Willem Dafoe has been a splendid artist and intriguing performer for decades and has collaborated with some of this generation’s finest actors, directors, and filmmakers. His decades of being in the industry have also taught him more about the ins and outs of the film industry and how ‘consumers’, aka the audience, react to the variety of content being crafted across genres.
Although he hails himself as a crummy and lousy source, in a recent interview, Dafoe stated some hard-to-digest facts about ‘true filmmakers’ and the audience perception of ‘real movies’ that even fans agreed with.
Willem Dafoe On Audience Reception Of Real Filmmakers And More Serious Content
It is no secret that streaming and OTT platforms have culminated in a drastic fall in theatre audiences. Aided by the drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, theatrical audiences have further declined, the majority preferring streaming movies instead of indulging in a larger and shared experience of watching content in a theatre (via FilmTrack and Medium).
Willem Dafoe, in his recent interview with The Guardian, had similar claims to make, while also remarking on the tragic impact this culture has brought on the audience and indirectly on ‘real filmmakers’ like Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg.
“More difficult movies, more challenging movies can not do as well, when you don’t have an audience that’s really paying attention… You go see a movie, you go out to dinner, you talk about it later, and that spreads out. People now go home, they say, ‘Hey, honey, let’s watch something stupid tonight,’ and they flip through and they watch five minutes of 10 movies, and they say, forget it, let’s go to bed. Where’s that discourse found?”
It is no secret that the attention span of viewers has been nosediving for years now (via Time), thanks to the numerous elements of the modern world involved and the lifestyle change. Dafoe’s claims are hardly wrong, for they present a much more serious and harsh reality that can change the nature of films and filmmaking forever.
Even Fans Agree With Willem Dafoe’s Upsetting Yet True Remarks
Willem Dafoe did not only remark about the changing perception of the audience but also of the studios. While talking to The Guardian, he noted that studios have also drastically changed, more willing to make movies that they know will cater to the audience and streaming has become a monopoly.
In such a scenario, studios prefer to create content that resonates with the audience’s fantasy instead of reality (via The Sydney Morning Herald), generating a cult-like following to keep the viewers hooked (via Medium). Furthermore, as movies are costing more and more to make (via BBC), studios feel it is better, with shorter attention spans and a need for fun content, to create movies that resonate with the audiences’ needs.
Hence, numerous fans took to social media (via X) and agreed with Dafoe’s claims, for it is true that the audience attention span has been decreasing for a couple of years now, and the distractions of the modern lifestyle, especially while watching streaming content only limits the attention span further (via Time).
While many remarked, unfortunately, he’s not wrong, others lamented that a challenging lifestyle and extreme distractions make it worse to watch ‘challenging’ content at home or even elsewhere despite the theatrical audience having a larger attention span (via Digital Cinema Report).
Since movies have been getting longer (via Vanity Fair) and a plethora of content being created (via The Guardian), with the aid of a decreased attention span, the audience would rather watch something ‘stupid’ that triggers their fantasy rather than something challenging that triggers an ‘existential dread and reality’. And so ‘true filmmakers’ like Scorsese or Spielberg and their thought-provoking creations are bound to suffer as a result.
