Did Nic Pizzolatto passively-aggressively slam director Cary Fukunaga?
During the third episode of True Detective’s Season 2, there were a few scenes on a movie set. The fictional director had a man-bun and seemed like an alcoholic jerk who goes to industry sex-parties and gets blackout drunk. Since I’m so disconnected and apathetic towards the characters in this world, I didn’t really think much of it. But Vulture has theorized that the “director character” was possibly writer Nic Pizzolatto’s attempt to be a giant bitch about Cary Fukunaga, the director of TD’s Season 1. Now that I’ve read the Vulture piece… yes, it’s more than possible. Fukunaga became an internet crush last year, although I was already familiar with him because A) he dated Michelle Williams and B) he directed the Fassbender in the latest adaptation of Jane Eyre. Cary came off of True Detective with widespread praise and love, while Pizzolatto came off of the first season looking like a temperamental, egotistical, misogynistic douchebag. Of course Pizzolatto is passively-aggressively butthurt about Cary Fukunaga. Here’s part of Vulture’s story:
Rumors of tension between Cary Fukunaga, who directed all eight episodes of season one, and Nic Pizzolatto, who has written every episode of the show, have swirled since before the series even aired, but the two men have kept a tight lid on exactly what happened between them. Fukunaga said all the right things after it came out he wouldn’t be back for the show’s second season — other projects, heavy workload — and he remains onboard as an executive producer. But judging from Sunday night’s scene, it seems there’s a little lingering bad blood between the two, at least on Pizzolatto’s side. Why?
Just like Rust Cohle and Marty Hart, we need to go back to the beginning. As the rumors from last year put it, Pizzolatto and Fukunaga had a basic clash of personalities. Pizzolatto, as anyone who’s read a profile of him knows, is an intense dude; Vanity Fair saw in him “the aura of a bear or some other species of dangerous animal,” and that sentence was written by one of his friends. Fukunaga is said to be more laid-back. Could the bold writer with the raging soul of Hemingway simply have gotten annoyed with the chillaxed snowboard dude? It’s certainly possible, but plenty of people work alongside co-workers with different personalities without excoriating them by proxy.
Maybe their egos were a problem? Both Pizzolatto, a novelist, and Fukunaga, a film director, came from fields where they were used to being the supreme creative authority. It’s not hard to imagine the two men locked in a battle of wills over who had the final say, an impression that’s solidified when you read between the lines of the Hollywood Reporter cover story on Pizzolatto last summer, in which the True Detective team attempted to smooth over the rumors that the dual auteurs were at odds. Producer Scott Stevens allowed that the writer and director were “two people who want to be in charge of things,” but he swore that any disagreements between the two fell well within the bounds of normal on-set behavior. Pizzolatto agreed, telling THR: “Cary and I worked together really smoothly. There was never any contention. Of course, you’re going to have discussions and difference of opinion, but what matters is that everyone is working without ego toward the best realization of what we have.” (Fukunaga did not comment for the THR story.)
But if Pizzolatto was so eager to bury the feud story last year, why is he taking potshots now? The answer could lie in the divergent paths each man’s reputation has taken in the months since the season-one finale. After the underwhelming final installment, the wunderkind mystique fell off Pizzolatto like a heavy coat. His combative persona led to ill-advised tiffs with critics like Emily Nussbaum, particularly over the issue of the first season’s female characters, and he found himself accused of plagiarizing some of Rust Cohle’s best lines. Fukunaga, by contrast, got off nearly scot-free. His post-finale interviews were full of sharp, sensitive answers, and by the time the Emmys rolled around, he’d become the patron hunk of the thinking-woman’s internet. For a large portion of True D’s fan base, the matter was settled: Everything good about the first season was because of Fukunaga and Matthew McConaughey; everything bad was Pizzolatto’s fault.
(You know what else happened at the Emmys? Fukunaga didn’t thank Pizzolatto in his Best Director acceptance speech. Raise your hand if you think Pizzolatto has forgotten that.)
Ha, I totally forgot that Fukunaga didn’t thank Pizzolatto. That must have been salt in the wound because Nic didn’t win any Emmys that night. Ha! But yes, I agree with Vulture’s assessment – considering the clunky, hacky writing of Season 2, we can clearly see that Pizzolatto isn’t really all that. Fukunaga’s direction elevated mediocre scripts in Season 1 and Fukunaga got those performances out of Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. And Pizzolatto is SO MAD about it.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.
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