Taika Waititi is again reflecting on his career in a Business Insider interview. Waititi, 48, now sees all art as disposable — they're things that, in the moment, will give us joy and pleasure, but be forgotten soon after viewing.
Listen, none of us are going to be remembered in 50 years. You don't remember the names of your great-great-grandparents. I don't. How the hell are we to expect to be remembered? No one knows the name of the guy who made "Casablanca."
There he goes again. Drawing parallels with his own career and “Casablanca” director Michael Curtiz. What’s the deal with throwing shade at “Casablanca” these days? Remember when Variety writer Clayton Davis admitted that he’d never seen the 1940 classic?
If you remember, in a THR interview, earlier this year, Waititi sounded like he was going through some kind of midlife crisis, at least that’s what I gathered when I read the interview. That’s when he first mentioned the lack of anyone knowing who directed “Casablanca”:
“I’m 47. My God, take the pressure off. People are so obsessed with likes or leaving behind a legacy, being remembered. Here’s the thing: No one’s going to remember us. What’s the name of the director of ‘Casablanca’? Arguably one of the greatest films of all time. No one knows his name. How the fuck do I expect to be remembered? So who cares?”
Taika really needs to stop throwing shade at Michael Curtiz. If you even have a semi-firm grasp of film history then you would know that Curtiz directed “Casablanca,” not to mention “Mildred Pierce” (1945), “Angels With Dirty Faces,” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”
Waititi also added in the interview that he’ll probably be forgotten a decade from now (I don’t think anybody will notice) …
Let’s just live, make some movies. They’ll be obsolete and irrelevant in 15 or 20 years. And so will I, and then I’ll die and someone else can do it. This whole idea of chasing, chasing, chasing this life. It’s like, do we have to actually work this hard? Maybe not.
Will Waititi be rendered “obsolete”? His filmography includes “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Thor: Love & Thunder,” “Hunt For the Wilderpeople,” “Jojo Rabbit,” and “Eagle vs Shark.” Yeah, maybe.
He has “Next Goal Wins” now in theaters. His next film, “Klara and the Sun,” will start production in January. He might also direct a Star Wars movie.
In 2022, Waititi admitted to IndieWire’s Eric Kohn that he was indeed going through some kind of midlife crisis, it still seems to be ongoing …
“Sometimes I feel like maybe I was too busy to notice I was having [a midlife crisis]. Or maybe I’m right in the middle of one. I feel like I’m so busy that I have to schedule one. I’ll schedule a time to go buy a Porsche and do all the things I’ve always wanted to do. I’ll get that done so I can go make another movie.”
Cheer up, dude. You’re the guy who directed Jojo freakin’ Rabbit.
Remember when, back in August, we learned “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” would be playing in only around 350 U.S. theaters, "maybe fewer"? Well, it's fewer. A lot fewer.