Thoughts of Polley returned this week with the now-deafening noise surrounding the release of Barbie, directed by another former queen of independent cinema, Greta Gerwig. Coming up a few years after Polley, Gerwig was so indie that her films didn’t even go to Sundance, they went to South by Southwest. Gerwig’s swerve into the actual mainstream prompts the question: does the phrase “selling out” have any meaning anymore? Why has the concept of selling out lost so much of its cultural capital today? But in the meantime, in a changing world for cinema, the struggle for the soul of cinema goes on.

Source: The Guardian July 19, 2023 20:05 UTC