"It's nice to work with Hollywood because there is never any question of resources put at your disposal to make a film as long as it is the right thing to do"
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Hollywood’s great seduction isn’t glamour; it’s the quiet removal of limits. Neil Jordan’s line flatters the system while slipping in a barb: money is abundant, but only if your project is crowned “the right thing to do.” That phrase is doing all the political work. It suggests a culture where budgets aren’t rationally allocated so much as morally licensed by gatekeepers who decide what counts as necessary, timely, or market-sanctioned. Resources, in this telling, aren’t earned through artistry alone; they’re unlocked through alignment.
Jordan, coming out of an Irish and European filmmaking tradition, understands how scarcity shapes aesthetics. Outside Hollywood, constraints force invention and a certain intimacy with risk. In Hollywood, “never any question of resources” sounds like paradise until you hear the unspoken second half: there is always a question of control. The studio’s generosity carries an implied contract - accept the apparatus, accept the notes, accept the calculus of audience quadrants, awards narratives, franchise potential.
What makes the quote land is its managerial euphemism. “Right thing to do” reads like ethics, but it’s really a proxy for consensus: the project that fits the current appetite, the political weather, the executive’s taste, the star’s brand. Jordan isn’t condemning Hollywood outright; he’s describing its operating logic with diplomatic precision. The subtext is a warning to filmmakers: the money is real, the support is real, but so is the ideology embedded in the check.
Jordan, coming out of an Irish and European filmmaking tradition, understands how scarcity shapes aesthetics. Outside Hollywood, constraints force invention and a certain intimacy with risk. In Hollywood, “never any question of resources” sounds like paradise until you hear the unspoken second half: there is always a question of control. The studio’s generosity carries an implied contract - accept the apparatus, accept the notes, accept the calculus of audience quadrants, awards narratives, franchise potential.
What makes the quote land is its managerial euphemism. “Right thing to do” reads like ethics, but it’s really a proxy for consensus: the project that fits the current appetite, the political weather, the executive’s taste, the star’s brand. Jordan isn’t condemning Hollywood outright; he’s describing its operating logic with diplomatic precision. The subtext is a warning to filmmakers: the money is real, the support is real, but so is the ideology embedded in the check.
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| Topic | Movie |
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