Denis Villeneuve explains why phones are “forbidden” on his movie sets
Dune visionary Denis Villeneuve has revealed he doesn’t allow phones to be on his movie sets because they risk distracting his cast and crew from being totally present in their tasks.
The Blade Runner 2049 director spoke with The Los Angeles Times about his career and moviemaking in general. He revealed his cell phone number when the conversation turned to his relationship with modern technology, both on and off set.
“Cinema is an act of presence,” Villeneuve explained. “When a painter paints, he has to be absolutely focused on the colour 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, cell phones are banned on my set too, since day one. It’s forbidden. When you say cut, you don’t want someone going to his phone to look at his Facebook account.”
Villeneuve is no technophobe, though – he understands the addictive nature of phones as much as anyone else. After all, with access to so much information at your fingertips, how could it not be addictive? The director pointed out, “It’s compulsive. It’s like a drug. I’m very tempted to disconnect myself. It would be fresh air.”
However, Villeneuve is frightened by the idea of what is happening to humanity, with everyone joining in that collective disconnecting process by constantly zoning out on their phones. He mused: “I feel that 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.”
But is Villeneuve the first director to ban cell phones on set?
Of course, Villeneuve is far from the first Hollywood director to make phones verboten on his sets.
In 2017, Christopher Nolan – who refuses to even own a smartphone – told Esquire that he adopted a similar policy on set and admitted it could take some getting used to by the cast and crew. However, they soon came to see his point of view, and he claimed several crews wound up thanking him for banning their phones.
Nolan explained: “There’s a mass belief that if you’re texting, you’re somehow not interrupting the conversation—you’re not being rude. It’s an illusion of multitasking. I started filmmaking when people didn’t expect to have a phone on set, when it would’ve been seen as unprofessional to pull out a phone. Phones have become a huge distraction, and people work much better without them. At first it causes difficulty, but it really allows them to concentrate on what they’re doing”.
He added: “Everybody understands. I’ve had a lot of crews thank me. With a set, we’re trying to create a bubble of alternate reality.”
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