the chance, and I'm hardly upset when they tell me this thing I just said is great is a piece of crap. Or a rough sketch. Or some aborted mistake. I generally think I find it much more douchey for an artist to put themselves on a pedestal, or fight to keep themselves there. I guess I just have an innate distrust of artists who completely trust their own instincts and worth (with maybe the exclusion of Paul McCartney and Quentin Tarantino)

I'd have to dig for it (and I won't have time to tonight), but the interview I read was the one Stu posted a few weeks ago in this thread (or an article linked to it). I have not read the one Wooly's referencing. The one I read, Egger's quotes, as I recall them, went out of his way to say everyone else's work on it was amazing and they did exactly what he asked of them, just that there were things in his head that he just lacked the ability to get up on screen. I think he even had a line along the point of, everything he hates about the film is because of him.


I can see the pain and frustration one feels towards their shortcomings with subsequent viewings becoming described as, "I hate that film."


The only thing I didn't recall seeing any quotes about were "and the fans who loved it." But maybe because given the praise he gave to everyone else on the film, I took it as a logical consequence that, unless you're Robert Eggers and you have so many edits in your head of what you wish you had done instead in the movie, it was okay to love the film.



My ponderings are at the base level, what aspects of the film where he felt he fell the furthest short (or more directly, it would be nice to know what it was in his head that he failed to get up on screen).


Given his comments wrt The Northman about struggling with beginning, middles, and ends, it could have been narrative connective tissues that he feels alters the tone or implications of scenes significantly. Or maybe it was something completely different. I'm curious! And I was typing up messages in this thread, I hope I see those gaps in a revisit of the subject material one day. Maybe 10 years from now. A la Eyes Wide Shut to Lolita or Full Metal Jacket to Paths of Glory.


To me it's kind of refreshing to hear a director talk about how they felt they had such shortcomings on a movie that was so well received. This is a director that once went off on a shark genitalia tangent for five minutes in a Q&A, so it kind of fits.

Eh... For Cap's example, there is a tone where it shifts over from, "I, the creator, cringe at what I created," to, "you have terrible taste for liking this work." Throw in the factor of the age involved; people are a lot more self conscious about what other people think about what they think. So the psychological self-flogging might not have been unjustified.

I agree with both your points here.
You understand where I'm coming from, I think, and the way you put the first point is all true.
But it's also that when you disparage something that people love, especially when you are its creator, you are being unkind to the people who love it. Lennon seemed to get off on this. He was that kind of artist.
He loved acting like he was better than even the best art he, one of the most famous artists in the world, had made. Granted, Lennon loved being a prick in a lot of different ways, that was just one of them, but it's a common one among narcissistic artists.
As you gave a personal example, I will also give one. I recently played a gig here in New Orleans and the parameters were that I would act only as rhythm guitarist and play NO solos. That's what we agreed on. But during the gig, the bandleader threw multiple solos at me and I was totally unprepared and played well below what I am capable of. Afterward, people complimented me and I was struck, as the artist, by the feeling of being very disappointed in my work but being in the face of people who enjoyed it. At first I protested but when they maintained that they thought it was good, I swallowed my pride and shut the f*ck up and said "thank you", because why would I ruin it for them?
Well, I wouldn't because I'm not a douche.
I have some electronica music I made using loops during the pandemic and when I listen to it, I can hear all the places I should have done better, but I was new to it. People listen to it and they think it's really good, someone even said to me Saturday night that I sound like "Thievery Corporation", a huge compliment to me. Ya know what I didn't do? I didn't tell them how I actually thought it was amateurish and I could do it so much better now. Because that's douchey. It's narcissistic and it's condescending and insulting to your audience.
And that's what I'm talking about.
It is possible to not be so far up your own ass that you publicly decry output you produce that isn't to your highest standards, especially if it was the best you could do AT THE TIME.
To tell people that music I made that they like is shit is an ashole thing to do. You're crapping on their taste. You're telling them that you're better than them and that they're obviously not qualified to judge what's good and what isn't. The stuff you made that they like is crap and, of course, if they don't like your new stuff then they're probably morons.
That's douchery.

