Here’s director Celine Sciamma, who last night hosted a masterclass in Spain, explaining why making a 3-hour movie doesn’t help “cinema” and is actually an act of narcissism:
You know, they claim “cinema is dying." It's the only art they always say is “dying”, and it's not even true, because there are plenty of movies out there making a lot of money. There are also very long movies that have a monopoly on movie screens. I make short films because I try to make room for others. Making a 3-hour movie means that theaters will only be able to program three screenings of your film per day. If you make a three-hour movie, you are a selfish activist, and not of cinema.
Aren’t all filmmakers selfish? Isn’t that the point? To craft your own vision, no matter what? Why would a 3-hour movie be an issue?
Sciamma (“Portrait of A Lady on Fire”) has been in a pissed-off mood of late. This past March, she claimed that she was done with film festivals, describing them as "joyless, speculative competitions.” And yet, a mere six months later, she attended the Venice Film Festival to screen her new short film. Go figure.
In addition, Sciamma also mentions that she's no longer interested in making big films on the scale of ‘Portrait’ and plans to prioritize small-scale works like “Petite Maman” moving forward.
Is Sciamma bitter that “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” only won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes and not the Palme, which many critics predicted? The Berlinale Jury in 2021 also didn’t reward “Petite Maman” with any prizes, despite it being one of the best-reviewed movies of that year’s competition.
Both films placed on the once-in-a-decade Sight and Sound poll. ‘Portrait’ actually finished as the 30th greatest movie of all-time in the poll, much to the outrage of some. Veteran film critic Amy Taubin theorized that its high placement was the result of British feminist studies, the same reason, she claimed, that landed Chantal Akerman’s ‘Jeanne Dielman’ at #1.
If we look at Sciamma’s festival track record then you can understand why she wouldn’t want to go back — 2007’s “Water Lilies” didn’t win anything when it was selected in the Un Certain Regard section. In 2014, “Girlhood” couldn’t even crack official competition and instead screened in Director’s Fortnight.