Matrix director Lana Wachowski reveals painful past
hollywoodreporter.com
hollywoodreporter.com
Her interviews of late make me wish she'd been doing press all along during her career, I'd have loved reading/watching them for her previous films.
I'm glad she's comfortable talking about herself, her life, and her work now. We're all better off for it. Look forward to hearing a lot more from her and her brother.
Some parts I found interesting:
"According to Mattis, the Wachowskis were “the hot flavor of the month” when he sent the “Matrix” screenplay out, in 1994. “But then everyone read the script and passed. Nobody got it,” he said. “To this day, I think Warner Bros. bought it half out of the relationship with them and half because they thought something was there.”
The power of connections! If Warner Bros haven't bought their Assassins script The Matrix might not have been made.
Also:
"“The problem with market-driven art-making is that movies are green-lit based on past movies,” Lana told me. “So, as nature abhors a vacuum, the system abhors originality. Originality cannot be economically modelled.” The template for “The Matrix,” the Wachowskis recalled, had been “Johnny Mnemonic,” a 1995 Keanu Reeves flop.
If she had rehearsed it a couple more times, she could have achieved a perfect rhythm.
I was turned off a bit when she started using historical present to describe the incident at the Catholic school. She used it again in a couple more cases, but thankfully not for long. Most of the times I find historical present awkward. It is difficult to do well, and, to my eyes, it seldom succeeds in its purpose.