Words In Passing

In an EW piece called “Romancing The Rhinestone” (included only in 3.15 print version), Adam Markowitz does a q & a with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, the costars of Steven Soderbergh‘s Behind The Candelabra (HBO, 5.26). Douglas plays the closeted Liberace and Damon his much-younger lover, Scott Thorson…but everyone knows that. The thing that got me in the interview has nothing to do with the film. Markowitz asks what Douglas and Damon “think of the possibility of somebody making a movie of your life?,” and Damon answers, “Movies will be dead by then.”

Are we all listening? The well-connected Damon sees and hears everything, and he honestly believes that 20 or 30 years hence movies as we know them will no longer exist.

Posted at by
  • http://twitter.com/jessecrall Jesse Crall

    Downside of print: Doesn’t always register sarcasm and flippancy.

  • Jeffrey Wells

    Damon wasn’t being flat-out sincere. He was making a crack. But he meant it.

  • George Prager

    A picture is worth a thousand words was coined by a Chinese guy over 2000 years ago.

    • Raising_Kaned

      It was a wizard, wasn’t it?

  • scooterzzzz

    why would this warrant any notice…considering the changes in delivery
    over the past (what?) five years, movies, as we know them, probably won’t exist
    in 20-to-30 years…

    and, just ftr re: that ‘candelabra’ interview… i was a little dismayed to
    read that a straight actor playing gay is, once again, considered “brave”…i
    thought that shit ended several years ago….

    • Raising_Kaned

      While I certainly agree that it’s discouraging to hear that terminology in that context, don’t you think it’s possible that you’re understating your case just a tiny bit?

      Let’s be real, though — you don’t sign up as Liberace just to “play gay” (Hanks, Penn, Carrey, Ledger, Williams, Banderas, et al. have all done this), you’re going over-the-top trying to define it. Not unlike how Nicholson was “upset” in The Shining, De Niro was “unstable” in Taxi Driver, or Phoenix was “a little unusual” in The Master.

      In other words, I think the “brave” tag has less to do with his character’s sexuality and more to do with his….extreme behavior — but I understand that in his case it seems almost impossible to separate the two (and perhaps it’s a fool’s errand to try to).

    • Kat

      It’s not considered ‘brave’ to those who have moved beyond anyone’s sexuality being used as a label that defines who they are/what they can do. But sadly, there’s plenty of homophobia still in existence (and EW isn’t just read by the open-minded).

      • http://twitter.com/jasctt Jason T.

        Well, people get pissed if someone labels them one way, although they are PERFECTLY fine with labeling themselves, using their identity to get ahead, notice, employment, benefits, what have you. Do as I say not as I do has become the motto of American life in these times.

  • Sonny Hooper

    Damon was not being sincere, not entirely. Not a chance.

  • Noiresque

    Matt Damon rarely makes an interesting comment that isn’t laced with irony. I don’t take anything he says seriously since he said that due to the apparently insufficient amount of hope and change, Obama voters were wandering in the streets in despair, searching for a leader with balls, in the wake of the 2008 election. He’s a generally smart guy and reasonable actor/filmmaker who doesn’t court the nastier side of fame, but try as he might he’s as much a part of the fame bubble as the next reasonable actor/filmmaker, and lacks perspective on more than he realises.

  • Zach

    Movies aren’t going anywhere. Evolving, yes, but not dying. It’s a lucrative business.

    Unless, that is, Michael Ruppert’s predictions come true. Then we’re all dead. Maybe that’s what Damon meant.

  • patches23

    Given people in the biz are enamored with 3D as it is now, what will it mean for the medium, the art form, and the business when we really have holographic projection? When some flavor of the month sweet young thing can walk over and put her feet in 60 year-old Lex’s lap? A really true to life war scene? When we can smell the odors in the room somebody is dying in?

  • DukeSavoy

    Damon’s remark is pure movie star solipsism. He meant that once he’s gone, movies will be dead — to him anyway. A sassy little black comedic riff. Dude should stop coasting and write some more screenplays.

  • Mr Bohemian

    A new movie about Liberace starring Micheal Douglas, wow theres a few ladies around the home that will dig that. Grace told me story about a fight her husband had where Liberace was on tv and she kissed the tube and her husband put his steel toed boot through it. Movies as I know them no longer exist, and the films that still do look like the death of a thousand cuts with a few prints going around to theaters that still run t35mil. I like the new digital age where everyone gets a good show. my grand pa was pissed when they stopped making silent films as he felt sound films ruined actors ability to act. My father hated the new rating system and all the dirty movies that came out after 1966 he felt that you didn’t need a close up of kernel knowledge and objectionable language to show love and hate. As long as there is a story to share someone will find a way to express it. movies as I know them no longer exist as the medium of cinema is constantly evolving and destroys every preconceived notion about cinema that came before . Mr Damon,Edison felt the same way.

  • Redfoxdown

    Damon’s made numerous comments recently, including at the Berlin Film Festival, about the future of film and the movement of people like Soderbergh to television as the funding is no longer available for quality movies. He’s possibly serious.

  • http://www.mtbtogo.com/ MTB

    Given people in the biz are enamored with 3D as it is now
    http://www.mtbtogo.com/

  • http://www.facebook.com/reo.roma.1 Reo Roma

    This is what I think about all this: Matt was probably half joking about that but with the way this world has been lately, he could be right about that…I hope not though, but there are serious changes on this planet (including in the movie industry) and he was also comparing it to how much more people went to the movies in the past and the dollar amount that movies used to make at the box office and all that jazz. And the internet doesn’t make it much easier either, or TV and other ways to watch movies or to entertain ourselves. As for Behind Candelabra I absolutely think that Matt Damon and Michal Douglass are brave to embrace such role of playing lovers and looking great doing so (can’t wait to see their costumes and that era)!!! I mean it’s just like any profession you get a job offer and you accept because you have to pay bills, and in this case it sounded like a fun unique type of project. By the way Obama has nothing to do with this is ridiculous that people still bring that up and take things out of context, he was probably saying what most Americans were thinking but not saying it allthough I have nothing against the man–hey at least he voted for him the first time around so that means that he did give him a chance!