Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
James Gray believes AI is “worthless”.
The 57-year-old filmmaker thinks the potential influence of AI in the movie industry might have been overstated, suggesting that audiences increasingly value authenticity and originality.
James told Variety: “This idea that we’re supposed to always try to be ‘new’… That doesn’t really mean anything. Many people say: ‘Oh, it’s important for a work to be fresh.’ The older I get, the more I realise that pursuit is a folly.
“My tastes were formed in the late 1970s, and I was influenced by, inculcated by and taught by films from before that. It’s not a conscious effort to make a statement. It’s just an extension of who I am. I think it’s important that we embrace who we are, especially as we get older.
“If you look at Picasso, he stole from African art that’s thousands of years old. Stanley Kubrick stole liberally from silent films, using The Phantom Carriage for The Shining and Our Heavenly Bodies for 2001. This idea that we have to create something ‘new’ is actually very much a business concept.
“It’s rooted in the idea of copyrights and capitalism, rather than reminding people of what is true: emotion, beauty and transcendence.”
The director observed that “what’s fresh in your refrigerator today is spoiled tomorrow”.
James explained that box office numbers are only one “yardstick” for a film project.
He reflected: “This is not me saying that all art films are terrible, and I would love my films to make tons of money, but if that’s your only yardstick, then you want to eliminate risk – and risk is idiosyncrasy and subversion, and all the things that we treasure in movies.
“I’ve always thought it was beautiful to combine both. To have complex moral dilemmas for characters and situations within a narrative context. I don’t think I’d be getting my ‘old man prize’ if the films were either one or the other.”
James wants to ensure that his movies have his distinctive imprint on them. He also claimed that AI can’t recreate his unique style.
The filmmaker explained: “Trust me – I don’t go on set and say: ‘I’m going to show the world that it’s me in this scene.’ That’s insane. But I think it’s good when I can see the director’s hand and when I recognise them just from a scene.
“There are a lot of problems with auteur theory, but it’s great that you can identify a John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock movie simply from the placement of the camera and the pacing of the scene. That’s why AI is so worthless. It will never be able to do that.”
