For a long time — perhaps in between quaffs of red wine and diatribes about the declining state of English comprehension — literary experts have contemplated the Great American Novel: what it means, which string of words and phrases best epitomise a national zeitgeist, and whether any text can lay a stake in the ground as a definitive work representative of the American ethos.

In its depictions of exuberance and decadence, its descriptions of lush parties held by a mysterious and affluent protagonist who seemed, if not to live outside the law, then certainly to exist outside the grasp of ordinary people, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is often spoken of as a book synonymous with both the Great American Novel and the American Dream. The latter — broadly albeit crudely defined by that old line about life, liberty and the pursuit of justice — invariably feeds the former. What dreams (not of the sleeping variety) can exist without aspirations?

Gatsby is a sombre story of fractured romance, both remembered and imagined. It is a tale of personal tragedy saddened (not uplifted, despite the razzmatazz associated with Baz Luhrmann’s highly anticipated adaptation) by sensational parties and orgies of decadence, of flowing champagne, beautiful clothing and carefree existence. A glowing bubble of escapism that was always, irrespective of the shattered glass and vomit-stained toilet bowls, more fantasy than reality.

For those who have seen the trailer for Luhrmann’s movie but haven’t read Fitzgerald’s book, it may come as a surprise that only a tiny portion of the original text concerns the roaring Jazz Age parties that propelled the Australian director’s imagination, sent it hurtling into visions of wide-framed opulence. For protagonist Nick Carraway, the parties are literally and metaphorically on the other side of his fence, an element of Gatsby’s mysterious allure. Those big parties in Gatsby’s mansion weren’t parties per se – not, or not only, parties in a literal sense, giving credibility to the argument that the essence of the book remains unfilmable.

Fitzgerald ruminated on how the balloon eventually popped. The roaring 20s would come to an end; the magic of Gatsby’s life would be subordinated into grim realism; a generation of Americans’ capacity to create new dreams would be weighed down by the baggage of their old ones. As Hunter S. Thompson observed at the turn of the 60s, certain cultural movements ride the crest of high and beautiful waves, until the high ends and the hangover begins — that point where the wave peaks and begins to roll back. It happened suddenly after Gatsby. Less than five years after the book was first published, markets crashed and the Great Depression hit America.

Spring Breakers, directed by rabble-rousing indie filmmaker Harmony Korine (Gummo, Trash Humpers) begins like a Pepsi commercial crossed with a porno: dozens of bare sun-baked breasts bounce gloriously in the hot and breezy breach air. Beer flows; people dance; a row of beautiful girls fellate icypoles coloured red, white and blue.

The Great Gatsby it is not. The key intellectual task Korine assigns his audience is to decide whether there is actually anything intellectual about it. Interpreted as a swirling cesspool of sex and violence, shallow and gratuitous, or an objet d’art of ironic postmodern filmmaking (the jury is, and one assumes always will be, very much out) one thing is obvious: the 40-year-old enfant terrible is using spring break as a metaphor for the American Dream.

Four girls (played by Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, Rachel Korine and Selena Gomez) leave the safe and comfortable confines of middle class university life where “everything is the same and everything is just sad”. They have one goal: take a spring break vacation and revel in the insouciance of a life with no consequence. Lacking cash to get them there, they rob a restaurant with a fake gun and join the titular party which, betraying the film’s round-the-clock nightclub atmosphere — a sort of indie-ploitation on eckies — frays around the edges fairly quickly.

The girls get done for cocaine possession and are bailed out by Alien (James Franco), a filthy rich drug dealer who can’t believe his good fortune. He’s a sort of Gatsby for an undignified age: wealthy and generous with his riches, mysterious in his past and background, flashy and indulgent. His teeth are capped with silver; his car’s wheels are dollar signs. Alien has a beach-side mansion with a pool-side piano, which is the setting for the film’s best scene: a bizarre and stirring rendition of a Britney Spears song, Everytime.

As a reflection of the American Dream, sexy and spew-stained, pumped up and deflated, littered with impulses that indistinguishably blend profundity and vacuousness, Spring Breakers may be this year’s great Gatsby: a high-powered mash of cultural artifact populated by participants who knew from the start the party could never end well, and when the hangover would kick in, it would kick in hard. The American Dream explored by an artist who, like Fitzgerald, never really believed in it, but revelled in, as Fitzgerald might have said, something commensurate to a capacity to wonder.

It’s easy to look back through the mist of nostalgia. It’s easy to think of a time — real or imagined — in which dreams stood for something and explorations of national identity took on meaning and purpose, or at least the guise of it. Spring Breakers pushes the sobering contention that the search itself may have been pointless, an end to a means, and a means to an exploitation: the idea that anybody who tries to jump rungs in the party time social ladder may land with their spine snapped, their soul crushed, the hiss from speakers rumbling a message of misfortune and degradation.

By propelling such conversation, Harmony Korine may have got the last laugh, or at least a good giggle in between sniffs of the ether rag — the idea that an enfant terrible, punking the populace, could possibly be compared to a great like F. Scott Fitzgerald. But the circumstances that allowed that to happen pertain to context, not character, and the joke, if there is one, is one in which we all take a share in the punchline, all grasp the handle of the knife, Murder on the Orient Express style.

For the seen-it-before YouTube generation, is there a more appropriate film to represent the American Dream than one that tinkers precariously close to representing nothing at all? If that is to prize knowing emptiness as a virtue of self awareness, Korine’s failures extend far greater than his own work; his art would be nothing without the failures of others. If making an entertaining movie entails the creation of order from chaos, what we’re seeing here is this and the reverse. A cog in the propaganda arm of the American Dream machine that extolls something close to anarchy, and sequences all the pretty colours to make it tangible.

A 20th century author wrote, in his most famous book, a description of two well heeled characters that fits the five human wrecking balls in Spring Breakers like a glove, as if he saw these people — not necessarily their personalities, or their traits, or even what they stood for, but the culture they would inevitably be part of — through a hundred-year-old crystal ball. He described them as “careless characters” who “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess.”

One can barely imagine a better description of the lead characters in Harmony Korine’s new film. The writer who penned those words was F. Scott Fitzgerald. His book was called The Great Gatsby.

After years in the cinematic coal mine cutting his teeth on commercials and documentaries, Derek Cianfrance eventually turned heads with his 2010 fictional feature film debut, Blue Valentine, a scorching romantic drama starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.

