The Jerk Store Called and They're Running Low on Christopher Doyle

I'm actually sickened by this interview with cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Here's a guy whose work I have respected for years. His collaborations with Wong Kar-Wai in particular, including last year's 2046, are incredibly lush, sumptuous and beautifully colorful films. They are very modern, very unconventional films with a classic, even old-fashioned, sense of aesthetic beauty and style. If you had asked me yesterday to list my favorite working cinematographers, he'd likely have been among the first five or six I thought to mention.

After reading this nonsense he spouted off to Filmmaker Magazine in Fall of 2005, though, I almost never want to see another Doyle-lensed film again. His words reek of not only egregious self-aggrandizement and pomposity, but hypocracy and ignorance. Like I said...disgusting...

FILMMAKER: I read some articles where you described yourself as an Asian filmmaker who happens to be pink.

DOYLE: Yeah, I just happen to have the wrong skin. The more I rub myself against the yellow, the yellower I get. [laughs] I’ve often said I’m an Asian with a skin disease, because I started making films in Asia, and obviously what I’ve done has certain repercussions and certain resonance, and I should be very proud of that. And it just happens that I’m one of the few non-Asian, non-yellow people in this world. But I think most of the people I work with think I’m as yellow as they are. [laughs] And that’s an honor in my mind.

So, already you could find fault with Doyle's perspective. Why does working with Asian filmmakers and artists make him "more yellow"? Is he trying to imply there is some sort of innately Asian quality to making good films? I mean, I love Japanese and Chinese and Korean and Thai cinema, but Asians don't have exclusive domain on cinematic ability. It over-simplifies and exoticizes the real quality work being done by Asian filmmakers to presuppose that working with them causes their "yellowness" to rub off on you, or makes you a more worthwhile filmmaker by association.

But I wouldn't normally take massive issue with the paragraph above. The meaning is clear enough - he works in Asia so much, he feels like an honorary Asian. I bring it up only because it will have greater resonance later.

The problems really start when the interviewer encourages him to discuss problems in the American film industry.

Because you don’t have the freedom, you don’t have the integrity, you have to remake everything we’ve done anyway.

This is an issue I've heard and ignored several times. Jean-Luc Godard has tried to make this case in a different way. In his film In Praise of Love, Godard claimed that Americans (in particular Steven Spielberg) had become so vacuous and empty-headed, they no longer had passionate stories of their own to tell and had to focus instead on European stories. Doyle here changes up the root cause - he argues that it's consumerist, anti-artistic and anti-intellectual forces in America that force filmmakers to remake European and Asian films.

I'm not saying American remakes of international hits are always a good idea, but to accuse American filmmakers specifically of ripping off outsiders is woefully ludicrous. If anything, I'd say that American filmmakers are the most inspirational, copied artists in the world. Godard himself spent the early part of his career revisiting themes from old American movies (particularly gangster films). Additionally, neither explanation really gets to the bottom of the American craze for re-interpreting foreign films.

But does this even matter? Who cares? Filmmakers have always borrowed ideas from other filmmakers. If the net result is more good movies, what reason other than spite could you possibly have to complain?

I go to see Martin Scorsese, and I say, Don’t you think I should tell you about the lenses? And he says, What do you mean? And I said, Well, you’re remaking my film, which is Infernal Affairs. Infernal Affairs was probably written in one week, we shot it in a month and you’re going to remake it! Ha ha, good luck! What the fuck is this about? I mean, come on. In other words, if you read The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, then you’d actually have a very clear idea [laughs] about what’s really happening in the U.S. right now

Ah, yes, spite...Apparently, Martin Scorsese didn't care to take Christopher Doyle's advice on how to shoot his remake of Infernal Affairs. So Doyle now gives interviews where he insults Scorsese and implies that he's an artless hack. I mean, the guy didn't recognize and defer to his genius! What other explanation could their be?

(Can you imagine, by the way, a cinematographer instructing Martin Scorsese on how to properly light and film a scene? The fact that he wasn't laughed off the set is indication, to me, that Scorsese and his crew must be an open-minded, friendly and inclusive bunch.)

The problem is that 99 percent of the world is looking at this country this way. And it’s very strange that Americans don’t seem to realize it. Therefore we make our films and make our films, and you remake our films the way you want to remake them.

If Doyle were talking about the way foreigners view American foreign policy, I'd say he's right on. Hell, I live here and I look at the average American's attitude towards the rest of the world and it fills me with sadness and contempt. But he's not talking about that (I don't think). He's talking about the way the international community views our filmmaking.

So he's totally full of crap. The Da Vinci Code just broke Italy's opening-weekend box office record. (The previous record-holder was an Italian film, Life is Beautiful). Hits like Spider-Man 2, The Day After Tomorrow and Kill Bill are hits all over the world. Most of our event movies make more overseas than they do here, and a number of our celebrities remain more popular in other countries than they do in America. (Jean-Claude Van Damme movies all get theatrical runs in Europe and Asia but not here).

