As an viewers member, I’m obsessive about style. I’m a comic book e-book nerd and Alien is my favourite film ever. I’m drawn to style due to the way it can transport you to an entire new world which is thrilling and unusual. But additionally, style can take a look at characters in a larger-than-life approach that pushes on very human issues. For me, it’s thrilling and cathartic to see characters get examined and also you your self can ask: “how would I react to this situation?” and “what would it not do to me?”
As a filmmaker, I all the time wish to make movies which have one thing to say. With “Monolith”, we had been actually enthusiastic about these concepts of reality and asking questions on who you’ll be able to imagine on this podcast/new media panorama. We actually wished to get into the parasocial relationships folks have with podcasters and discover the truth that we belief them when now we have no purpose to belief them. Lucy’s script additionally dove into this different layer of when that belief collides with privilege and energy. The Interviewer is a really rich character and though it takes some time earlier than that comes into the narrative, as soon as it does, it brings up these concepts about who will get to regulate a narrative and the ability that comes with that. When the privileged management the narrative they achieve this in a approach that reinforces the monolith of their energy.
One of many different themes that struck me was its critique of the methods we’ve been compelled to commodify ourselves and the way typically it’s extra vital to be first than to be proper. I consider that sequence the place after The Interviewer posts a podcast episode, her producer Tyler says “Hit 500K listens! Community tremendous pleased. When’s the subsequent ep?” however the audio we hear whereas seeing that textual content is one among her sources critiquing her for rearranging the audio to make statements which are out of context. Do you’ve got hope for journalism, particularly investigative journalism work, the place it doesn’t must be tied to this commodification of self?
As a lot as this movie is in regards to the darkish aspect of social media or podcasting, I’m not against these new media. A variety of it’s nice and the democratization of the voice is so vital. What’s occurred, as you mentioned, is that there’s a lot of it on the market and the one solution to be seen is to be first and to be provocative. It’s a harmful factor nevertheless it’s additionally actually attention-grabbing.
I’m hoping that the subsequent era will develop into very savvy with these mediums. They’re going to must be very savvy about understanding the viewpoint of the media that they eat. It’s going to be important to truth verify sources and to grasp sources. It’s additionally a humorous factor the place a few of the finest investigative journalism is occurring. It’s only a minefield and I believe that’s why we wished to make a movie about it and hopefully we weren’t too didactic about it.