Along with Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta and others, Cianfrance’s follow-up The Place Beyond the Pines (now playing in cinemas; read my review here) also stars Gosling. The film is a deeply compelling melodrama about fatherhood, responsibility and reverberating consequences — but it’s also got bank robberies, shoot-outs, car chases and, yes, Cianfrance’s sexy star without a shirt on.

Part of the thrill of production, Cianfrance tells me over the phone from LA, were the surprises along the way. To help tap into his character’s personality Gosling arrived on the set covered in tattoos, one conspicuously located below his left eye. He immediately suggested to Cianfrance he’d gone too far and wanted it removed, but the director insisted the tatt remain. The shoot began.

“Every day he walked around the set regretting it. I told him that is what this movie is about: it’s about consequence. It’s about making big choices and living with them,” Cianfrance says, citing one church-set scene in which the tattoo unexpectedly led Gosling to a moment of unscripted emotional impact.

“I noticed he was trembling and I noticed there was a great wave of mortification on his face. Of embarrassment and shame. As his friend, I wanted to shut off the camera, give him a hug, give him a wet napkin or something and wipe the tattoo off his face and say ‘hey it’s just pretend.’”

Blue Valentine is boldly non-linear, hurtling the viewer back and forth between time frames, from scenes of sweetness to scenes of rage and despair. The Place Beyond the Pines is bold for precisely the opposite reason. Telling the story “straight” was a daring decision due to the film’s disconnected structure, which spans many years and characters. Cianfrance was determined not crosscut the plot, Blue Valentine style.

“So many of my favourite filmmakers have done crosscut storytelling. I love it. It’s a great tool,” he says. “But for this movie I wanted it to be a film about legacy and about lineage, and I felt like the greatest choice we could make was to keep it chronological.

“To me it was exciting because one of the problems I have with movies is that I feel so many of them – especially Hollywood movies – have a safety net…I wanted to make a film that really wasn’t safe and I felt that as an audience member that would be thrilling to me.”

We spoke about inspirations, years spent as a skinflint out of work artist, directing some of the biggest names in the business and much more.

The lead characters in The Place Beyond the Pines are either fathers or sons. It feels like a deeply personal film but at the same time it’s a sprawling story, setting over numerous years, that doesn’t really have a protagonist. What elements of your personal life influenced the form and content of the film?

In 2007 my wife was pregnant with our second son and I started thinking a lot about legacy. I was reading a lot of Jack London books at the time: White Fang, Call of the Wild, etcetera. I was thinking a lot about my own ancestry. I was thinking a lot about this fire I have always felt inside of me, which I felt had been very helpful to me as an artist but very detrimental to me in my personal life. I was thinking about the fire in my family and was seeing it in my father, seeing it in my grandfather, and here was my wife – she was going to have this little baby, this pure little being brought into the world.

All I could think of was that I didn’t want him to have that fire. I didn’t want this baby to be tarnished or tainted with any of my sins and all of a sudden the movie popped into my head. I knew exactly what the movie was, and all of a sudden it had form and structure. I spent about five years writing it with a couple of different writers until we really found it. It’s overflowing with ideas. I had final cut of this film locked at 140 minutes, and I got it one frame under 140 minutes, because there is so much in it. It was almost bigger than one film. But at the same time I felt like it was one. On their own the separate pieces don’t work.

Without spoiling the film for those who haven’t seen it, The Place Beyond the Pines has a challenging structure that emphasises the progression of a story above everything else. Even though you have a big cast – Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes etcetera — were financiers ever vocally concerned about how the structure might or might not work with audiences?

No, they financed it on that. But there was a number of financiers that had said no for the same reason. My feeling always is: I was an audience member long before I was a filmmaker. When I make films all I am trying to do is make what I want to see as an audience member, because I don’t think I am that different to everyone else. I don’t think my taste is that unique. To me it was exciting because one of the problems I have with movies is that I feel so many of them – especially Hollywood movies – have a safety net. This built-in safety net.

How could you watch a movie like Iron Man 3 – I haven’t seen it yet – or, say, Pirates of the Caribbean, and ever think there is any danger in it? I get no thrills from that because I know it is so safe. I wanted to make a film that really wasn’t safe and I felt that as an audience member that would be thrilling to me. I felt it would be thrilling for other people to watch and to absolutely see something they were unaccustomed to. There was one suggestion people had for Pines, which they thought was a solution. They would say: why don’t you inter-cut the movie? Why don’t you put the story in a blender? I had done that with Blue Valentine. So many of my favourite filmmakers have done crosscut storytelling. I love it. It’s a great tool. But for this movie I wanted it to be a film about legacy and about lineage, and I felt like the greatest choice we could make was to keep it chronological.

Understandably, Pines has been marketed as a Ryan Gosling movie. Do you think there is a danger in people coming, expecting a certain kind of movie then discovering it is much more of an ensemble?

I don’t think so, because the ensemble is so great. I have some of the greatest actors on the planet working on this film. That’s not to take anything away from Ryan, because he’s absolute magic and there is nobody in the world like him. One of my favourite filmmakers is George A. Romero, maker of the great zombie movies. Why he’s such an inspiration to me is you can watch his films just as straight zombie movies but they are also very subversive. They’re about race relations, American consumerism culture, the America war machine. They have deeper layers, deeper levels. So on one level, on a very surface level, The Place Beyond the Pines is just a crime thriller and it has all the elements of those crime genres.

The Place Beyond the Pines is a melodrama spotted with moments of violence. They’re rare. They are very high impact but carefully deployed. What is your attitude to depicting violent moments on screen?

I kind of have an allergy towards modern film violence. I feel like violence is often handled so irresponsibly, because it’s more about how beautiful it can be. It seems really fetishised. I wanted the violence in my film to be narrative. I wanted the film to be all about this adrenaline and these choices that lead up to a violent moment. Then when a violent moment happens, it happens very quickly and there is no coming back from it. There is no sanctity of a flashback. A gun all of a sudden has a real impact; it has a real weight.

To me, as a father, I feel like one of my responsibilities is to put images out in the world that my kids can see some day. My kids are always asking me “dad, why can’t you make movies we can see? Why don’t you make a kids movie?” I can’t show them my movies yet but some day I will be able to show them, because I feel like Pines especially is taking that kind of violence in a responsible way. We’re not just shooting ten thousand bullets over the audience’s head with no consequence.

