Rian Johnson and the Daniels on cinematic rules they love to follow and break

Despite their genre-breaking, fantastic films, Rian Johnson and the Daniels (the directing duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) have one thing in common from yesteryear: they love structure. In the series of Vanity Fair What Is Cinema?, filmmakers sat down for an unfiltered conversation about their craft and how they created films such as Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery And Everything Everywhere All at Once.

“The structure is where the thesis of the film emerges,” says Kwan, who uses lo Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock as a perfect example of a film that follows (and then breaks) the classic rules of cinematic storytelling. Similarly, the first half of Everything Everywhere – a fast-paced sci-fi family saga about an immigrant mother (Michelle Yeoh) spanning the multiverse – is a hero’s journey in matrixsays Kwan, while the second half is “a refractive blast of that story.”

It took some time to get the final cut of the film, and Scheinert recalled the year he spent “figuring out an endless stream of problems” in the editing room. “It was a bath of humility that taught us a lot about cinema,” he said.

Johnson has taken an equally disciplined approach to glass onionthe sequel to Murder by Death – Knives Out of 2019. The film follows Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as he investigates a murder mystery dinner at the home of an eccentric billionaire. Before beginning to write the screenplay, Johnson charted the entire story from beginning to end, excited to move the franchise in a new direction. “I can’t imagine finding the energy to make a new film if I don’t feel like it’s something I’ve never done before,” he explained. “When a good director has made and completed a film, it is as if he has burned the ship moored offshore. He used all the ideas he had. He and his crew are beached, emptied.’

Kwan agreed, emphasizing the pressure directors face when working on a new project. “Very often one starts with the intention of creating timeless art, but in reality this is a terrible trap,” he observed. «The more one pursues it, the more the idea of ​​a timeless art weakens. In fact, the ambition is to talk about that moment and give people something they can enjoy and think about».