"Film Is A Battleground"
-Samuel Fuller
Exploring Movies About Making Movies
-Samuel Fuller
Exploring Movies About Making Movies
Mistaken identities. Irreverent mishaps. Farcical hijinks. All in a day’s work for of a classic comedy of errors. Audiences have long been entertained by such antics since as early as the 16th century with vaudevillian performances capitalising on credulous ways to exploit our natural disposition towards harmless schadenfreudian amusement. So taken by this genre of dramatic story-telling, the Great Bard himself, Shakespeare, even carved out a nice healthy piece of that pie with one of his most popular short plays, literally called The Comedy of Errors – it certainly does what it says on the tin. T’was glee all round and many playwrights soon followed with more stories that centred scenarios that posed the question “what could possibly go wrong?” (and the answer is: “everything!”).
Come the turn of the seventeenth century, more sophisticated meta-narratives emerged with plays about making plays. Audiences were invited to saviour the multi-layers of dramas unfolding, spectating as God, peeping behind the sober veneer of the stage set and performances, watching those puppet strings being prodded and pulled behind the scenes. Audiences were never meant to see actors fluff their lines or stage hands losing their cool as meticulous plans unravel but as soon as they did, they itched for more.
Centuries later, stage plays paved the way for the moving picture – the movies – and naturally, stage plays about producing stage plays turned into movies about making movies. Like their thespianic predecessors, these movies continue to allow us to cathartically surrender our agency as the world behind the proverbial curtain spins out of control. We watch, hands cupped over our faces, but fingers parted just enough to witness the madness – because the chaos is familiar. Things fall apart, break down, build back up, break down again… ad infinitum. These movies are a microcosm of life – from the tight pressures of planning, prepping and scripting, to dealing with the diversity of egos and personalities of the cast and crew, and to quote the great meme poet Sean Bean himself, “one does not simply… fixed it in post”. Filmmaking, like life, rarely goes to plan. Even if you’d thought of every problem to solve before they’ve even happened, a flash storm hits, or your mother turns up to set, or your cameraperson gets the shits. Resolutions can only be messily improvised. Plus there’s a quiet survivalist liberation in watching things go wrong for other people because, frankly, even if you’re empathic af, you’re still gadamn grateful that it’s not happening to you.
So here, I offer up my favourite movies about making movies. One of my earliest obsessions was watching the behind-the-scenes “making of” film that accompanied Michael Jackson’s 1983 Thriller music video (directed by John “American Werewolf In London” Landis) – the goofs, the rehearsals, the creature development – movies about making movies will always hit a personal soft spot for me. So sit back and throw that popcorn into your face with gay abandon – you’re safe here.
**Warning – spoilers ahead!**
Living In Oblivion
Director: Tom DiCillo, 1995, USA
This 90s indie flick encapsulates the chaotic spirit of filmmaking with a naïve honesty that’s so perfectly embodied by Steve Buscemi’s existentially mired movie director, Nick Reve. Anxiety-ridden, almost to the point of indecision paralysis, we hold our breath as the pressure envelopes Nick slowly… like Death’s icy hand in a Final Destination film… sorry, I digress. This film essentially bubbles, bubbles, bubbles… until it boils fully over – and no amount of Mr Muscle is going to get those burnt-on stains out. Working on a tight schedule and budget, mammoth talent egos, on set love triangles, uninvited set guests – can Nick just get on with making his film already??
Like all movies about making movies, the central question to all of this is “why?” Why do any of this? Why suffer to make art? The passion. The mess. This film portrays this struggle as the refracted chaos of the human mind in all its meta absurdity. Freudian senses are aroused as this beautiful car crash is just too delicious to turn away from. And the stellar casting with Catherine Keener, Peter Dinklage and Dermot Mulroney helps too.
The Woodsman and the Rain
Director: Shuichi Okita, 2011, Japan
A criminally underrated heart-warming comedy gem starring Koji Yakusho (star of Tampopo, Cure and more recently, Perfect Days) as Katsuhiko, a tree feller living his best rural village life alone and by meticulous routine. One fine unsuspecting day, a film crew from the big city rocks up to the village to shoot a zombie film much to the curiosity of the locals. But Katsuhiko, however, respectfully farts in their general direction until he’s unsuspectedly roped in. Simple location scouting, you say? Of course, it always starts out like this…
This is a tale of two worlds colliding and the necessity to overcome those discomforts to achieve the same goal. Film crews can be obnoxious at the best of times with their often highfalutin demands and it seems that only Katsuhiko can deliver the straight shooting solutions when things start to spiral. Especially when the young director tries to run away and Katsuhiko must put on this tough paternal hat that he’d abandoned long ago. Cut to Katsuhiko, grey bloody make up, arms stretched out, macabre moans – yup, he’s a zombie extra. Team work really is dream work and in this case, it really does take a village.
Late Night with the Devil
Director: Cameron & Colin Cairns, 2023, USA
A lot of movies about making movies engage the found footage trope (made famous by the 1999 Blair Witch Project phenomenon) because there’s something deeply satisfying about watching something that is discovered by accident, something that’s not meant to be seen. Voyeurism is tantalising. Late Night With The Devil begins with a preface – that what you are about to watch is a lost recording of a late-night 1970s talk show that never made it to air. Why? Well, you’re about to find out. Roll tape.
We arrive in the behind-the-scenes bustle of a live studio show – the 70s Mad Men-esque pastiche-athon alone is marvellous eye candy with the bold patterned set design, cinnamon-brown flared suits and shaggy hair styles. What’s more is that it’s Halloween night and our host, our star, Jack Delroy, played by goth supreme, David Dastmalchian, is desperate to bolster his dwindling ratings. A couple demonic possessions later and all hell literally breaks loose on set. And it’s all on camera.