I read in a recent interview that Ryan Gosling, in preparation for the role, wanted to get as many face tattoos as possible and on the first day of shooting regretted getting one. A very prominent one, with a dagger upside and a drop of blood. Apparently you told him that that’s what happens: people regret face tattoos. But you insisted on going ahead anyway. Is that story true?

Yeah, he said “I don’t know. I think we should take it off. I went too far.” I said “that’s what happens when you get a face tattoo. People regret it. And now you have to regret it for the whole movie.” It turned something he thought was going to be cool for the character into something that filled him with shame. Every day he walked around the set regretting it. I told him that is what this movie is about: it’s about consequence. It’s about making big choices and living with them.

I’ll give you an example of how it affected him. There’s a scene, a baptism scene I’d written where Luke, Ryan Gosling, walks into a church, sits down in the middle of the pews and watches his baby getting baptised by another man up on the pulpit. He was supposed to walk in and sit down and kind of rage and boil with anger about this other man holding his son.

I set up the scene. I brought 500 people from the town of Schenectady there. They were all dressed in their Sunday finest. You have Eva Mendes and Mahershala Ali holding their baby, doing their ritual ceremony. I put the camera in the back of the church and I told Ryan to come in and find himself a place to sit. So he walks in the church and he’s immediately a marked man. He cannot hide. He cannot go sit with everyone else because he made these choices as an actor, and now as a character those choices were screaming. So where would that person go? Well, Ryan walked to the corner of the church and sat away from everyone. He couldn’t go sit with everyone the way he looked. I panned the camera and followed him then moved in for a close-up and as I was shooting him in the close-up – and this is the moment he was supposed to be boiling with rage – I noticed he wasn’t boiling with rage. I noticed he was trembling and I noticed there was a great wave of mortification on his face. Of embarrassment and shame. As his friend, I wanted to shut off the camera, give him a hug, give him a wet napkin or something and wipe the tattoo off his face and say “hey it’s just pretend.” But my process allows actors to behave, and it allows us to kind of break down performances and witness behaviour. To me that’s one of the best moments in the film.

Pines is visually understated but also quite stylised. For example, when you have a shot of Ray Liotta, who’s peering into a cop car, you only show a sliver of his face, whereas most directors would instinctively choose to show his whole face. You’ve got another scene where a character tries on sunglasses that are particularly special but you don’t show a front shot of the glasses. It feels like you deliberately avoided visual clichés. Are you being visually intuitive or are you consciously avoiding conventional choices?

I’m trying to be surprised. As a filmmaker I spent a lot of time making documentary films while I was trying to make Blue Valentine and I got addicted to living, breathing moments. When I hire an actor I always tell them: “surprise me.” By the time we shoot I’ve spent, you know, 37 drafts. I’ve spent six years on the script. I’m so sick of myself. I’m so sick of my own ideas. I’m so sick of my own words. So I ask them to surprise me. I feel as an audience member I like to be surprised, so on set I want to be surprised. To me that is the biggest gift they can give me. The moment with the sunglasses was an unscripted moment that the great actor Ben Mendelsohn and Dane DeHaan did on the spot. There was no going through a take two. I look at a film like Midnight Cowboy, when Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight are walking down the street and the cab almost runs them over. He says “I’m walking here!” That’s an improv. We could have gone in to get a close-up of the sunglasses but then all of a sudden it becomes fabricated — not a real moment that just happened.

In terms of Ray Liotta and the half of his face, I remember watching Rosemary’s Baby. Whenever Polanski would frame people on the telephone in the other room he would cut off the front of their faces and it would make you want to peer around the corner. It really played with screen tension, of wanting to see more but being obscured. There’s an inherent tension in that. We did that with Ray. You add Ray Liotta into it, who’s a human knife, and you’re adding tension upon tension.

You’ve said that before Blue Valentine you spent 12 years in cinematic purgatory. How dispiriting was that to you? Did you consider throwing in the towel?

There was no choice to throw in the towel, because what else could I do? I tried to stay what I considered to be pure as an artist. I wrote Blue Valentine and I collected unemployment checks. I ate an avocado every day and just lived by, you know, that’s all — an avocado or two. I lived by very basic means. Then I fell in love, my wife got pregnant and I started having to put food on the table because we were buying diapers with change. Having a child made me go back to work. I started directing documentaries and I started directing commercials. I got a lot of practice. I got a lot of rough stock. I got a lot of practice working with actors and working with crews and I got a lot of hours under my belt.

In making documentaries I got to be humbled as a filmmaker, which was painful at the beginning but then became very beautiful. There’s this image of Cecil B. DeMille as the filmmaker with the megaphone who sits on a chair and shouts and everyone listens to his voice. But in documentary film, I found that megaphone was turned to my ear with a listening device. Documentary was very humbling and I got to learn about other people’s lives. I got to learn and listen to other people’s stories. I got to sharpen my skills and my instincts and my intuition as a filmmaker to be able to capture these moments that would only happen one time. Then when I came to make narrative films I had a whole new set of training. I was able to find these moments, like the sunglasses moment. Moments that were alive. I try to film my movies with those living moments. The moments that happen one time.

There is a great shot in The Place Beyond the Pines that comes and goes in a heartbeat. Ray Liotta leans on the side of a car, peering through the driver’s window. He plays a cop — and given this is Liotta, not one of the by the book variety — who is intimidating the man behind the wheel in that distinctively Liottian way: a calm, seething glare that puts the frighteners on without so much as flexing a face muscle.

To establish the scene visually, the obvious inclination for a director would have been to show Liotta’s face in all its rumpled glory then return to the driver: a simple shot reverse shot. Instead Derek Cianfrance, whose previous film was 2010′s Blue Valentine, reveals a sliver of it, a quarter or less, Liotta obscured by the window of the vehicle and a bobbing frame more interested in the space around him. Virtually unseen, the actor’s presence is seismic — and key to the scene’s emotional impact.

There is a shot much later on of a different character trying on a pair of sunglasses. These glasses are of special significance. Cianfrance again sidesteps conventional framing, not showing us the character’s face. Our view is from behind and a bit to the side.

If these visual decisions seem minimal, the cumulative effective is huge (“there are no small decisions in moviemaking,” Sidney Lumet famously wrote). They play a powerful part in feeding our perception of dramatic emphasis, which in this film lies as much in the characters as the space around them.

