What attracted you to write about maverick filmmakers [in Rebels on the Backlot]?
Sharon Waxman: Once you start seeing movies continuously, you can't help noticing how bad most of them are. I wanted to write a book and understand why Hollywood makes such mediocre films. Then I realized that an exciting new group who aspired to make great movies—not Scooby Doo, not a sequel to whatever Tom Clancy thing was already done—were emerging toward the end of the 1990s, and they were battling a corporate system, a Hollywood bought up by big corporations. If you're a studio, you're trying to make movies that fill the pipeline and make a profit. I started studying the two conflicting objectives.
Why do you think these young filmmakers are so attracted to violent content?
It's the next evolutionary step, the need for the next generation to redefine and press the boundaries beyond what the last one did. A number of filmmakers in the book have said they regret it, and don't want to do violence anymore. It's part of a youth thing, a youthful impulse, until you're a bit older and wiser.
Would you say all of them have David Fincher's mentality: "Take me or leave me. My way or the highway"?
No. Steven Soderbergh is much more accommodating, more savvy in that way. He can manipulate people to get what he wants, and he works in a more intellect-combative way with the studios. He doesn't view studios as the enemy, the way Fincher does.
None of these directors went to film school.
You're right. And two of them didn't even finish high school. I think film school can be useful, but these guys were born with some kind of gift, a drive to match it, and every day they were picking up a camera and making movies from the age of seven or eight. That's the most indicative and important thing. I think that not going [to film school] liberated them from feeling the weight of filmmakers before them.
What's your feeling about the pre-testing of movies, the testing that initially made executives believe Boogie Nights would be a disaster?
For a movie that's not conventional, marketing research can hurt a film. You sit down and show a test of Being John Malkovich to random sample audiences, and a lot of them are not going to have any idea of what they're seeing. With a movie like Boogie Nights, they told people it was a movie about sex. Actually, it was a heavy drama, set in the porn industry. It's a dangerous way to go about making great movies.
Do you think most of these directors will sell out to the big studios, become "fat and happy," or will they keep their early edge?
These guys are going to continue; they're at the height of their filmmaking powers. Every studio would be thrilled to make movies with them. Already, though, the edge has dulled on some of them. I don't think you can help that. You're surrounded by people who say everything you do is brilliant, and you start to believe it. But I'm hoping. I'm taking the optimistic view.
