‘A Complete Unknown’ Director James Mangold Says There’s Hostility to Movies That ‘Wear Their Heart on Their Sleeve’: We ‘Shouldn’t Be Embarrassed to Feel S—’

variety.com:

Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter James Mangold misses the era when movies weren’t embarrassed to make audiences feel something.

The director of the Bob Dylan musical biopic “A Complete Unknown” and comic book adaptation “Logan” believes there’s a growing hostility to films that wear “their hearts on their sleeve.” “Most of my generation, my peers, have been generally fascinated by irony or detachment.

I never felt completely at home in that idiom because I felt those [films] were cool and clever, but not necessarily moving,” the newly minted Oscar nominee said at Sundance’s annual gala on Friday night, where he was feted with the second-ever Trailblazer Award (the first was bestowed to Christoper Nolan in 2024). “Movies that put their feelings on the line, the way we talk about them and use words like melodramatic or chewing the scenery or too much, we kill some of the fearlessness [of directors].” Mangold expressed his excitement in returning to Sundance, where the filmmaker got his start in 1994 when he attended the Sundance Lab to develop the script for “Cop Land.” He was back the following year with his first feature, “Heavy,” which won the directing prize.

He’s since made films that span genres and styles, from unsettling dramas (“Girl, Interrupted”) and superhero sequels (“Logan” and “The Wolverine”) to big-budget blockbusters (“Ford v Ferrari” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) and portrayals of musical greats (“Walk the Line” and “A Complete Unknown”).