“Cinema is in a very bad state – I think it has lost its place,” said Brian Cox at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) during a surprise appearance in the festival’s industry programme.
“I think it’s lost its place, partly because of the grandiose element between Marvel and DC and all that, and it’s starting to implode. You lose the thread, I think. Television has really stolen the march when you get incredible things like RipleyHow Consequence”, said Cox.
“As for work,” continued the Consequence Star who made films in the style of Deadpool and Wolverine“it gets watered down after a while. You always get the same thing. I have made such films – I have X-Men.”
Cox, who in 2003 X2: X-Men United, said by Deadpool and Wolverine Stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman: “They make a lot of money from it. You can’t say that’s bad. But at the same time, the art of film is being lost. The art of film tends to be more protected in Europe than elsewhere.”
He noted: “Cinema, television and theatre have to reflect who we are and what we are going through at any given time. It’s very confusing now, but we live in a very confusing time. So actually it reflects the confusion quite well.”
On August 26, Cox begins production on his own feature film directorial debut in Scotland, having previously directed for the theater.
Glenrothan is set in the fictional distillery town of the same name and is about two estranged brothers who come back together to save their family distillery. Cox and Alan Cumming play the brothers.
The project was first announced in 2021 and is being developed by British production company Nevision and Lionsgate.
“It’s a love letter to this country that I think is deeply neglected in every way,” the Dundee-born actor explained. “It’s become very confusing. As a young man, as a boy, I was never particularly interested in Scotland as such, but as I got older I became more and more interested in it, because of the culture, because of the Celts, because of who we are, what we’ve done and how we don’t quite find our place artistically.
“We started the Edinburgh Festival, we started the Fringe Festival, it’s probably the biggest Fringe Festival ever, it’s like the Olympics and we do it every year. But the domestic stuff is very, very hard. It’s almost impossible. I felt it was time to come back and honor not only the country but the people who work (in it) – the designers, the costume designers, the makeup artists, the cinematographers. It’s about honoring people and I’m at a point in my life where I feel like I need to do that.”
Problems with casting
Cox took part in a panel discussing the work’s transition from live performance to screen, along with Alex Walton, co-head of WME Independent, producer Afolabi Kuti and directors Nina Conti and Daniel Reisinger, both of whose films are world premiering in EIFF competition. Conti, a veteran comedian and Edinburgh Fringe ventriloquist, directs Sunlight, while Australian filmmaker Reisinger is lagging behind And woman
The change in approach to casting has been a hotly debated topic. “We’ve had a number of films recently where the social following of the actor has been important, and that’s really made the difference… Your social following, to reach that demographic, is of real value,” Walton said. “That’s what distributors are putting more emphasis on.”
He continued: “When you sell a drama and get good reviews, it’s cheaper to market it because the press has fueled the fire. Today, if you have a social media following, an audience, it’s much more affordable for distributors.”
“It’s crazy when you’re in LA and they do these castings and everyone has to stand up and start casting (with), ‘I have so many followers on Instagram, I have so many followers on Twitter (now X),'” Reisinger added.
Cox was incensed by the now-prevailing practice of actors submitting self-recorded auditions for roles rather than being able to audition in person with a casting director – a habit that has taken hold during the Covid pandemic.
“Sometimes they (actors) don’t even get the damn result because they’re ignored. So they spend three days making a tape that goes nowhere… Young actors are in a limbo that’s designed to keep that limbo. That’s, frankly, disgusting because it actually prevents what an actor can do or who an actor is.”
