Copied from the Cinema Arts web site.
Join author Sharon Waxman for screening of Spike Jonze’s breakthrough film Being John Malkovich (starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and John Malkovich), followed by an in-depth discussion about the young maverick directors of the new Hollywood. The 1990s saw a shockwave of dynamic new directing talent that took the Hollywood studio system by storm. At the forefront of that movement were six innovative and daring directors whose films pushed the boundaries of moviemaking and announced to the world that something exciting was happening in Hollywood, even as much of the industry was mired in mediocrity. Sharon Waxman of the New York Times spent the decade covering these young filmmakers and now, in Rebels on the Backlot, she tells the fascinating story by weaving together the lives and careers of: Quentin Tarantino * Steven Soderbergh * David Fincher * Paul Thomas Anderson * David O. Russell * Spike Jonze. Their films toyed with form and narrative, shocked with their explicit sex and violence, and dizzied audiences with surreal themes and images. In making their films, the rebel directors fought their way through a studio system that by the 1990s had become part of America’s larger corporate culture, conglomerates brutally focused on the bottom line and not inclined to take artistic risks. Rebels on the Backlot is a rare peek inside the creative process of moviemaking, and it is a glimpse at the clash between the studio culture and rebel spirit of artists working within it.