In Blue Valentine Cianfrance darted back and forth between timelines, capturing the sweetness of a flowering romance then revelling in how it went to hell, a kiss then a punch again and again; the perfect indie date movie crossed with the perfect indie break up movie. Pines is based over numerous years but the story is chronological. Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a daredevil motorcycle rider who discovers he has a baby son. He attempts to integrate into his son’s life and that of the baby’s mother (Eva Mendes), with whom he shared little more than a fling.

The discovery of fatherhood gives Luke’s life purpose, but that purpose comes at a cost. After chatting with new boss Robin (Ben Mendelsohn, adding to his scrapbook of scabby low-time crims ala Animal Kingdom and Killing Them Softly) Luke decides to provide for his kid by robbing banks. Not a flawless business model, as we inevitably discover, but a pastime more than conducive to Ryan Gosling in lone rider bad ass mode, rejigging the steely panache of his getaway driver in Drive (2011).

After a successful crack the adrenaline starts flowing and, like a drug, he’s hooked. “If you ride like lightning you’re gonna crash like thunder,” warns Robin, Mendelsohn’s husky delivery a testament to his ability to make a line as contrived as that sound natural.

Bradley Cooper plays a substantial role, as do others. The Place Beyond the Pines has been marketed as a Gosling movie but there are four “lead” characters. Revealing the extent of their roles — other than to say this is a film that spans multiple years and moves between insular stories connected to a broader message about fatherhood and responsibility — might jeopardise the twists, which arise not so much from events in the plot but from how they are framed and moved.

Cianfrance has taken the core of melodrama — the construction of a story that dictates the movements of its characters, rather than the other way around — and ran with it to the point at which, somewhere along the line, his narrative became his protagonist, and his protagonist’s “performance” took on the ebb and flow of a beautiful piece of music interrupted by bursts of tension and swift changes in tenor. The guiding path through a jungle of loosely knotted dramatic encounters, from moments of pure action (bank robberies, car chases etc) to tense confrontations and gentle epiphanies, isn’t a person but a purpose: to use the process of storytelling as an organic way of generating the story itself. It’s an audacious strategy, putting such great emphasis on narrative as the one pure, driving force around which everything else — including a stable of powerful performances and complex characters — orbits.

An ongoing feeling of anticipation, both in an immediate (what happens next?) and longer term (where will the story go?) sense beautifully fits Cianfrance’s use of handheld cameras. Visual motifs are deployed with an almost subliminal sense of purpose, as simple as a matching pair of wide shots soaking in a road and a rider, but with the person and the vehicle substituted at different points in the running time.

Thematically the story moves in circular motions. Cianfrance explores connective tissue between male lives linked by blood and circumstance through the prism of a kind of interpersonal, emotional butterfly effect. An action in one life causes a response in another, and the film affords viewers a gorgeously wide and evolving sense of perspective, without that misty feeling that everything is connected or paralleled through some sort of new age Sliding Doors voodoo.

It’s handled so richly, detailed so beautifully, and structured so boldly, The Place Beyond the Pines may well be the most interesting example of narrative cinema to emerge from America this year.

The Place Beyond the Pines’ Australian theatrical release date: May 9, 2013.

The iGeneration’s Star Trek crew are back on the USS enterprise, turning dials, gawking at screens, swiveling in chairs and squinting through a layer of lens flares in director J.J. Abrams’ second stab at the monolithic sci-fi franchise.

In his 2009 reboot, Abrams established himself as Hollywood’s go-to guy for sequences bathed with flashes of techie-looking light and colour. In Star Trek Into Darkness he does his best to ensure gratuitous use of lens flares will live long and prosper. Only the most ambitious film critics profess to interpret why he does this, other than to observe that the effect looks kind of cool.

Use of such arbitrary aesthetic would ordinarily provoke lashings of “style over substance” finger pointing, but it’s apparent from the get-go Abrams is better than that. Like his last trek, Into Darkness is a mighty piece of work: epic in size and stature but lovingly nuanced with small details, and tied together with fist-pumping oomph equally as appealing to devotees and non-Trekkies alike.

Following the footprints of recent blockbusters The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3 and Olympus Has Fallen, Into Darkness’ story hinges on an act of terrorism, which launches a plot about a manhunt that operates outside official protocol. Ethical dilemmas clog the mind of James Kirk (Chris Pine) — dilemmas about pursuit of justice, the rule of law and (of course) possible war with Klingons.

There’s a generous serving of buddy-buddy action, Zachary Quinto’s Spock given a mean psychological and physical workout including a terrific scene on top a flying something-or-other (Star Trek analysis 101: don’t attempt Trek jargon unless you know precisely what you’re talking about) indicative of Abrams’ skills as a director.

When the 46-year-old blockbuster powerhouse sends his set pieces into an editing suite blender, chopping, changing and whirling between chunks of eye candy, he errs a little too close to Michael Bay’s “fuck the frame” aesthetic, sacrificing some visual cohesion in the process.

But Abrams’ ability to smash set pieces and whip together high octane action sequences is up there with the best of them. At their peak, his high-impact moments are breathlessly good – visceral, gloriously detailed and intricately choreographed slabs of sass and spectacle.

On a human front, Into Darkness’ outer-space ambitions come hurtling back to earth. Chris Pine couldn’t be any more “all American” if he face planted onto a pumpkin pie pilfered from a farm house windowsill. Try as he might, Simon Pegg can’t get his accent right for Scotty, though it’s fun watching him do his darndest. None of this ultimately matters: J.J. Abrams is so good, and so assured, in the director’s chair that even the naff elements come together slickly.

For those more interested in the Millennium Falcon than the Enterprise, Into Darkness provides good reason to get excited for the first post-George Lucas Star Wars movie, which Abrams will direct. The Force is with him.

Star Trek Into Darkness’ Australian theatrical release date: May 9, 2013. 

Twenty minutes into The Hunt, writer/director Thomas Vinterberg’s grim slow-burner about a man unfairly accused of a heinous crime, protagonist Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) stalks and shoots a deer. A few scenes later the symbolism becomes obvious: he will be the creature caught in a scope, and the weapon used against him will be public opinion.

To accentuate a sense of dread and claustrophobia, Vinterberg bases his story in a small Danish community where Chinese whispers escalate into violence and confrontation. Lucas works at a kindergarten where he is loved by the kids and appreciated by colleagues until a young girl (Annika Wedderkopp) who knows no better suggests inappropriate conduct has taken place.

The film takes its time moving between key moments, but it’s clear early on this is a cautionary story about not leaping to conclusions, the importance of assumed innocence and the dangers of mob justice. Vinterberg stays on message, rolling out a predictable array of confrontations.