It's no secret that movie making is a dream factory – for many, underpinned by the pursuit of success, fame, glory, awards, and money. But at what cost? If only you could pay bills with hope and passion alone – bottle me up! Faustian pacts, trading your soul with the Devil for fame and fortune, comes with consequences and Jack Delroy wishes that he’d never knocked on that door.
Troll Hunter
Director: André Øvredal, 2010, Norway
This is the first written and directed feature film by André Øvredal, who, I’m just going to say it, cannot make a bad horror movie (Autopsy of Jane Doe, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark and Last Voyage of the Demeter). It’s another found footage gem consisting of unedited rushes shot by a group of young ambitious filmmakers who set off in their role model, Michael Moore’s, footsteps to uncover a worthy story of illegal bear poaching in the Norwegian wilds, only to discover a world beyond their wildest beliefs when they accidentally trail a real life Troll Hunter, Hans. Yup, trolls. Real ones who live, breath… and hunt. And they’re not cute.
Movies about making scripted movies are able to edge into the realms of the absurd because it’s all about having a meticulous plan go spectacularly wrong. This is the world of unscripted – documentaries and news – there’s only so much planning you can do as you wait for the story to find you. In keeping to the raw social realist aesthetic, this film is able to live comfortably in the horror genre because when we’re watching things go wrong in this way, it becomes truly terrifying (comedy and horror intersect closer than we think in providing cathartic relief - one for another post). As we follow the filmmakers delving deeper into the dangerous world of trolls, they’ve clearly bitten of more than they can chew and there seems to be no way back from it. The only way out is through – and that camera is allowing us to bear witness to all of it.
One Cut Of The Dead
Director: Shin’ichiro Ueda, 2017, Japan
This little comedy horror broke out of nowhere. Shot for a microbudget of US$30k, it grossed over US$30 million – that’s right, MILLION – worldwide, managing to tear the very risk-averse indie movie scene a new one. Word of mouth spread like wildfire – “you’ve got to see it to believe it!” tipped everyone, viewers and critics alike. They weren’t wrong. The Japanese title translates into English more directly as "Don't Stop the Camera!" – we follow a film crew tasked to produce a low-budget zombie film as a live one-take TV special at an abandoned, potentially haunted, warehouse. I mean, we all saw how tough the one-take gem Adolescence was even with its Netflix budget!
Of course, anything that could go wrong does go wrong… including real zombies turning up! But as live-TV dictates, the camera must keep rolling. But that’s all I’ll say here because the pleasure of watching this film is that you literally cannot predict where it’s going to go. Once you’re on that crazy train, there’s absolutely no way of getting off – but you’re guaranteed to be fist-pumping for the crew the entire way to wrap!
Shadow of the Vampire
Director: E. Elias Merhige, 2000, UK / Luxembourg / Spain / USA
Robert Egger’s Nosferatu was one of the most highly anticipated box office releases of 2025. Who would have thunk that a gothic horror re-make of F W Murnau’s 1922 Dracula-knock-off silent classic would capture the imaginations of a mainstream cinema-going crowd over 100 years later?! It seems that vampires and the big screen really are a hot marriage that audiences can’t get enough of – “vampirism can function as a metaphor for the parasitism in the madness of film-making” to quote Peter Bradshaw, and Shadow of a Vampire does just this. A film about the making of the original Murnau film, starring Willem Dafoe as the creepy abit-too-method actor Max Schreck who plays the title vampire role alongside John Malkovich playing the long-suffering director, F W Murnau.
What’s fun about this film is that it’s based on the actual true events of the making of the film, with shots set up so perfectly to frame-match the original film, but then veers off completely into fiction when we learn that Max Schreck IS a real vampire hiding in plain sight, preying on his fellow cast and crew between takes. All this but set amongst the tumultuous backdrop of interfering financiers, strange locations, and much that’s lost in cultural translation. Dafoe’s delightfully hammy performance edges closer to Camp as the years go by but let’s remember, he bagged himself a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for this role. An actor playing an actor who’s actually not an actor but is pretending to be one. Are you still following?
BONUS FILM
6 Days To Air: The Making Of South Park
Director: Arthur Bradford, 2011, USA
This is a short 45-ish minute documentary about producing one of the last few decade’s most popular episodic television shows – yes, South Park IS still going. Famous for churning stop-motion animation satire GOLD sending up topical issues in almost real time, audiences turn to creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker for their social commentaries and with that demand for fast turnaround episodes comes a gruelling production schedule. In 2011 they allowed a film crew to follow them for a tense week of production of 1 episode – from conceptualising and writing all the way to the animation and broadcast. Amongst the child-like silliness are the all too real pressures – to the point that Trey Parker ends up physically hiding from his producer under his desk. This film captures that beating heart of South Park in exactly the way that you’d imagine – with bottled up, butt-clenching anarchy.
Other fun films to note include: An American Movie (dir: Chris Smith, 1999); Trilogy: X / Pearl / Maxxxine (dir: Ti West, 2022 & 2024, USA); Rec (dir: Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza , 2007); Cecil B. Demented (dir: John Waters, 2000); Hail! Caeser (dir. The Coen Brothers, 2016); 8 1/2 (dir: Federico Fellini, 1963).
Do you have any other favourite movies about making movies? Let me know by messaging me via my instagram: @dazzaroni_cheese
Published 2025.
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