Aw, I really liked High Life. I mean, admittedly a huge chunk of that was the absolutely endearing . But I thought that it asked some interesting questions and somehow managed to find a conclusion that felt right.

Agreed. Imagine being the cast or crew who helped this person try and bring their vision to life. You manage to create something that is critically successful and garners a mostly positive audience response. And then you read the most prolific person involved with the film saying that they "hate" it.

At its heart, it shows a very selfish lack of gratitude, both to the people who helped make the film and to the audience whose positive response showed studios that you are a bankable talent.

I look back on my first years of teaching and I absolutely cringe. I know that there were so many things I did wrong, so many missed opportunities, etc. I doubt I could sit through 5 minutes of video footage of me teaching those years and not want to put my fist through the screen. But would I ever express these feelings in front of the colleagues who supported me or the students who were my "co-workers"? Absolutely not. I am relentlessly self-critical when it comes to my profession, but I would never dream of making disparaging remarks about it in a way that would implicate other people as being lesser for being part of it or for thinking that I was doing a good job.

There are ways to communicate dissatisfaction with previous work and to talk about the very healthy desire to be ambitious and acknowledge when an effort falls short of those ambitions without being indirectly insulting to the efforts and tastes of others.

Exactly!!!
Thank you.

I mean, this is the direct quote I’ve found from Eggers thus far: “*Honestly, I can’t stand watching*The Witch*now,” he sighs. “It’s not that it’s bad, and the performances are great, but I was not skilled enough as a film-maker to get what was in my brain on to the screen. In*The Lighthouse, I was able to do that. And*The Northman, I’m proud of the movie, but not everything is quite what I hoped it would be. So I would like to do something with the scope and scale that I can actually get what’s in my imagination on to the screen.”

Seems fairly reasonable. Unless I’m missing something.*

Thank you. I believe this is the quote I saw, and if not, something very close to it. To which, I have to ask Wooly, what is wrong with this? (and if you've seen this quote, is it shocking that at some point Eggers might use the phrase, "I hate the VVitch," in conversation?

Also, I think unless you're assuming that Eggers is somehow throwing shade at his cinematic collaborators (which wasn't indicated at all in his comments), then he should be allowed to talk about the movies he directed in any way that's honest to his true feelings, regardless of how negative they may be.

As a fan of Death Ship, exactly how offended was I supposed to be about this



Because the answer is I was zero percent offended. You hated the movie, you articulated your hate, and my sense of taste is somehow still perfectly intact.



Or maybe I'm still misunderstanding. Is it only the artist themselves that can't be overtly critical? Would this only have been offensive if the director of Death Ship had called the movie a turkey? What if they feel exactly the same way about it as you do? Should they dare mention their embarrassment at making such a thing? Are they allowed to say what you were allowed to say?


Like, I'm just trying to understand all the lines we are drawing up around who can say what about a piece of art here. If we legitimately hate something, do we have to speak in hushed tones? Must we always qualify that we understand others might find something of worth in it, even if we thought it was a total turd? Are there maybe certain ratings on the star system we should never go below from fear of offence? And if so, isn't this creating a world where we are just shaming people if they happen to hate a work of art? That the opinions of Haters is some kind of psychic violence that must be shunned from society?



And, I also wonder, does this go both ways? If I absolutely love a film, and someone else I am sitting with afterwards was deeply bored by it, am I being cruel if I become effusive about how much the film mattered to me? The person who was bored might be questioning their taste as well listening to me drone on and on, begin to wonder how they could have possibly missed so much good stuff? Couldn't this be similarly upsetting?