You can quickly sense The Hunt is a melodrama because the story dictates the movements of the characters and not vice versa, the framing of the plot forcing the characters’ hands in a series of tense reactions. Most of them result in familiar plot points: best friends become enemies, a brick is hurled through a window, Lucas can’t buy a couple of chops at the supermarket without getting clobbered, etcetera.

Strong performances and tight visual construction disguise the fact we’ve  seen this all before, from films that explore very similar themes (notably 2008′s Doubt, a more compelling and nuanced work) to films that share degrees of familiarity related to the persecution of innocent people including We Need to Talk About Kevin (2008), The Insider (1999) and Evil Angels (1988).

Mads Mikkelsen is perfectly cast. He has a haunted, villainous way about him, the mark of a man whose sins have been slashed across his face. The sort of guy who can’t buy an ice cream without looking creepy. Mikkelsen’s sullen, introverted style (awarded with a Best Actor gong at last year’s Cannes Film Festival) seems to make the performance come naturally. Imagine Alan Rickman or Steve Buscemi in a dark drama playing kindergarten teachers accused of pedophilia and you’re halfway there.

Nevertheless it’s a strong performance. Like the film, Mikkelsen is cold and unsettling, despite our knowledge from the outset that his character is innocent. Also like the film, there is something clinical about it, a slumber from which he and The Hunt is only occasionally roused. There is one brief but powerful scene inside a church where sinners line the pews, but are not necessarily guilty of the crimes they’ve been accused of.

The Hunt’s Australian theatrical release date: May 30, 2013

There’s a line comedians sometimes reiterate when confronted with criticism: the one about how humour is subjective and what one person finds funny another may not.

It’s easy for critics to get hoity-toity about comedy, but there is merit in the argument that the ultimate test of a joke’s worth is simply whether or not people laugh. Great films have explored the beauty of shits and giggles escapism, from Singing in the Rain’s Make ‘Em Laugh (1952) to Preston Sturges’ breakdown of high and low art in Sullivan’s Travels (1941).

Marlon Wayans is not a creator of great films — but he does make people laugh. The 40-year-old performer is probably best known as the co-writer and star of box office titans Scary Movie (2000) and Scary Movie 2 (2001). His CV an actor and writer also includes lowbrow fare such as Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996), White Chicks (2004) and LITTLEMAN (2006). Which is to say, Wayans is no stranger to a bad review.

“After White Chicks I gave up on reviewers. I was just like, whatever. Whatever you guys want to say,” Wayans tells me, in Australia to promote his new film A Haunted House (which opens May 30). “I’m looking at the audience and I’m hearing the thunderous laughter. I’m just going, you know what, you guys have got a thumb up your ass. You have a fist. It’s a fist up your ass and I’m not going to fight you on it.”

One critic I know of, I tell Wayans, argued getting waterboarded would be more entertaining than watching White Chicks. Like much of his work, the film was very much a family project: Wayans stars alongside his brother Shawn. They play disgraced FBI agents who “go way undercover.” It was directed by another of his brothers, Keenen Ivory.

“I would love to see that,” he says. “I would love to see him be waterboarded versus watching White Chicks. I’ll watch White Chicks while the critic is waterboarded and let’s see which one’s funnier.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that critic was me.

Wayans and I talked about writing while high, getting comedies off the ground, playing “serious” (he gave a terrific performance in Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-nominated Requiem for a Dream), the sequel to White Chicks and, most of all, dealing with critics.

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If you were writing another Scary Movie style comedy, but this time you set it in Australia, what would be the first joke you’d put in it?

Something about fucking some kind of koala bear. Or maybe some kind of kangaroo anal rape joke.

So in other words, you’d start off nice and classy?

Of course. Maybe kangaroo farts. Then he opens the pouch and the baby farts too.

I realised before this interview that you made Little Man with your brothers in 2006, which was two years before the Oscar-nominated film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. So I figure David Fincher and everybody behind that film really owe you for preparing the general public for movies about grown man babies. Right?

Pretty much. We were pioneers. That’s what we were. They didn’t appreciate the shit jokes as much. Benjamin Button found a way to, you know, get those out of there. But yeah, there’s still a lot of stuff. I think just because Brad Pitt was a lot cuter as a kid than I was. So he gets the Oscar nods and I get the Razzies. That’s how we do it. I would pull the race card, but, um, I’m not going to do that. Even know my little man baby had a much bigger penis than his.

You said earlier this year during an interview on Australian TV that when you’re writing movies like Scary Movie, you guys write them completely sober. That you don’t get baked at all during the process. Were you being 100% honest?

I never have been baked while – one time I got baked. One time. One time. I don’t wanna have to rely on getting high to think of crazy stuff. I want to do it sober. But on Don’t Be a Menace, there was a point when we were re-writing the script and I had to get high because I couldn’t think of anything else. When I did, I thought of the craziest stuff in the world. There was a scene with this guy, and we pass the joint around. The guy takes a hit of the joint. He starts coughing. His eyes start watering. He foams out the mouth and he dies. Then my character Loc Dog goes “hey, pass dat shit!” That really happened during one of the weed smoking sessions. One of my friends coughed and damn near passed out and I was just like “yo, pass dat shit!”

Do you reward yourself when you finish a script by getting high immediately after?

No. You know, I’m not big on weed. I like a drink. Drinking is my poison, you know, because I can control that. Weed, it takes me to weird places. I just don’t like thinking that I’m Spider-Man.

You said in another interview I read recently that they’re not making movies anymore in Hollywood unless the lead character is a superhero. Do you think it’s harder to get comedies off the ground than it used to be?

It’s way harder. Way harder. A Hunted House I did independently and A Haunted House 2 I’m doing independently as well. A Haunted House opens May 3o in Australia. It’s a really funny comedy by the way, you guys should go check it out. It did really well in the States and hopefully in Australia it’s going to be a big bang. It’s basically Paranormal Activity if it happened to a black couple. There ya go.

When you write these kind of parody projects – i.e. Scary Movie 1 and 2, A Haunted House and so forth – how, broadly speaking, do you approach the job? Do you gorge yourself on every genre film you can beforehand?

You have to. You have to input before you ouput. The key is I definitely watch over 100 movies like three times each before I put pen to pad.

