A response to Zack Snyder’s comments at “Snyder Con” as an avid fan of his work, and why filmmakers need to stop speaking for their work.
Last weekend, divisive director Zack Snyder held a screening, meet and greet, and Q & A for the extended editions of Watchmen, Batman v Superman, and Dawn of the Dead.
For Zack Snyder die-hards this was a dream come true and an event that will likely never be forgotten for many who have been inspired by Snyder’s work. Getting to share the same room as Snyder while taking in films you love as the vocal minority probably enabled you to feel like a legitimate superhero. Getting to share your experiences with the film and what they meant to you on a personal level with tears shedding down your face as Zack consoles you was probably the highlight of someone’s life. The whole weekend was (likely) a once in a lifetime event for (arguably) Hollywood’s most divisive filmmaker to envision a comic-book property, and let alone the two biggest titans at that, Batman and Superman.
We’re three years removed from Batman v Superman, and yet with all the indie hits and blockbusting tentpoles in between, the vitriol, controversy, unfriending because of a disagreement on how one perceived the “Martha” moment still rages on. Why? As a defender of Batman v Superman (I’ve seen it nine times…), and someone who has committed a disgusting amount of hours to defending Snyder’s vision for the film, I am at a loss as to why neither side has moved on. The same goes for Zack Snyder.
During one of the Q & As for BvS, Snyder opened up the world to his original vision for Justice League, and the in-house audience and Internet collectively lost their minds, while simultaneously instilling a newfound perspective on who to blame for the general misfire of the team-up film. This was a huge moment for Snyder fans as they could finally piece together some semblance of what a film of his may have ended up looking like. On top of that, editors, cinematographers, and costume designers spoke highly of working with Zack and their appreciation for his ability to storyboard. After all, movies are a visual medium and being over-concerned with dialogue can defeat the entire purpose of creating a major motion picture. The infamous “Superman only has 43 lines in BvS” articles constantly broke through trying to prove that Snyder’s vision was wrong just because Superman didn’t speak more. Everything at the event was something that Snyder fans have been yearning for, and everything was going quite well, until Snyder kept talking about his movies.
We all know that Snyder’s departure from Justice League was due to his daughter committing suicide and he and his wife (Debbie) needing time to focus on the loss of their daughter rather than a movie. We also know that this obviously took a toll on Snyder as he stayed relatively silent until roughly a year or so later when he said, “He still hasn’t seen Justice League.” Which then opened up the doors to theories as to a larger, on-going problem at Warner Bros., and Snyder slowly chipped away at revealing his passion for superheroes and his vision for Justice League. This is all fine and dandy as it didn’t reinforce any specific audience member’s disdain or love for his films, but rather gave us a taste as to his ideas so we could draw our own conclusions through his work. Now, back to Snyder Con when Snyder kept having to talk. To be fair, it was a Q & A so he didn’t necessarily have a choice, but rewording his answers would have made the Internet, and superhero movie culture more bearable over the last few days.
When speaking on BvS and his decision to have Batman kill criminals in the film Snyder said, “Someone says to me ‘Oh Batman killed a guy.’ I’m like ‘Really?’ I’m like ‘Wake the f— up’. So I guess that’s what I’m saying about, once you’ve like lost your virginity to this f—ing movie and then you come and say to me something about like ‘Oh my superhero wouldn’t do that.’ I’m like ‘Are you serious?’ I’m down the f—ing road on that. And it’s a cool point of view. Look I’m 100% fine, it’s a cool point of view to be like ‘My heroes are still innocent. My heroes didn’t f—in lie to America. My heroes didn’t embezzle money from their corp— my heroes didn’t commit any atrocities. That’s cool, but you’re like living in a f—ing dream world, okay?”
