By Kartik Iyer
Richard Linklater was working on Apollo 10 ½ : A Space Age Childhood since about 2018-19. I remember the earliest story broke when Linklater’s production company, Detour, published a press release requesting Austin residents to share pictures of the city during 1969. Over the course of the next couple of years, pictures from the set and comments from sources confirmed that the film was about the Apollo mission, space, and Linklater’s own childhood.
The title of the film confirms that cinema is vital to the movie’s narrative too. It hints at the biggest movie of that era, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Linklater has spoken about the aura surrounding the film and experience of growing up in that wild moment of change. Thus, it is unsurprising that Linklater would go back to his past; also because Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, and Everybody Wants Some! are movies about the past.
Rick Linklater is not alone in this. Since the past five-six years, there has been a rise in movies based on its maker’s life. People largely call them self-reflective movies. The term is interesting. The screen reflects the life, emotions, conflicts, events, etc. of the director/writer. But if the director of a movie is an auteur, then it automatically suggests that the movie is making a personal statement. An argument can be made that contemporary directors like Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Anurag Kashyap, Sriram Raghavan, etc. make movies reflective of their character, personality, preferences, inspirations, etc. Thus, there is more to the term self-reflective than personal or anecdotal stories. I believe it has to do with their connection to the format of film.

Whenever a director sets out to make a movie that portrays his/her personal relation to movies, the emotions and concerns attached to the profession and its role in his/her life, and social life at large, we call it a self-reflective movie. It is about reflecting one’s thoughts and emotions about the medium through the very medium. It is similar to Martin Scorsese writing an essay about the value cinema has in our lives in the Harper’s magazine. Or, aptly, Scorsese making Hugo.
In recent years, the number of such self-reflective movies has risen. There might be plenty of lists that cover these movies. I generally avoid doing lists, but I shall be presenting one here because if I am to make a list of movies that moved me in the past few years, these self-reflective movies will be present in that list. Hence, I have decided to make a note of them separately below. I haven’t watched Linklater’s latest yet, but I will soon, in the hopes of it being one of the below.
- Martin Scorsese’s Hugo:
For those born in a time when streaming is your first introduction to cinema, Hugo will serve as an indicator of what you’ve lost.
- Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry and Chaitanya Tamhane’s The Disciple:
Starkly different directors, vastly different styles, and very different cultural settings. Despite the differences, both these films talk about passion, art, growing up, and the costs of chasing your dream. Jodorowsky approaches it in a fantastical, surreal manner, while Tamhane keeps his ear to the ground. The point, for me, was the same.
- Zoya Akhtar’s Luck by Chance and David Fincher’s Mank:
Akhtar’s movie is a rare one because the Bollywood film industry rarely takes a hard look in the mirror. The director confirmed it when she shared that audiences loved the movie but the people in the industry despised it; too close to home, I guess. Fincher’s Mank also looks at its own industry, albeit from a historical perspective. Although it is history, it has a lot to say about the way things are. Hence, I have clubbed these two together for what they say about the politics, economics, and culture of the movie business.
- Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory and Mia Hansen-Love’s Bergman Island:
Both these directors approach the topics of creativity, passion, reality, and fantasy in their own unique visions. The result is a deeply moving experience. They remind me of a quote by Paul Schrader that goes something like this: a good film begins once you’ve exited the cinema. PS: Hansen-Love’s Bergman Island is one of my all-time favourites.
- Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 1/2:
These films recreate worlds that are nostalgic. Not due to their plastic quality but the ephemeral charm pervading from the specifics of culture and human experience. The can of dog foods, sandwiches inside tiffin boxes, songs on the radio, playground games, and plenty of other things that populate these films convey more than accurate representation of the past. These objects hint at a stronger subjective connection they had in the lives of the directors. And they could have evoked such a strong response only through the medium of moving pictures and sound. Perhaps it is a boomer trip, as one critic wrote. Nonetheless, the charm is strong. And warm.
I haven’t mentioned any films made in the longer past. I feel today’s self-reflective movies are a result of not just an inquisitive mind, but due to the current cinematic climate. The anxieties of today, with respect to cinema, could be a factor. Thus, filmmakers feel the need to reflect, contemplate and express why they’re doing what they’re doing, in the hopes that their purpose might help others find one. More importantly, we, as a society, might get assistance in our revaluation of cinema’s place in our world. Let’s hope we’re listening.~
brangan
April 19, 2022
What a fantastic essay, Kartik. Thanks.
The Jodorowsky / Tamhane juxtaposition is just tops.