I'd hardly say Europeans and Asians make their own films and ignore what's happening in America. Did he happen to notice that Samuel L. Jackson was on the Cannes jury?

Bear in mind, I'm not saying American films are better than films from other countries, or even that Doyle doesn't have a point when he speaks about the commercializing of the film industry. But he comes at the problem with this really obnoxious, haughty attitude and lacks any real nuanced understanding of the issues at play. He just knows, goddammit, the movies he makes in Asia are totally the best!

FILMMAKER: Don’t you think these bloated Hollywood films are an easy target? Do you watch any American independent film?

DOYLE: Does anybody? Hello! Come on. Come on, you can’t be so naïve that you don’t know that the only thing they do in the U.S. is look at the box office. It’s not a film industry anymore, it’s an accounting department. [laughs] There’s only two departments in American cinema — the insurance department and the accounting department. There are no filmmakers anymore.

See what I mean? What he's saying is not factually incorrect. American cinema is run as a business and the businessmen in charge are concerned only with the bottom line. It's different in Britain, where the government funds a lot of independent film projects and therefore looks out for advancing the public welfare in addition to making money, but it's not like they're producing a lot of great films each year either.

The fact is, there are legitimate grips to take with how the arts are funded in America. But when you say dumbass generalizations like "there are no [American] filmmakers any more," you actually hurt your argument because you look like some generally angry guy with a score to settle.

I mean, no American filmmakers? At all? David Gordon Green doesn't count? Alexander Payne's shitty? Woody Allen's useless now? Ditto Altman? Now might be right around the time you start to ask yourself, "well, Christopher Doyle's a guy with a recognizable name who's established in the film industry...what great classic films has he directed?" I mean, no one in America can seem to get it right...

He's made one film, 1999's Away With Words, that I can't comment on. Because it has never been released in this country. Maybe he's afraid some stupid American will shamelessly rip off his brilliance again.

Why only one film after a nearly 20 year long career, Chris? Do you have nothing more to say? Or were you unable to get another film made, even in Asia where it's about the art and not anything as dirty as money? And could your inability to make it as a filmmaker on your own, without a name like Wong Kar-Wai on the movie be even a small part of your deep-seated anger and resentment towards all Western filmmakers?

FILMMAKER: There are no more filmmakers in America?

DOYLE: Uh-uh. If Martin Scorsese can make a piece of shit called The Aviator and then go on to remake a Hong Kong film, don’t you think he’s lost the plot? Think it through. “I need my Oscar, I need my fucking Oscar!” Are you crazy? There’s not a single person in the Oscar voting department who’s under 65 years old. They don’t even know how to get online. They have no idea what the real world is about. They have no visual experience anymore. They have preoccupations. So why the fuck would a great filmmaker need to suck the dick of the Academy with a piece of shit called The Aviator? And now he has to remake our film? I mean this is bullshit. This is total bullshit. I love Marty, I think he’s a great person. And the other one is Tarantino. Oh yeah, let’s appropriate everything. Are you lost? Yes, you are lost.

What vicious, hate-fueled bile. We had several theories today at Laser Blazer for whence Chris Doyle may have developed this level of venom towards Scorsese. Perhaps he expected a chance to shoot Scorsese's Departed film (the remake of Infernal Affairs) himself, and was hurt when he was passed over for the DP slot and then had his suggestions ignored? Perhaps he's afraid that, with Scorsese's high profile, his semi-famous original movie will now be buried and forgotten? Is he just a dick who hates to see other filmmakers praised? Or does he maybe just want to seek out an easy target, to look intellectually superior for rejecting a much-beloved filmmaker?

No matter the reason, I think it's safe to say that there's some actual reason for Doyle's hatred of Scorsese that has nothing to do with the actual film The Aviator. His case here makes no sense...If Marty directed Aviator as merely as Oscar-grubbing kiss-up to the Academy, he didn't do a very good job. The movie's strange and, in some ways, intentionally unsatisfying and ambiguous. Unlike most Oscar films, it lacks a feel-good ending, or any kind of real closure. It's occasionally very strange and even disgusting. And you can hardly expect employees of some of the largest media conglomerates in the world to think highly of a movie that's so blisteringly anti-corporate.

It's not as if Aviator isn't a personal film for Scorsese as well. He loves American history, filmmaking and film history. Like many Scorsese "heroes," Howard Hughes suffers from oversized ambitions and even delusions of grandeur while simultaneously loathing and fearing the outside world he must navigate. The romantic relationships are fueled by power struggles and fits of jealousy, as in Goodfellas or Casino or even Raging Bull. The filmmaking is bold, passionate, exciting and graceful. Doyle's got some nerve, not only in calling a perfectly respectable film "a piece of shit," but in implying it was made with less than approvable intentions. Who the fuck does he think he is?

FILMMAKER: For a lot of young filmmakers, or aspiring filmmakers, in this country, myself included, the films that you make and that a lot of other Asian films make, as well as a lot of other films from France and Iran and other countries, give us all hope that it is still possible to make good films.