Now do I agree that there should be some tact towards the work others put into a piece of art (the actors and screenwriters and whatnot)? Of course. At least up to a point. And can some artists be ********? Also, of course. And if Lennon ever phrased his dislike of certain Beatle songs with a direct insult like "what kind of idiot tosser would waste their money on those crappy songs", that would clearly be a case of him insulting his audience. But as big a loudmouth as he was, that's not something I am sure he ever actually did in such frank terms. And even if he did, who cares? I love Strawberry Fields and if it came out that he hated that one too, it would mean virtually nothing to my enjoyment. Because why should it? Maybe he's being hyper critical. Maybe he's in a bad mood. Maybe he is deliberately trolling. No matter the case, nothing has changed. It's still the same song I love.



But regardless of these two small caveats, I'm going to stick with my feeling that it is completely preposterous that we are supposed to skirt around our true emotional reactions towards a work of art (whether we are the creator or in the audience) if they happen to be negative. For art to have value, it needs to be discussed passionately and honestly, and gently wording either our love or hate towards it is to neuter much of its value. Because those big feelings are the important ones. Even when (and sometimes especially because) they become the cause of disagreement and debate, which is one of the most vital places where we learn about how others process film. And potentially to empathize with these strong emotions that come out of them. Otherwise, we are just play acting and art is just facilitating some kind of pointless pantomime when we talk about it.

All people, including artists such as Eggers, should simply defer to me as to whether their opinions are wrong and/or offensive.

I deem Eggers wrong and inoffensive.

And so it is.

I never intend to offend you. I like you. But Tak said what I was trying to say much better, so I quoted it.
And I may be gettin' way ahead of myself. What I originally said was that I felt Eggers was too self-serious to direct Viy, which is a very funny film, and I used his quote from his New York Times interview as the example:
"I didn’t expect a boring pilgrim horror movie to be successful, that’s for sure."
"You find your movie boring?"
"I hate “The Witch,” but that’s another story."
... in light of his previous negative remarks about the film. And my concern was that he was either becoming or was the kind of narcissist that Lennon was, who took pleasure in showing disdain for the tastes of his own audience and certainly of critics. I mean, let's be honest, Lennon took pleasure in showing disdain for literally anyone. And Eggers repeated comments had me worrying we were seeing the beginning of that from him. He definitely, from interviews I've read, has a high opinion of himself and of his role as an artist.
But I may have gotten a little carried away.
But then again, maybe I haven't. Because one thing that you and I always differ on, and I just re-read a conversation of ours last night from a previous discussion, is that I care very much how my words and actions make other people feel and I think everyone should have a certain amount of that. Because I feel pretty good about myself, I don't mind biting my tongue to spare the feelings of other people. My feelings are fine. I don't have to shit on you when you praise me. (Not you, crumbs, I can't imagine you praising me, but you get my drift.)
I don't think it's preposterous to not shout our emotional reactions to the heavens when they can be detrimental to others. I think that's being childish. He can, as Tak described, say exactly the same thing like an adult. And as Little Ash has shown in the other interview, he kinda has. But when it's followed by a harsher take in the Times interview along with some other statements that could indicate that he's been reading too many of his own press-clippings, I worry that a filmmaker I like may be a person I don't.
You don't have to "skirt around your true emotions", you can say whatever you want about your art... but that doesn't mean people can't think you're an ashole when you do.

I don't think that anyone is saying artists can't discuss their own works in negative terms.

Really the conversation here is more one of tact and gratitude.

If the extent of Eggers' comments are what MKS quoted above, I'm fine with it. Because that statement makes a clear delineation between the movie itself and the efforts of the people involved and his own emotions about it.

Now, suppose his honest opinion of the film was that Taylor-Joy's performance was stilted and disappointing. Should he be allowed to say that bluntly? I mean, he's allowed to say what he wants. No one is censoring him. But I would find such a statement unnecessarily hurtful and off-putting. Obviously there is value in an artist honestly evaluating their own work and sharing those raw emotions/thoughts. But there is also value in not hurting the feelings (and possibly the careers) of people who have made an effort on your behalf or who have supported you financially/career-wise.