If you look at Cinderhella, from a production design aspect, I tried to find an interesting, iconic character, having her face wrapped up in bandages. That was funny. On the dream logic level, you'll see the parallels of that interesting connection that I made. There's a reason why she's called Cinderhella.
Joseph M. KahnKids today are sold so much, by corporations and media and commercials and advertising and music videos, that I do. A lot of times, they retain that stuff and wear it, and that's the concept of a hipster. It's about owning it and redefining it, on your own level. It's a way of retaining control and meaning, in a world where you're being told to think in a certain way.
Joseph M. KahnWhen I see a kid in a movie theater texting, I think it's a failure of the movie. It's not a triumph of the Apple iPhone. It's a failure of Warner Bros. and Sony, and all that, because they haven't kept their attention and challenged them. They're smart little kids that are bored, and I wanted to challenge them.
Joseph M. KahnYou know that that thing is going to be as crisp and as clean, as many times as you want to watch it. So, I knew that the film was going to be watched multiple times, a lot like with music videos. Music videos aren't designed to be watched once. They're designed to be watched hundreds of times. On a certain level, the film was dream logic-ed, like a music video
Joseph M. KahnThe filmmaker should make it, and then the critic should interpret it, period. If the director goes in there and starts telling you exactly what to think, you have just completely slapped the audience in the face and not given them the opportunity to interest it, and that's terrible.
Joseph M. KahnOn a certain level, the film retains a cultural memory. It may be meaningless to some kids, but it doesn't matter. A lot of the '90s references will be meaningless, but do some of these kids really understand what they're wearing when they wear a Led Zeppelin shirt? No. But, it looks cool and it seems to have some sort of cultural cache.
Joseph M. Kahn