Daily Inspiration Quote by Philip Kaufman

Kaufman is doing a very Hollywood thing here: making an economic complaint sound like an existential one. On the surface, he is talking about runaway production, the long-running industry habit of relocating shoots to places that offer tax credits, cheaper labor, and friendly exchange rates. But the line’s real bite is in its small, defensive phrasing: “brought up to Canada.” Not “made in Vancouver” or “shot in Toronto” - “brought,” as if the film is a commodity being shipped away from its rightful home.

The subtext is protectionism dressed as artistry. Directors of Kaufman’s generation came up in an era when Los Angeles was not just a backdrop but an ecosystem: crews, crafts, unions, and informal networks that could turn a risky idea into a finished movie. When production migrates, it’s not simply scenery that changes. Power shifts. Jobs follow. Local expertise erodes. A director’s leverage can weaken when the financial logic of a project becomes more important than the creative logic.

There’s also a cultural anxiety embedded in “nowadays.” It’s a signal that filmmaking has been increasingly financialized, where the decisive “creative” choice is often the spreadsheet. Canada, in this framing, becomes shorthand for a world where movies are engineered for savings first and personality second. Kaufman isn’t really worried about Canada; he’s worried about an industry that treats place, labor, and even identity as variables to optimize.