Denis Villeneuve says he bans mobile phones on his sets: “When you say cut, you don’t want someone checking Facebook”

nme.com:

Denis Villeneuve has revealed that mobile phones are banned on his film sets.The Dune director was profiled for the Los Angeles Times and voiced his anxieties over how “human beings are ruled by algorithms right now.”“We behave like AI circuits.

The ways we see the world are narrow-minded binaries. We’re disconnecting from each other, and society is crumbling in some ways.

It’s frightening,” he said.This formed part of the rationale for him banning phones on the sets of films he is working on.“Cinema is an act of presence,” Villeneuve said. “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.