If it’s good enough for Christopher Nolan, it’s good enough for Denis Villeneuve. The “Dune” and “Blade Runner 2099” director recently spoke to for a feature piece where the topic of phone addiction came up, with Villeneuve saying: “there’s something addictive about the fact that you can access any information, any song, any book” from your phone. He says the behavior is compulsive, like a drug, but adds one place he will not tolerate it is on his sets with mobile devices banned on his productions.
He explains: “Cinema is an act of presence. When a painter paints, he has to be absolutely focused on the color he’s putting on the canvas. It’s the same with the dancer when he does a gesture.
With a filmmaker, you have to do that with a crew, and everybody has to focus and be entirely in the present, listening to each other, being in relationship with each other. So cellphones are banned on my set too, since Day 1. It’s forbidden.
When you say cut, you don’t want someone going to his phone to look at his Facebook account.” Villeneuve wouldn’t go so far as to ban chairs on his set, but says because they were sitting so much he opted to mostly stand on “Dune” along with his cinematographer Greig Fraser. The full interview is up at .
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