DOYLE: Yeah, but then I go to New York Film School, and even the teachers are trying to tell the kids what I’m saying.

FILMMAKER: How do you mean?

DOYLE: I mean, I go to NYU, and all the teachers are there, and then they’re interpreting what I say. I say, “Just do it.” And the teachers say, “What he really means is if you really work hard within the system, then you’ll get somewhere.” [laughs]

Oh, what a naysaying mean-spirited prick. This must be how he makes himself feel better. "If you want to make movies, just go out and make them! Unless you're American, in which case they won't be any good anyway so you should just become an accountant. But I shot In the Mood for Love, so I know better than all your teachers!"

What are you going to do? Are you going to wait? I mean, look what happened to Kubrick. The more he waited — I mean, Eyes Wide Shut is a piece of shit, come on. It’s flustered; it’s someone frustrated by his own ideas. It’s like cheese; it molded, you know?

WT the fucking F? I'll say it again...Who the fuck does this guy think he is? You're gonna talk smack on Kubrick? Not only one of the greatest filmmakers of all time but a guy who's deceased and can't defend himself? You're going to call the labor of love that he toiled on for years, right upuntil his death, "a piece of shit" and compare it to moldy cheese? What an unbelievable asshole.

And how wrong can he be? Eyes Wide Shut is goddamn brilliant. I like a lot of the films Doyle has shot, but I don't think I like any of them as much as Eyes Wide Shut, and Kubrick made much better films during his life than Doyle will ever make in his career, ever.

But let's deal with Doyle's central conceit here for a moment, shall we? He seems to suggest that if you work on a film for a long time and consider it carefully, you're wasting your time. Additionally, he comes down harshly on anyone making remakes or pastiches based on other films. Films, apparently, should be inspired exclusively by emotional studies of real life and not by other films or financial concerns or anything else. He comes out and says as much:

I think our purpose as filmmakers or as storytellers or whatever you’re going to call us is to say that at this particular point with this relationship, with this social structure, in this political climate, this is the best film I could do. I think that’s all we can do. Then we’re not exploitative, we’re not the Spielbergs or the whatever. Then it becomes extremely personal, for better or worse. So don’t get confused by digital or non-digital or money or not — just do the best fucking film you can with your abilities at that time.

I disagree with this view somewhat, though I appreciate the spirit in which it's offered. Much of the greatest filmmaking of all time is direct and personal and an outgrowth of the real experiences of the filmmakers. But some movies are just great movies because they are expertly made. De Palma's films don't neccessarily speak to great truths about life in America in the 70's (though some of them do). It doesn't make a movie inherently exploitative if it seeks merely to entertain and inspire through creativity.

But does Doyle even agree with this touchy-feely sort of film theory? Or is he just using it as an excuse to hate on Spielberg and Scorsese and Tarantino because they are high-profile Americans whom he's decided are inferior? Let's take a brief look at the guy's resume for some clues...

Let's see...first collaboration with Kar-Wai on the great 1991 film Days of Being Wild...Chungking Express a few years later...Directs his own little-seen film in here...Oh, wait, what's this? Turns out, Doyle came to America to shoot a film in 1998. And it was with Gus van Sant, at that! A known American! But surely this must have been some really atypical, offbeat American film, a dangerous and transgressive experiment in form that inspired Doyle to leave behind his beloved, original Asian films and work deep within the belly of the beast.

No, wait, it was a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho.

YES, I'M 100% SERIOUS! Mr. Hollywood-remakes-are-soulless-Americans-have-no-originality lensed AN AMERICAN SHOT-FOR-SHOT REMAKE of a classic movie! WHAT A GODDAMN BUFFOON!

How, exactly, Chris, were you expressing something unique about the place and time in which you lived by reshootting an exact duplicate of a Hitchcock movie? Or did you just do it for the money like the American filmmakers you ridicule so freely?

Christopher Doyle may know how to shoot pretty pictures, but he's a preening phony. Still don't believe me? Check out the description of his next film as a director, from the mouth of the man himself:

One is about a Japanese country-music cover band on the road escaping from who they think is a mafia boss, while in fact they’re walking into country-music hell.

Country music? Violent Mafia action on the open road? Why don't you stop ripping off American ideas, man! Base your stories on the real emotional world in which you live and not on other genre films, you philistine!

While I'm ranting, Filmmaker Magazine's Matthew Ross ought to grow a spine and challenge his subjects when they make irrational or hypocritical screeds against other filmmakers. (Wouldn't it be interested if he had asked Chris Doyle about the blatant collision between his actual filmography and his stated philosophies? It's not as if the guy didn't have Doyle's complete filmography at his fingertips via IMDB.) He even makes a veiled accusation of alcoholism - noting in the introduction that Doyle likes to "drink while working" - without following this up. Could this angry, erratic interview be the product of the subject's intoxication? Really, it's the only explanation that makes total sense.