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Its quite a lovely experience, and sometimes its just a day or two of work.
Its not months and months of directorial anguish.
Is it any surprise that a filmmaker whos always been fascinated by technology has fallen in love with streaming?
Your character, Walter, has a touch of the conspiracy theorist to him.
Its continually fascinating, and of course it can be very creative in its own perverse way.
Theyre an undercurrent inConsumed, the novel you published a few years ago.
But I think Im not finished with film.
Im intrigued by the Netflix paradigm and the whole concept of streaming.
How different has that experience been for you?Its certainly filmmaking, but its not exactly cinema.
In writing it, your rhythms are quite different.
It can be pretty delicious for a writer.
Perhaps less so for a director.
Youve said you dont go out to movies much anymore, andyouve been very unsentimentalabout the shift toward streaming.
But Im wondering what your thoughts are on how one-on-one and on-demand viewing has changed the cultural conversation.
We dont end up all talking about the same movie or the same television show much anymore.Thats true.
You might spend a week reading a book binge-watching or not binge-watching has some similar rhythm.
Well, now Im just very curious about what youve been watching.Im not going to mention that.
But I do find things.
I find interesting things all the time.
I said, Look, Im watchingLawrence of Arabiaon my Apple Watch right now.
And look, there are a thousand camels.
I can see every one of them.
But, of course, people have great nostalgia for the old understanding of what cinema was like.
Videodrome(1983) is, in some ways, the darkest possible ode to home viewing.
How do you see the relevance of that film in the streaming era?
But I wouldnt want to go too far with it as a prophecy.
Were in a really interesting place with the internet!
There was a time when science fiction presented technology as an abstract, almost non-human thing.
And you certainly see that with the internet.
He just has insecurity and ego.
Hes quite a different beast, but he is a beast.
Right now, Trumps visiting India with Modi, and Modi is a guy whodoeshave that messianic certainty.
Im not sure if Trump could ever possibly understand India.
Its a pretty complex country.
But that one aspect of it is really beyond him, the religious aspect.
But I wouldnt say that I would never go back to making a genre film.
It really depends on how relevant it feels to me and to the world at large.
I could do that again.
I absolutely could do that again.
So I was never tempted by that.
To me, its too formulaic, and too adolescent in its emotional understanding.
You and William Gibson are two of the artists whose work I most often see described as prescient.
Canada being a little outside, but connected to the culture, you could see it clearly.
Well, listen, the Romans thought so during the time of the Roman Empire, too.
In Canada, you’ve got the option to see the end of the American Empire.
When youre in the middle of it, you think its eternal.
You cant imagine it not being that way.