Your movies have earned a hell of a lot of money over the years, especially the Scary Movie franchise. But they aren’t exactly known as these critically acclaimed masterpieces. Does that mean –

Put it this way. The audience loves it. The critics hate it. The more the critics hate it, the more the audience love it. It’s insane. My last movie was at six percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Six percent! But it was on 85 percent with the audience. So somewhere along the line, you know, I think the critics understand we don’t make movies for them. We make movies for the audience. Critics don’t pay to see movies. Audiences do.

Does that mean you’re totally invulnerable to negative reviews? Or do you sometimes read something and think ooh, ouch, that actually hurts?

I don’t give a shit. After White Chicks I gave up on reviewers. I was just like, whatever. Whatever you guys want to say. I look at White Chicks and it gets one and a half stars and I’m looking at the audience and I’m hearing the thunderous laughter. I’m just going, you know what, you guys have got a thumb up your ass. You have a fist. It’s a fist up your arse and I’m not going to fight you on it. Just enjoy it and I’m not going to fight you on it. Their opinions are their opinions and I’m not mad at them. The only time they give great reviews is when you do a movie for them. Critics like, I guess, smarter comedy. Scatalogical comedy and weed jokes don’t work for them.

I’m assuming you don’t agree with one critic who said that being waterboarded would be more entertaining than watching White Chicks?

I would love to see that. I would love to see him be waterboarded versus watching White Chicks. I’ll watch White Chicks while the critic is waterboarded and let’s see which one’s funnier. They look for different things in movies. You do comedy and comedy is subjective. It’s all about the audience member and it’s based on your type of humour. Our type of humour apparently isn’t theirs. But that’s OK, because when I watch a movie with 350 people and they are laughing from beginning to end, and some are falling out of their chairs, I just don’t understand what movie critics are seeing. When you’re doing comedy the only thing that’s truly important is that people laugh.

Does it mean more to get a positive review for a movie you made or for a live comedy show you wrote and starred in? Which one do you value more? Or do you value neither?

Neither. I mean no disrespect to critics. They have their job to do. Critique. For me, when I do dramas, that’s when they tend to like it. When I did Requiem (For a Dream) they loved that. Because they don’t get your humour doesn’t mean they hate you. It just means they hate your humour. But for me I don’t do anything for anybody except for the audience and for myself. I try to make people laugh. Enjoy. Be a fool. Have fun. And that’s the key. I can’t worry about reviews and critics. All I can worry about is the people in front of me, and ask myself the question: are they laughing?

Talking about Requiem for a Dream, which is such a powerful movie, you turned a lot of heads with your performance. How highly do you regard the film in terms of  your career and street cred?

It was great to do. Darren Darren Aronofsky is a brilliant filmmaker and I was lucky to have that experience. I was lucky to also work with the Coen brothers and I have had the experience of doing a great screen test for Richard Pryor and the great Bill Conden. Every experience I have is a great experience for me. It’s great when I go to a coffee house and people go “oh my god, I love Scary Movie” and then somebody else will go “man I really really enjoyed you in Requiem for a Dream.”

It’s kind of hard to enjoy that performance, right? You end up shivering and coming down in a jail cell.

I wanted to shoot myself in the face when I was done with that movie. It was that depressing. At the end of Requiem I wanted to shoot myself in the face and hug my mum. They were the two thoughts that came to mind. I don’t know in which order.

Often in interviews people in Hollywood don’t tend to slag each other off, for obvious reasons. But for the record: do you agree with me that Michael Bay absolutely sucks?

I actually like the way Michael Bay’s movies look. I would love to be in a Michael Bay movie. I would like to put together my terrible and his terrible and make a great popcorn movie. Honestly, they call him terrible but the guy makes entertaining movies. When I watch Transformers I can’t help but think that there is some kind of mastery in bringing cars to life. It’s popcorn. It looks good, it looks big and he’s really great at that. Is it going to make you cry? Is it going to change the world? No. But he’ll change your mood. When I saw Transformers, my son turned to me. I think he was erect at the time. He was sitting there with a hard-on. He was just “this movie, dad” I said “it’s alright son. I see. I know.”

Recently Spike Lee spoke out against Django Unchained and its use of racial politics. Do you think he had anything to get upset about?

Spike gets pissed off pretty quickly. But you know, I get it. It’s the year 2013 and black people don’t like to hear the N word except when we call it to each other. But Quentin Tarantino, that’s on his brain. He finds a new way to use the N word and make it cool. God bless him. They’re both really great filmmakers and I respect both their work. I think they should duke it out. Let Spike Lee and Tarantino fight and let’s see who wins.

If you making a sequel to White Chicks, would you call it Black Chicks? And if you would call it Black Chicks, who would you cast in the lead roles?

I would definitely not do Black Chicks. I would do White Chicks again and cast me and Shawn in those roles. Actually, we’re talking about doing a sequel. It’s one of our favourite movies and it’s the one movie people always ask us to do a sequel for.

What would you call it?

Two More White Chicks.

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Marlon Wayans will attend a range of A Haunted House Q & A screenings in Australia, including one at Melbourne’s Jam Factory cinema on Tuesday May 7. He is also appearing in comedy shows across the country with his brother Shawn.  

Could scenes from one of the biggest movie releases of the year and one of the most expensive literary adaptations of all time have been directed via Skype?

Cinetology understands blockbuster filmmaker Baz Luhrmann last year called the shots from the (cyber) director’s chair for his highly anticipated adaptation of The Great Gatsby some 16,000 kilometers from where the action was taking place.

Having blown his budget and his schedule, Luhrmann was bunkered down in an editing suite in New York late last year while secret final reshoots wrapped up in Sydney. He used Skype to monitor the set.

There is a long story leading up to this point: one of a big-thinking director who bit off more than he could chew and a studio keen to protect one of its pedigree investments, while both grappled with countless complications on the road to the red carpet. Like any decent mystery — such as the one surrounding the existence of the eponymous protagonist in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal 1925 novel — there are plenty of closed mouths and yet-to-be discovered secrets.

The idea to take on the job of bringing a new version of Gatsby to the big screen did not come to the 50-year-old Strictly Ballroom and Australia visionary after reading Fitzgerald’s unforgettable rumination on romance, tragedy and the American dream but while quaffing red wine and listening to a Gatsby audio book on the Trans-Silberian Railway in 2004. Understanding the value of pitching projects to studios with a bevy of pre-attached talent, Luhrmann convinced Leonardo DiCaprio (who he worked with in 1996′s Romeo and Juliet) to come on board first. Then came Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton (replacing Ben Affleck, who dropped out to make Argo) and Carey Mulligan.

