Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Brunch
TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT
The Two Popes director Fernando Meirelles takes stock of the changing dynamics of filmmaking
For the first time in Academy Award history, the studio with the most nominations (22 to be precise!) was a streaming service And with some of the most renowned filmmakers across the globe embracing streaming media, movie-making and movie-viewing are at the cusp of a tectonic shift
For Brazilian auteur Fernando Meirelles, whose 2019 Anthony Hopkins-jonathan Pryce starrer The Two Popes earned three nominations at the 2020 Oscars, it is a logical progression “We have to make films that will fit the big screens of the movie theatres as well as the smaller screens of the mobile phones; that is how it will be whether you like it or not It is not an option but an evolution,” says Meirelles
WE ARE THE WORLD
The viewing experience is not the same “Watching a beautiful landscape on your phone while walking in the subway is of course not the same as watching it on a big screen inside a movie theatre,” he says “The image isn’t the same, the soundscape isn’t the same, and it is definitely not the same experience But at least the guy watching on a phone is still watching the film That is always better than him not watching it at all!”
The number of theatre goers is dwindling and now filmmakers must reach to the homes of the audiences instead, points out the City of God director “Today, maybe 40 million people go to theatres, but the audiences you get on these platforms are in billions And this also translates in funds,” he says
Meirelles’s The Two Popes
“WE HAVE TO MAKE FILMS THAT WILL FIT THE BIG SCREENS OF THE MOVIE THEATRES AS WELL AS THE SMALLER SCREENS OF THE MOBILE PHONES IT IS NOT AN OPTION BUT AN EVOLUTION”
–FERNANDO MEIRELLES
could get the funding it required because it is on Netflix “In a conventional production system this film would have a budget of say, $12 million But Netflix can afford a much bigger production cost because it reaches Catholics in 170 countries,” says Meirelles The Two Popes reportedly had a budget of $40 million
CLOSE FOCUS
On the flip side though, Meirelles adds, it is easy to be swayed by the budget and lose focus “You are often tempted to go grand and in the process, sacrifice the soul of the story,” he points out “I could have shown the grandeur of the architecture of the Vatican since we had spent so much on the sets, but my story was about these two people I was working with two brilliant actors and I wanted to focus on their expressions So, we restricted ourselves mostly to close-ups”
EXPANDING VISION
But Meirelles didn’t tweak his approach as a director
“Sometimes, when I framed a scene, a thought would come to mind that someone would probably watch the film on his/her phone! But I shot the film just as I would shoot any film for the big screen,” says the auteur
Now, however, most films made by OTT platforms get theatrical releases as well In
2018, Netflix released just four films in theatres, including Roma that bagged three Oscars In
2019, it released 10 of its originals at theatres, including Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, while the Amazon Prime originals that got theatrical releases included Aeronauts, The Report and Ritesh Batra’s Photograph This might have something to do with the OTT platforms’ Academy aspirations because to qualify for the Oscars, a film must run for at least seven days in an LA county theatre
“This platform gives the best of two worlds My film got a theatrical release and did the festival rounds, so it has the life of a proper film and then immediately it was available on the platform to stream at home What else can I ask for,” chuckles Meirelles