Written By: Claire Philipi
I think I figured out why the economy stinks. Everyone is trying to make a movie. I am reading more and more stories about people leaving the financial world, literally running from money, and running off to make a movie. As romanticized as an idea this may be, it is no easy feat. It’s no bailout. But, there are those few that have taken their destiny into their own hands and taken a strong run at Hollywood.
Brit Marling, the “it girl” of this years Sundance, valedictorian of her Georgetown class, and former intern at Goldman Sachs, has carved out a path for herself unlike any other young starlet. She co-wrote and starred in Another Earth, part sci-fi, part melancholy love story. A story of a promising young student who on the eve she is accepted to MIT a new planet, “Earth II” is discovered. While driving home from a celebration she crashes into a family, putting the father in a coma and killing the wife. Instead of going to college she goes to jail.
“I always started writing in order to act,” Marling explains. “I don’t know that I could have the discipline to sit down and write if I was going to give it away. That would be too hard. But I love to act in stories that are outside my imagination because I can only conceive of so many things from my point of view. The thing that’s intoxicating about being an actor is that you get to live in someone else’s world for a while and I hope to do more of that.
“But I think I’ll never stop writing now because I’m wondering why there aren’t more representatives of women that are like the women we know," she said. “Where’s the film with the women who are complicated and strong and beautiful and sexy and interesting and of all body types? You don’t get to see enough of them. So there’s something important in attempting to write them for myself and for the insanely talented women out there.”
Bryan Hopkins left his career as a Quicken Loans banker to try something more creative. He cashed in his savings and enrolled in film school. “I was working to get paid and trying to have fun on my off hours,” he said. “I decided that philosophy wasn’t working…Now I’m trying to claw my way up and make up for 30 years I spent doing other stuff.”
The force behind the Sarah Palin documentary, The Undefeated, is Stephen K Bannon: former Goldman Sachs Mergers and Acquisitions Investment Banker turned filmmaker. He has produced documentaries on Ronald Regan and why liberal social changes were behind the economic meltdown and not institutions such as his former employer. He has become a darling of conservative documentaries. "because unlike (leftist gadfly filmmaker) Michael Moore, we don't have the $20 million in print and TV ad money from the Weinsteins and Disney. We really have to do everything kind of bootstrap."
