George Clooney, Judd Apatow & The Flipside
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Humphrey Bogart's sweethearts, Dwayne Johnson on a boat, Sandra Hüller in space, a new Exorcist and keeping quiet.
Let’s go!
(Included in today's edition is a chat I had with director Christopher Wilcha)
FLIPSIDE: A REQUIEM FOR CREATIVE FAILURE
Christopher Wilcha is an authority on creative failures.
I interviewed Chris about his new documentary Flipside, EP’d by Judd Apatow, which begins by detailing the promising start of Wilcha’s career.
His debut doc, The Target Shoots First (2000), won the audience award at SXSW and the top prize at Slamdance. Instantly, Wilcha was dubbed:
“The Michael Moore of the New Millennium.”
But Wilcha made a Faustian bargain to take on commercial work to support his family, and slowly but surely, his time was reallocated to things that took him away from the art he loved.
In Flipside, Wilcha details a litany of abandoned docs on various subjects:
Ira Glass (This American Life creator)
Herman Leonard (iconic Jazz photographer)
The White Stripes
What I found so striking about Flipside was it found its heart in the deep examination of how our attachments define and distort our identity.
Wilcha explained: