Acclaimed arthouse director Xavier Dolan is more synonymous with Cannes than the Warped Tour, but the beloved Quebecois multi-hyphenate recently revealed that he loves the shit out of Blink-182.
There's a scene in his new film It's Only the End of the World where a character is listening to the band's mall goth masterpiece "I Miss You," and Vulture recently asked Dolan about the song choice.
"I love Blink-182," he said. "What I generally look for in music is this sort of happy, sad, nostalgia-filled texture… or, otherwise, it's this empowering sexual vibe. It's generally either-or — it's gonna be sad and melancholic and you want to literally kill yourself and jump out the window, or it's going to be this sort of crazy, sexy thing."
Further, he explained that he loves using unpretentious pop music in his films. "When we were in prep for Mommy, I asked my producer Nancy Grant, 'Do you think I have the right to use Dido's 'White Flag' for the opening credits?' I love Dido, legitimately, but I was afraid that some people would sour hearing it and be like, 'Oh my God, what's that choice?' And I remember Nancy looked at me and she said, I remember, 'What do you mean, the right? You have the right to do anything. People will be pleased to hear that song, they love that song.'
"You have the right to stop being afraid of people who look down on these choices as being too commercial or accessible," he continued. "The snobbery comes from the fact that they refuse themselves the legitimacy of pleasure. Like, some people write me on Twitter and say, 'I loved your movie, but ugh, "Natural Blues" from Moby? You really disappointed me. How pedestrian of you.' And I'm like, 'Thank you. Duly noted.'"
It's not just pop music getting Dolan stoked these days, either. In a new interview with Variety, he opened up about his love for Pablo Larraín's Jackie.
"I left Jackie with an urgent need to be better, to create indelible, lasting things," he said. "I often thought I'd burst into tears during the screening. It was only later that night that I realized that I wasn't holding back tears of sadness, but those of wonderment for the talent of a group of extraordinary artists fighting for a bygone cinema anew."
There's a scene in his new film It's Only the End of the World where a character is listening to the band's mall goth masterpiece "I Miss You," and Vulture recently asked Dolan about the song choice.
"I love Blink-182," he said. "What I generally look for in music is this sort of happy, sad, nostalgia-filled texture… or, otherwise, it's this empowering sexual vibe. It's generally either-or — it's gonna be sad and melancholic and you want to literally kill yourself and jump out the window, or it's going to be this sort of crazy, sexy thing."
Further, he explained that he loves using unpretentious pop music in his films. "When we were in prep for Mommy, I asked my producer Nancy Grant, 'Do you think I have the right to use Dido's 'White Flag' for the opening credits?' I love Dido, legitimately, but I was afraid that some people would sour hearing it and be like, 'Oh my God, what's that choice?' And I remember Nancy looked at me and she said, I remember, 'What do you mean, the right? You have the right to do anything. People will be pleased to hear that song, they love that song.'
"You have the right to stop being afraid of people who look down on these choices as being too commercial or accessible," he continued. "The snobbery comes from the fact that they refuse themselves the legitimacy of pleasure. Like, some people write me on Twitter and say, 'I loved your movie, but ugh, "Natural Blues" from Moby? You really disappointed me. How pedestrian of you.' And I'm like, 'Thank you. Duly noted.'"
It's not just pop music getting Dolan stoked these days, either. In a new interview with Variety, he opened up about his love for Pablo Larraín's Jackie.
"I left Jackie with an urgent need to be better, to create indelible, lasting things," he said. "I often thought I'd burst into tears during the screening. It was only later that night that I realized that I wasn't holding back tears of sadness, but those of wonderment for the talent of a group of extraordinary artists fighting for a bygone cinema anew."
