"I mean, there are many other directors who are probably both more skilled and excited to adapt novels or work within certain genre conventions. I'd like to do that kind of work someday, but for better or worse I'm too drawn by my own material"
About this Quote
Solondz slips a small confession into what sounds like modesty: he’s “probably” not as skilled, not as “excited,” as the directors who happily plug into the machinery of adaptation and genre. It reads like self-deprecation, but it’s also a quiet jab at the industry’s default settings. In a system that rewards competence inside pre-sold boxes, being “drawn by my own material” is both artistic compulsion and professional liability.
The intent is less about bragging than about staking out territory. Solondz is signaling that his imagination doesn’t naturally route through inherited story engines. Genre conventions promise momentum, resolution, and audience reassurance. His films, famously, don’t. They hover in discomfort, mine taboo, and leave you unsure whether you’re allowed to laugh. Adapting a novel would mean accepting someone else’s architecture; working “within” genre would mean agreeing to its moral bookkeeping. He’s admitting he can do it “someday,” but he’s not wired for it now.
“For better or worse” does heavy lifting. It acknowledges the trade: total authorship buys purity at the cost of isolation, smaller budgets, fewer institutional endorsements. It also hints at anxiety: the pull of “my own material” isn’t just creative freedom; it’s a kind of dependence, maybe even a trap. The subtext is that Solondz doesn’t choose auteurism as a brand. He’s stuck with it, because his work is too particular to be comfortably outsourced or standardized. In an era of IP and templates, that stubborn specificity becomes its own ethics.
The intent is less about bragging than about staking out territory. Solondz is signaling that his imagination doesn’t naturally route through inherited story engines. Genre conventions promise momentum, resolution, and audience reassurance. His films, famously, don’t. They hover in discomfort, mine taboo, and leave you unsure whether you’re allowed to laugh. Adapting a novel would mean accepting someone else’s architecture; working “within” genre would mean agreeing to its moral bookkeeping. He’s admitting he can do it “someday,” but he’s not wired for it now.
“For better or worse” does heavy lifting. It acknowledges the trade: total authorship buys purity at the cost of isolation, smaller budgets, fewer institutional endorsements. It also hints at anxiety: the pull of “my own material” isn’t just creative freedom; it’s a kind of dependence, maybe even a trap. The subtext is that Solondz doesn’t choose auteurism as a brand. He’s stuck with it, because his work is too particular to be comfortably outsourced or standardized. In an era of IP and templates, that stubborn specificity becomes its own ethics.
Quote Details
| Topic | Career |
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