Xavier Dolan Retires From Making Movies: ‘Art Is Useless’

Forum 9 months ago

Xavier Dolan Retires From Making Movies: ‘Art Is Useless’

Xavier Dolan is retiring from filmmaking.

The director of critically acclaimed movies like Mommy, I Killed My Mother, and Laurence Anyways, spoke in 2022 about how he was considering quitting filmmaking. “I don’t really want to do this job anymore,” he told Journal de Montreal (via World of Reel). “I’m tired. We are in 2022, and the world has changed drastically. Me, in that world, I no longer necessarily feel the need to tell stories and to relate to myself.

“I want to take time to be with my friends and family. I want to shoot commercials and build myself a house in the country one day when I have enough money saved. I don’t say that in a sad way at all. I just want to live something else, other experiences.”

Why is Xavier Dolan retiring?

Dolan recently told Spanish outlet El Pais that he is done making movies. “I don’t feel like committing two years to a project that barely anyone sees. I put too much passion into it to have these disappointments. It makes me wonder if my filmmaking is bad, and I know it’s not.”

“I don’t understand what is the point of telling stories when everything around us is falling apart. Art is useless and dedicating oneself to the cinema, a waste of time…”

This comes after a mixed reaction to his 2016 film It’s Only the End of the World, negative reviews for his English-language debut The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, and the relative obscurity of his latest film Matthias & Maxime.