Yahoo News Emily Blunt on Algorithmic Filmmaking: ‘I Hate That F**king Word’
Emily Blunt doesn’t want any mathematical equation to dictate what films get made.
The “Fall Guy” actress said during an interview with Vanity Fair Italy that she hates the “fucking word” algorithm because it does not encompass the “art” form of cinema.
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“Some new things frustrate me: algorithms, for example,” Blunt said. “I hate that fucking word, excuse the expletive! How can it be associated with art and content? How can we let it determine what will be successful and what will not?”
Blunt pointed to Best Picture winner “Oppenheimer” as a film that on paper wouldn’t seem like a box office blockbuster.
“Let me explain with an example,” she said. “I was in a three-hour film about a physicist, which had the that impact it had – the algorithms probably wouldn’t have grasped it. My hope is that ‘Oppenheimer’ and similar projects are not considered anomalies, that we stop translating creative experience into diagrams.”
Blunt’s “The Fall Guy” co-star Ryan Gosling added during the interview that the concept of algorithmic “content” have led him to take on more “handmade” roles.
“You can’t beat an algorithm at its job. And this, paradoxically, forces me to be more human, to choose ‘handmade’ projects like ‘The Fall Guy,’” Gosling said, “which is based on personal experiences, our footprints, and our stories, which we poured into the characters.”
Gosling recently revealed to Comic Book that his 2016 dark comedy “The Nice Guys” didn’t land a rumored sequel due to the sheer box office numbers, despite the film’s dedicated fandom.
“So much of a sequel, I think, is decided by the opening weekend of a movie, and we opened up against ‘Angry Birds’,” Gosling said. “So ‘Angry Birds’ just destroyed us. ‘Angry Birds’ got a sequel.”
“The Nice Guys” director Shane Black told IndieWire that the film took years to make in part due to its genre-defying tone.
“The problem I see in a lot of films these days is the assumption you can only have one tone in a movie,” Black said. “Either it’s somber and tough or it’s light and funny. ‘Nice Guys’ has darkness in it and parts that are kind of odd, but there are also parts where it’s heartfelt and soulful. You can switch back and forth.”
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