After failing to negotiating an $80 million budget cap, Sony Pictures passed. Luhrmann sought deeper pockets and Warner Bros. — teaming up with Village Roadshow — pledged to cough up around US$120 million.

Still that wasn’t enough — even with the generous offsets that took the total budget to a staggering US$200 million. Prior to principal photography, which began early September 2011, Luhrmann signed off on a lucrative deal with a vote-hungry NSW government (led by Kristina Keneally) to shoot at Sydney’s Fox Studios and on locations in and around Sydney. If The Hollywood Reporter‘s estimates are correct, filming in Australia saved US$85.5 million (or 45% of the budget).

The shoot, completed December 22, didn’t go smoothly: constant bad weather; a collapsed camera crane which collected Luhrmann and sent him to hospital for four stitches; a set evacuation due to “potentially noxious fog”. Two months later, cast and crew returned for a “pick-up” shoot, designed to complement/complete existing footage.

For a while things were quiet in the Gatsby universe as the film’s release date (Boxing Day 2012, in time for the Oscars season) slowly approached. Then, in August, a spate of strange things started to happen. First, Warner Bros. announced its release date had shifted to mid-2013. The reason was simple, the details light: it was “to ensure this unique film reaches the largest audience possible”. Eight months later, evidently inspired by the lyrics of a famous Milli Vanilli song, Luhrmann took a different approach. He blamed it on the rain.

Reporters didn’t buy it. As The Daily Telegraph reported, the late 2012 reshoots were “rumoured to have been made after Warner Bros. studio bosses saw an early rough cut and demanded changes”.

Meanwhile, stories began to surface that Luhrmann not only needed more money to complete the movie, but that — having had the studio reportedly deny him more cash — he was approaching potential private investors in the hope of “finding a shortfall”. Neither Luhrmann’s representative nor his production company, Bazmark, responded to questions.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, published last week, Luhrmann said: “I would do anything to make sure Gatsby stayed alive.”If one was to do “anything” that would include, of course, selling one’s house.

Earlier this month, Luhrmann and his designer wife Catherine Martin put their Darlinghurst Mansion, “Iona”, on the market for more than $15 million. The real estate agent was well briefed, vehemently denying any link:

“Baz and Catherine want to buy a family home with a garden for their children. The reason Iona is for sale is because they want to separate their business from their home life.”

Again, the media didn’t buy it. “Great Blowout forces Baz to sell lavish mansion”, sang The Australian.

None of this means, or even necessarily implies, The Great Gatsby will be a bad movie. A studio that lost faith in one of its tentpole releases, and a director obviously struggling to keep his head above water, hardly engenders faith in the final product. Then again, Gatsby‘s controversies look mild in comparison to the problems that faced Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now (1979), which is widely considered a masterpiece. There was cocaine galore and wine flown in from France. A crew member died. Star Martin Sheen had a heart attack. Coppola had a breakdown.

People accept the nature of Hollywood excess. They accept that in large and unwieldy productions things get out of control. But they have trouble accepting lies and spin. It’s understandable Warner Bros. wasn’t keen to distribute a press release announcing its man Baz was squinting at his set through a webcam, giving directions via Skype. But these sorts of things happen more often than you read about.

A famous author wrote a quote that could well apply to Luhrmann’s brand of moviemaking, as it could the wider industry: “there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.” Luhrmann might recall reading it — or at least hearing it one time on a train.

Hollywood loves a comeback story, and Shane Black was in need of one. Throughout the 80s and 90s the 51-year-old Iron Man 3 director lived a Hollywood screenwriter’s dream, delivering hit script after hit script and getting paid progressively more for each.

Riding on the success of the Lethal Weapon movies (1987-1992), The Monster Squad (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991) and Last Action Hero (1993), Black was paid a whopping US$4 million to write 1996′s The Long Kiss Goodnight — one of the most expensive screenplays in history. When the movie tanked, so did his career.

Alcoholism and depression came with the paucity of work. It took Black almost a decade to get another gig, a snazzy neo-noir film called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which also marked his directorial debut. It took another eight years for Iron Man 3, a blockbuster Black signed on to after Jon Favreau departed the director’s chair. Black was thrown a lifeline by an old friend and colleague, star Robert Downey Jr.

From a studio perspective, a movie like Iron Man 3 is about as safe a bet as they come. It follows two very successful predecessors and is part of a lucrative franchise that includes movies, comic books and toys. From an artistic perspective, working on a project like this presents a number of constraints. The studio will take greater control, given the extent it impacts their bottom line, and factors such as tone and characters have already been determined. On the other hand, audiences will go in wanting little more than escapism and entertainment along the lines of what they’ve seen before — so in that sense the bar is set fairly low.

The first two Iron Man movies fulfilled that criteria in spades. Peppy paces, fun set pieces, nasal blazing performances from Downey Jr. and strong albeit similar villains (played by Jeff Bridges in the first and Mickey Rourke in the second) helped fuel an upbeat party vibe — a sort of nightclub blockbuster franchise. The third, a shaggier and looser fitting venture, with tonally jarring patches that may be a consequence of the changing of directors, makes a decent fist of it. Amid the predicted Marvel tropes Black slips in moments that feel distinctly his, though never for long: a buddy-buddy pairing of characters, for example, and some relatively obscure references to other productions.

Unlike the second installment, Iron Man 3 doesn’t invest much energy into riffing on the concept of Tony Stark (billionaire playboy-cum-eponymous superhero) as a celebrity, which gave the series an edge by turning the concept of a secret identity on its head. There are few surprises this time around (needless to say, there weren’t many in the first) other than a delicious twist involving a villain character played by Ben Kingsley. A spate of terrorist attacks grab media attention, the President is in trouble, Iron Man must restore peace and order while placating Gwyneth Paltrow, a yada yada. Guy Pearce does his darndest to breathe fire (literally) into a vanilla bad guy whose motivations leave a lot to be desired.

All eyes are on the special effects, which come together particularly well when pieces of Stark’s suit fly onto him bit by bit, leading to some obvious gags (“not the groin!”). There are slow spots but eventually the last act kicks back into gear. The stand-out action sequence comes earlier, mid-air, when our innovative hero rescues a group of falling bodies “monkeys in a barrel style.”

Iron Man 3 was never going to be Shane Black’s definitive comeback movie, even if it goes on to be (as it probably will) a huge success, but it’s certainly a leg up. His next credit will be as a producer of Agent: Century 21, a Mexican drug lord themed action comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Benicio Del Toro.