LikeLiked by 2 people
brangan
April 19, 2022
Just one thing: do you want to say “self-reflexive”?
LikeLike
Naren
April 19, 2022
Fellini’s “8 1/2”, Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard”, in Truffaut’s “La Nuit Américaine” he embodies the character himself, Charlie Kauffman’s debut “Synecdoche, New York” and also Jodorowsky’s “The Holy Mountain” to name a few.
Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has the basis of L.A. in the past with elements of alternate history mixed in with them. The highlight of it being the final act of the movie. That makes it more of a wishful nostalgia entrenched in the real world in which he grew up. More recently PTA’s “Licorice Pizza” also mulls over the past as well. The title, despite what it suggests, was an actual chain of record stores in Southern California frequented by PTA himself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
vijay
April 19, 2022
Kartik, I have’nt watched a number of movies you have mentioned, but still overall a very interesting and evocative write-up. Back home, we have had opportunities in Vellithirai, Kandukoden kandukonden, Bommalaattam etc. to name a few but they did’nt quite make the best use of it and messed it up. So muh so, there is a notion that any movie about the film industry or a meditation on movies or film-making is bound to bomb, especially in Tamil films. Not sure if Malayalam with its new wave has attempted anything like this recently.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kartik Iyer
April 19, 2022
When I wrote the first draft (that was when I had not watched Apollo 10 1/2 ; later I did, but forgot to redact that line from the above essay), I used ‘reflexive’. Later, I thought ‘reflective’ makes more sense. After reading your comment, I feel ‘reflexive’ is apt. I am confused.
PS: I absolutely forgot about Iruvar.
LikeLiked by 1 person
vijay
April 19, 2022
But Iruvar was’nt exactly about films or filmmaking even if it had a few scenes relating to that, since the lead character was a movie star.
LikeLike
Madan
April 19, 2022
Very interesting topic. Haven’t seen any of these films but films or series about films are always interesting. I loved Feud which was about Joan Crawford vs Betty Davis. I have HEARD that Anbulla Rajnikanth was about filmmaking but haven’t seen it so no idea. I guess Mulholland Drive too, which again I have been trying to find somewhere where I could watch but to no avail.
LikeLike
krishikari
April 19, 2022
I haven’t mentioned any films made in the longer past. I feel today’s self-reflective movies are a result of not just an inquisitive mind, but due to the current cinematic climate.
Wonderful essay. Loved it.
Just a couple days ago I was listening to someone passionately discuss Death in Venice which is playing at a theatre here. Seems like it would fit this theme reflective/reflexive life of an artist even though it was made in 1971 and set in the early 1900’s. Maybe there is really nothing new in the world? In this film, there is a cholera epidemic raging and city authorities downplay it because of tourism.
LikeLike
sanjana
April 19, 2022
Kaagaz ke phool, Mahanati come to mind.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anand Raghavan
April 19, 2022
Will Vinnaithandi Varuvaya by Gautam Menon fall in this category ?
LikeLike
Karthik
April 19, 2022
Great piece and wonderfully curated list, Kartik!
The latest movie that came to mind after reading your list is Meet the Ricardos. In general, many if not most of Sorkin’s works fit into your definition of “self-reflective” cinema.
The screen reflects the life, emotions, conflicts, events, etc. of the director/writer. But if the director of a movie is an auteur, then it automatically suggests that the movie is making a personal statement
Meet the Ricardos has all that, in addition to romanticizing the making of a TV show, the medium where Sorkin really distinguished himself.
LikeLike
Naren
April 19, 2022
Karthik, Sorkin’s work do tend to have the self-reflective nature baked right into them but if u leave it to him then all his characters wud look like the video of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall where people are sent into the world like products that look exactly the same in a factory’s moving assembly line. I don’t think anyone else has self-plagiarised their own work more than Sorkin. He is the master copy writer. I do like many aspects of his work but the following shows his level of redundancy . . .
LikeLike
Naren
April 19, 2022
LikeLike
MANK
April 20, 2022
Most of Orson Welles films are self reflexive, even though only his final film, other side of Wind directly relates to cinema.
LikeLike
MANK
April 20, 2022
Another great one comes to mind is Bob Fosse’s “All that Jazz.” As for Death in Venice, i think “The Leopard” is much more self reflexive from Visconti, i believe ; Burt Lancaster modelled the Prince of Salina after the aristocratic director.
LikeLike
krishikari
April 20, 2022
Another great one comes to mind is Bob Fosse’s “All that Jazz.”
Yes! I watched that movie five times back in the day. Now it might seem dated with the five stages of death pop psychology but I think I could still watch it again.
LikeLike