Winona Ryder worries that the youths ‘are just not interested in movies’

Here are some additional photos of Winona Ryder at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday. She was in town to promote Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, alongside Jenna Ortega, Catherine O’Hara, Michael Keaton and the rest of the cast. Winona has been enjoying a “second act” to her career for years now, and it might actually be a third act? I don’t know. The point is, between this film and Stranger Things, Winona has been working with a lot of much-younger costars and she has some thoughts about them. Mostly, she has thoughts about how they don’t have the attention spans or the ability to watch real movies. From her interview with the LA Times:

Ryder, however, is concerned about the future. Not about her own career, exactly, but for the continuation of the medium of film, which she holds dear. The nights she spent with [Gena] Rowlands driving around in a cab for [Jim] Jarmusch’s movie represent the kind of art she loves.

“I’m not a religious person,” she says. “I’m not anti-religion, but I feel like the closest is film and it’s to me a very sacred thing. I feel so protective, but I’m not in any place to be in control. It’s not up to me.”

[Ryder] was immediately impressed with her younger co-star after Ortega mentioned “I Am Cuba,” the 1964 film by Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov, during one of their early scenes. They were working in a crypt and Ryder says she almost wept hearing Ortega reference specific shots from the classic.

Ryder appreciates getting to interact with the up-and-coming generation of film lovers who remind her of herself, excitedly telling me how her “Stranger Things” co-star Finn Wolfhard is obsessed with Elliott Gould. Still, she gets frustrated when there is a lack of curiosity among her more junior colleagues.

“I don’t mean to sound so hopeless,” she says. “There are a few that are just not interested in movies. Like, the first thing they say is, ‘How long is it?’ ”

[From The LA Times]

I think Winona is right and wrong. There are many youths who have no attention span for movies and no curiosity about the history of film. We’ve seen that over and over whenever one of the great filmmakers criticizes Marvel or the superhero genre – tons of young people screaming about how Avengers: Endgame was the most important film of all time or how Martin Scorsese isn’t important and his opinions don’t matter. So that’s real and that’s what Winona is talking about. But I also think there are many young people who actually do have the attention span and the willingness and they just don’t know where to start. It’s easier to binge-watch seven seasons of a TV show on Netflix than hunt for old Douglas Sirk or John Cassavetes films.

Also: in this LAT piece, Winona says that she still exchanges hand-written letters with Keanu Reeves and Daniel Day-Lewis. OMG.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.