Hooray for the new Hollywood

In one of the more revealing bits of Mark Harris’s new biography of Mike Nichols, Harris recounts the director’s imperious behaviour on The Graduate, and his growing realisation that his condescension was poisoning the experience of those around him on the set. The feeling crystallised when he heard the cinematographer Robert Surtees — one of his heroes — trying to rally everyone when Nichols was in mean humour. Nichols made a decision in the moment that he would never allow himself to behave like that again. “When you know exactly what you want to do, it doesn’t make you particularly nice,” he reflected later of his actions. “How could I have been such a shit?”

Hollywood, home of the big picture, the bigger pay packet and a billion bruising egos, has never been a breeding ground for civility. Being a shit is what it’s all about. In the latest chapter of alleged wrongdoing, the 62-year-old film and theatre producer Scott Rudin was this month described as a “monster” by The Hollywood Reporter, following a magazine investigation in which Rudin is accused of violence, bullying and intimidation towards his staff. Rudin has not at time of writing responded to the allegations, and did not respond to enquiries for this piece.

One of the entertainment world’s best-connected operators, Rudin has always had a reputation for graceless boorishness (in a fit of hubris, he once told a reporter he had got through 119 assistants in the course of just five years), but the new allegations about his splenetic temper have quickly jaundiced the admiration he has typically enjoyed.

Yet, as is so often the case, Rudin’s behaviour has likely been protected by industry omertà (and a good lawyer). It seems that assistants understood that working for Rudin would be unpleasant, but had been so poisoned by the environment around them that they ended up assuming the workplace culture was the norm.

Harvey Weinstein’s imprisonment for rape and sexual misdemeanour was supposed to mark the end of brute machismo in the film world. And yet this later chapter suggests that ill-behaviour and intimidation are still the mainstays of success.

Rudin once told a reporter he had got through 119 assistants in five years

Thankfully, there are signs the culture of film is slowly changing. As evidenced by the Baftas last weekend, there seems to have been a shift in appetites of late, or maybe the pandemic, which has halted the marketing events that inflate so many very average movies, has been instrumental in bringing actual talent to the fore. Chloé Zhao, the 39-year-old director of Nomadland, became the second woman to win best director last Sunday, and only the third Asian director to have received the prize. Zhao was also co-producer, co-writer and editor of the film, which is an adaptation of Jessica Bruder’s book about itinerant workers in America, and stars a mix of actors and non-actors in the roles. The antithesis of a normal award favourite, Nomadland was shot for $5m, has few star names and is now widely expected to win an Oscar for best film. Meanwhile, the best newcomer Bafta for 19-year-old British actress Bukky Bakray (star of another female-led production, Rocks) and the success of Emerald Fennell’s macabre femmo-comedy Promising Young Woman, produced by the actress Margot Robbie, hint that the hegemony of movies made by older white male directors and producers might be coming to an end. Which isn’t to say I don’t love films made by older white men. But after decades of underrepresentation, a dust mote of possibility now bobbles in the air.

The correlation between Rudin’s current reckoning and a bunch of unrelated chick flicks may seem distant, but it’s thanks in part to the advance of this new generation of independent voices that media outlets such as THR have decided to take him on. While Rudin remains hugely influential on Broadway, the emergence of new streaming channels has marked a groundshift, and the absolute grip of a few individuals on the system has begun to slip away. Rudin’s benefaction is no longer considered quite so vital and other production companies and producers are coming to the fore.

The new Hollywood players — such as Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy — came up through television. The demographic they’re chasing is the more socially conscious Gen Z.

The Rudin scandal whispers of regime change. Few expect the producer will cough up a mea culpa, but social media activists are already putting pressure on Rudin’s talents to rethink their involvement in his projects, or piling in with stories of their own.

Less clear is whether this new reckoning will stop the toxic behaviour the entertainment business tends to thrill to. Rudin, one of the most pugnacious personalities in the industry, did not invent the Hollywood stereotype of the tyrant. He is merely the most visible exponent of a culture in which the lingua franca is to be unconscionably rude. With a greater diversity of talents, of opportunities, and different viewpoints, one hopes that culture is evolving. Hollywood has long been the anchor of all our entertainment. Will this next generation also be poisoned? Or will they have the sense, like Nichols, to realise you don’t have to be such a shit?

Email Jo at jo.ellison@ft.com

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