Iron Man 3′s Australian theatrical release date: April 25, 2013. 

In Hollywood, as the saying goes, you dance with who they tell you to or you don’t dance at all. In David Lynch’s 2001 neo-noir Mulholland Drive a cocky young director (played by Justin Theroux) is intent on calling the shots for his new studio-financed production. He is instructed to cast a particular (unknown) actor in the lead role. When he refuses, strange things happen. He returns home to find his wife having an affair and is thrown out of his house. He discovers his credit cards no longer work and his bank accounts are empty. In desperation, he meets with a mysterious cowboy who talks in parables and implores the director to make a “good” decision. He falls into line. The role is cast and production goes ahead.

The point of these scenes, as much as it is possible to glean a definitive reading from a Lynch movie, is that Hollywood studios remain in control one way or another. Iterations of that familiar chestnut “you’ll never work in this town again” have been bandied about by coked-up executives for eons. Darryl F. Zanuck, co-founder of the company that would go on to form 20th Century Fox, famously responded to a dispute about the casting of 1957’s The Sun Also Rises with the line “the kid stays in the picture.”

Zach Braff, best known for playing fresh-faced doctor “J.D.” on TV sitcom Scrubs, was close to signing a deal to get a new film he and his brother had written off the ground. The 38-year-old writer/actor/director, once one of the highest paid performers in television (collecting US$350,000 an episode for Scrubs, totalling almost US$4 million for a single season) got approval for Wish I Was Here, a follow-up to his breakthrough 2004 feature Garden State, which cost around US$2.5 million and earned over US$35 million at the box office (plus lucrative DVD sales). But Braff, who has an estimated net worth of US$22 million, walked away from the negotiation table and took to popular crowdsourcing website Kickstarter to ask his fans for money. Two million dollars, to be exact.

In a colourful video address Braff complained that “there are money guys willing to finance the project but in order to protect their investment they’re insisting on having final cut. Also they want to control how the film is cast.”

In Hollywood, an industry that survives not by volume of content (most films are not financially successful) but by a small number of productions that do exceptionally good business, final cut is a privilege. The directors who have it generally earned a studio’s trust over a long period of time, or final cut has been added to their contract as an enticement. Films are assigned casting agents who collaborate with the director and make decisions together, which, for non-major parts, are almost always rubber-stamped. It’s true the studio maintains final say, but this is more about a safety net than “control”. It’s not hard to understand why. If a director decides to do something bold and crazy like, say, cast Pauly Shore as the lead in a $50 million action movie, they are suddenly upping the stakes considerably in a gamble with vast amounts of capital that isn’t theirs.

Braff was inspired by the recent Veronica Mars Kickstarter, which generated more than US$5.5 million. His direct plea to fans has already proven a massive success, chalking up almost the entire US$2 million target in just three days. As is custom on the revenue-raising website, generally used by cash-strapped artists attempting to raise money for projects they cannot afford to finance themselves, Braff has added a range of perks (none of which include a copy of the film) which change depending on the size of investment.

For $20 you can listen to the film’s soundtrack before it’s released. For $250, you get a 15 second MP3 file of Braff “saying whatever you want.” For $5000, you get to attend the film’s premiere plus after party and — coming good on a joke made in his video spruik — Braff will “place my hand gently on your leg.” This is typical of his playful, mildly risque sense of humour. It is also by definition (“a person who offers his talent or work for unworthy purposes” — though a good leg rub doesn’t go astray), and in the nicest possible way, prostitution (something to add to the CV).

“I (will) get to only cast the actors I think are perfect for the role,” Braff says, on the same page that offers a speaking part in his movie to anybody for $10,000.

Backlash arrived almost as quickly as Braff’s fans lunged for their cyber wallets, with thousands diving onto social media platforms to vent their spleen. Most have taken the angle that a wealthy person should not ask for public handouts for a project they can comfortably afford. Others have complained about the lack of quality benefits for investors, reacted to Braff’s comments re: final cut, observed that the people who pay to finance his movie will also have to pay to see it at the cinema or to own it, and accused Kickstarter of mutating into a corporate monster.

Let’s push aside the question of whether it is ethical for a celebrity to ask his or her fans to cough up roughly one quarter of the amount of money they made in a single year, and consider how the success of Wish I Was Here’s campaign may impact the status quo in tinsel town.

Braff and the Veronica Mars crew have opened the gates for Hollywood to look at ventures such as Kickstarter as new streams of revenue for already commercially viable productions. Want to see Ryan Gosling play Batman? Millions of fan boys/girls would presumably shell out for that, for little reward, then shell out again when the movie eventually arrives at their local multiplex. Crowdsourcing websites could also provide powerful tools for audience research. Warner Bros, for example, now know there is unequivocally a market for a Veronica Mars movie.

But the commentary surrounding Zach Braff’s game-changing gambit has missed an important component: what he will do with his movie once that coveted final cut has been made. It is safe to assume Braff wants as many people to see Wish I Was Here as possible, which means pursuing a wide release — and this means, in America at least, he will face the task of selling his movie to the same people he walked away from.

Major Hollywood distributors and major Hollywood studios are owned by the same companies (until 1950, after the US government clamped down on vertical integration, they also owned the major exhibitors). An independently produced feature film needs to be bought by a distributor, and that distributor needs to be convinced there is value in taking on the production and the financial risks associated with it. There have been countless occasions when distributors have acquired indie films on the proviso that certain elements must be changed; one of the great living moguls, Miramax’s Harvey “Scissorhands” Weinstein, earned his moniker for that reason. If Braff finds himself involved in such conversations (“we want to release your movie, but this bit has to change…”) he will have inadvertently provided a biting satire of the cyclical nature of the American film industry. There is plenty of time left for the entrepreneurial indie star to meet the cowboy from Mulholland Drive.

There is a good chance a major distributor will embrace Wish I Was Here and market it as a left-of-centre feature from a filmmaker brave enough to work outside the system. But that deal would still need to be made, and the same people will be calling the shots. In the top end of town you dance with who they tell you to or you don’t dance at all, and in the end, the big guns dictate the terms. The essence of Zach Braff’s new role might not reflect the way he described it in his video, as a man contemplating “the next chapter of life in your 30s.” It may become a sort of reverse Robin Hood: a rich man taking money from the public and funneling it back into the same infrastructure he so passionately denounced.

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