Needless to say, Snyder isn’t the greatest speaker in the world and his good intentions may be muddled here (strangely enough a common criticism for his work), but I don’t think that criticizing an audience for saying they live “in a f—ing dream world” needed to be said right now. As someone who firmly believes, admires, and appreciates a visionary like Snyder taking these heroes and emphasizing the “man” in Superman and Batman, I think that letting your work speak for yourself is the proper way of approaching this. I’m not innocent to claiming that movies are not escapism (in its simplest form anyways), and I love seeing a director give me a world with people who are unstoppable and making them fallible through the lens of our perception of superheroes. Characters created to heighten our realities but still reflect on our current socio-political state, as most, if not all movies are directly inspired from personal experiences and perceptions on our current state of affairs. Integrating that into a subgenre with the super creates a unique blend of being powerful, but having to overcome our own insecurities and problems to be such is frankly really inspiring and downright powerful if done in the right way. It’s why so many love The Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and a direct jumping off point to the motivation behind this piece.
When Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was released and met with a more “divisive” response, and James Gunn still prominent on Twitter, Gunn took to social media to explain his vision for the Guardians films he directed. He explained how the ending of Vol. 2 made Rocket believe in a God, he explained that Baby Groot was a new Groot, and a variety of other tweets explaining his work. Let it be known that I’m not the biggest fan of either Guardians film (1 is okay, 2 isn’t good), but why would a director explain their thematic intentions or world building outside of the film? Wouldn’t it be a sign if you felt the need to explain an idea, motivation, or arc on social media that maybe it wasn’t conveyed properly in the film? Some may feel it was, and others not so much (again, the beauty of this complicated medium), but why even take to a platform that limits characters to tell people how to feel, what they should be taking away, what you meant? Let your work speak for itself and leave it up to the audience to take away as much as they can from your perspective as a filmmaker and tie it together with their own.
Now, you may be asking, “Well, what about Director Commentaries on blu-ray?” Director Commentaries (good ones at least) actually don’t spell out the themes and intentions behind big-time decisions regarding narrative and character arcs. Most of the time, a great commentary talks about the world they created, their vision for bringing a story to life, giving credit to the unsung heroes that you don’t see unless you sit through the credits of a Marvel movie. For example; Rian Johnson’s commentary for The Last Jedi (BvS, James Gunn, and TLJ in one article? Am I madman?) is 2+ hours dedicated to giving credit to everyone he worked with and how they channeled a part of his vision without revealing too much information to his overall intentions and thematic hurdles he wanted to clear. The same goes for the boastful Ridley Scott in the commentary for Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Scott mostly speaks on creating the world, atmosphere, and ambience of a neo-noir while simultaneously giving us an insight to all the behind the scenes complications with bringing that world to life. It’s really the best type of Director’s Commentary, and you should check it out if you haven’t, because it’s actually quite funny as well.
The film community, Film Twitter, and websites dedicated to publishing film related content were sent back this weekend, and it unfortunately came at the mouth of Zack Snyder. I love the guy just as much as anyone else in the fanbase does, I think we gravitate towards his work because we find a level of escapism in it that is more than just a “dream world”, and I think that those critical of Snyder and his filmography were reaffirmed everything they thought about the guy as a filmmaker. That’s the key word here, “reaffirmed”. I don’t think movie discussion and interpretation works well when it just operates as a reaffirmation or over-explanation (especially when it comes outside of the movie). Movies are challenging, provocative, fun, divisive, and wholly unique to the director behind the camera, so when I see a director coming out (and one I love dearly at that) and trying to tell someone they need to “Wake Up” or tell someone what that scene actually meant, it defeats the entire experience they set out to make. No one needs to “Wake Up” and live and die by your word Zack. You made your movies, a lot of people didn’t like them, but you don’t have to enable a crusade of people that need to understand that other perspectives matter by reaffirming something fans already know and believe in. I don’t think anyone should chastise or mock Snyder for his comments either, because it then mocks his perspective that you already believe is mocking yours and it becomes a cycle of the same repetitive nonsense we’ve dealt with as a community for three years now.
It’s time to move on, and if a director feels the need to over explain their film outside the context of it, then maybe they didn’t convey their messages as good as they think.