{"id":614586,"date":"2026-09-04T19:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T19:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/614586\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T19:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T19:42:12","slug":"chloe-zhao-defends-comic-book-movies-at-venice-dont-write-them-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/614586\/","title":{"rendered":"Chlo\u00e9 Zhao Defends Comic-Book Movies at Venice: Don’t Write Them Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Chlo\u00e9 Zhao was growing up, she dreamed not of directing movies but becoming a manga artist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut I wasn\u2019t very good at drawing. I wasn\u2019t up to standard,\u201d she said with a laugh during a wide-ranging masterclass about her career on Friday afternoon at the Venice Film Festival<\/a>. \u201cI wanted to tell stories. I didn\u2019t think cinema was an option for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, Zhao found her way into film and directed acclaimed movies such as 2020\u2019s Oscar-winning \u201cNomadland\u201d and 2025\u2019s Shakespearean drama \u201cHamnet.\u201d She was eventually able to meld her passions with 2021\u2019s Marvel adaptation \u201cEternals,\u201d which starred Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Barry Keoghan, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie and revolved around an immortal alien race sent to protect Earth from evil beings. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI loved doing it,\u201d she said of directing the movie. \u201cFor any of you who love anime, I know you know this was a girl\u2019s dream come true. Comic books are the western equivalent of [manga]. They are very different, but I live in the west, and that\u2019s what I had access to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough superhero movies have waned in popularity since the pandemic \u2014 even \u201cEternals\u201d fell short of box office expectations with $400 million globally against a $200 million-plus budget \u2014 Zhao sees the value in all forms of entertainment. That\u2019s unlike, say, Martin Scorsese, who has\u00a0infamously likened Marvel movies to \u201ctheme parks.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI do feel it\u2019s important to not write off stories because we don\u2019t consider them high art,\u201d she said. \u201cThe purpose of storytelling for me, humbly, is to create containers for people \u2026 to try to process what they need to process. Archetypes are such a great way to do it \u2014 and we see them in myths \u2014 is because it\u2019s something we all share.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe even drew a parallel between the big-budget tentpole \u201cEternals\u201d and \u201cNomadland,\u201d a sweeping, lyrical drama about a widow who loses her job, leading her to live out of her car and travel around the U.S. for work, after the moderator suggested a sharp contrast between the back-to-back projects. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat contrast? It\u2019s people in nature\u2026 with animals\u2026 who have complicated relationships with them,\u201d Zhao said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis marks a return to Venice for Zhao, having premiered \u201cNomadland\u201d on the Lido in 2020. The film, starring Frances McDormand, was honored with the prestigious Golden Lion before Zhao became only the second woman ever to win best picture at the Academy Awards. Zhao was back in the awards race for \u201cHamnet,\u201d which fictionalizes the family life of Shakespeares. The tear-jerker scored eight Oscar nods and one win for Jessie Buckley as William\u2019s wife Agnes.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring Friday\u2019s masterclass, Zhao shared that she didn\u2019t grow up watching a lot of films. And in her late 20s, she spent years as a bartender and described feeling \u201clost\u201d before discovering her passion for movies.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was still longing to tell stories,\u201d she said. \u201cFilm became a very natural choice. I always say film directors don\u2019t actually need to know how to do anything really well. I see it as someone who is going to manage an ecosystem, bringing everyone together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite her towering success, Zhao admits that, more recently, she\u2019s been pondering an existential question as a filmmaker.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy life is occupied by screens. Am I missing life because I was always there trying to capture it?\u201d she asked rhetorically. \u201cI am going through that crisis right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Chlo\u00e9 Zhao was growing up, she dreamed not of directing movies but becoming a manga artist.\u00a0 \u201cBut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[260668,321,309,93,61,60,802],"class_list":["post-614586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-cartier-master-classes","tag-celebrities","tag-chloe-zhao","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}