Veteran writer-director Paul Schrader is tired of making movies in the U.S., Variety reports. Speaking to an audience at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Schrader (who is also serving as president of the festival jury) said that things have changed for filmmakers in the U.S., and that his next project would be a web series, titled Life On The Other Side. The series, which Schrader says was inspired by La Dolce Vita, will be available on the web as 10 10-minute episodes, but will be shown at festivals as a single film.
Contractually unable to speak about challenges surrounding his recent project, Dying Of The Light, Schrader made a more general assessment about the U.S. film industry. Just so everyone knew what he was really complaining about, however, he delivered these downbeat remarks in front of a poster featuring Schrader, Dying Of The Light co-stars Nicolas Cage and Anton Yelchin, and executive producer Nicolas Winding Refn modeling non-disparagement clause T-shirts. The shirts are an oblique reference to the film’s producers, who edited Schrader’s rough cut without his consent, resulting in a substantial departure from the director’s intended vision. As a result, the team made a fashionable and slimming decision that also followed Mom’s advice: “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Because you could get the pants sued off of you.”
Instead, Schrader referred to the chilling effect that piracy has had on producing quality big-budget films, and lamented that large-scale classics like The Godfather don’t get made today because of producers’ heightened preoccupation with “revenue collection.” He also said that television has stepped in to meet the needs of audiences now that watered-down films no longer have the pull they once had—great news for fans of AMC and HBO, but horrible tidings for fans of cinema.