THE LL WORLD

Contributing editor LEILA LATIF has something to say…

For film journalists, this time of year means near-constant ranking and re-ranking of our bestfilms-of-the-year lists. This year, a noticeable pattern has emerged. Among those jostling for my top spot are Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, Io Capitano and Occupied City – the latter two due to hit UK cinemas next year. They are all brilliant, and they are all made by filmmakers who aren’t members of the communities they are depicting. Christopher Nolan isn’t Jewish, Matteo Garrone isn’t Senegalese, Steve McQueen isn’t Dutch and Martin Scorsese isn’t a member of the Osage Nation.

This has raised a few eyebrows. I spoke to a juror at a festival showing Io Capitano who felt uncomfortable awarding accolades to an African story made by a white Italian man.

Killers of the Flower Moon consultant Christopher Cote admitted to having complex feelings about the project: ‘As an Osage, I really wanted it to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced, but I think it would take an Osage to do that.’ This extends into gender dynamics, too; among the praise for Poor Things, there have been a few (not from me) accusations of Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘male gaze’.

This perspective isn’t new. In 2016 Denzel Washington explained that his film Fences needed a Black director and ‘It’s not colour, it’s culture. Steven Spielberg did Schindler’s List. Martin Scorsese did Goodfellas…’ While Scorsese may have had the cultural background that informed Goodfellas’ Paulie slicing garlic so thin with a razor blade it would ‘liquify in the pan with a little olive oil’, Lily Gladstone’s Mollie has incredible specificity – tightening a ribbon work blanket around her shoulders as people stare at her on the main street. I would love to see an Osage filmmaker’s take on these events, but Mollie is one of Scorsese’s most compelling and complex protagonists. While I want to see more of Gladstone and more diversity behind the camera, calls for specific cultural connections can be damaging to marginalised filmmakers themselves.

The issue came up when I spoke to a professor of AfricanAmerican studies last year about the Black director Bill Gunn. He explained that Gunn’s work was always presumed to be semi-autobiographical, and this assumption is disproportionately made about Black artists. I’ve since asked many filmmakers from marginalised communities if they feel expected to make work about their lived experiences and if their work is read as such regardless. The resounding answer has been ‘yes’. While lots of great art is about the artist’s lives, that tendency to over-conflate fiction with nonfiction in the work of minorities presumes their creative horizons don’t expand beyond their own front garden. As well-intentioned as it might be to say that the films on my best-ofyear list would be enriched if made by people who share the same heritage as their protagonists, it quickly evolves into the soft bigotry of low expectations. That certain artists can only replicate while others can innovate.

When the end of 2024 rolls around I’d love to have a notes app filled with diverse filmmakers making a broader spectrum of stories. I can’t wait to see Night Swim, Madame Web, Drive-Away Dolls, Mickey 17, Twisters and the Bob Marley biopic. And all those films have protagonists and directors from different backgrounds. I’m counting down the days until I get to see Scorsese’s take on Marilynne Robinson’s novel Home and, in the meantime, I hope Cote’s dream comes true and we get films from Osage filmmakers about their people, as well as films that are definitely not.

LEILA WILL BE BACK NEXT ISSUE. FOR FURTHER MUSINGS AND MISSIVES FOLLOW @LEILA_LATIF ON X (FORMERLY TWITTER).