Guy Lodge, film critic for The Guardian and Variety, thinks that because Leonardo DiCaprio has not worked with a female director since 1995 then he should be held accountable for his own actions. Lodge went on Twitter for his DiCaprio smack down:
“This is all well and good, and some fine work has come out of it, but I wouldn’t call his choices adventurous either: huge studio prestige productions with established male directors,” Lodge wrote. “He hasn’t acted in a film with a female director since 1995, which I don’t think is an insignificant fact… I like that he’s choosy, and resistant to franchise fodder: he’s played his career well. But at this level of stardom, he has the clout to get riskier ideas (and talents) off the ground.”
DiCaprio made his film debut in Kristine Peterson’s “Critters 3” (1991) and, just a few years later, worked with Polish director Agnieszka Holland on the 1995 drama “Total Eclipse.” Those two remain the only female directors DiCaprio has worked with in his career.
Lodge being Lodge, this is a rather irksome and bogus condemnation of DiCaprio. Fact of the matter is this, DiCaprio has made it a priority to work with the most legendary of Hollywood filmmakers, all of which happen to be male. Is there anything wrong with his five-film partnership with Martin Scorsese? Of course not. Is there anything wrong in DiCaprio having worked with such an impressive bunch of directorslike Spielberg, Tarantino, Inarritu, Eastwood and Scott? Do I even need to answer this question? If anything, what Lodge is proving with his inadequately flat theorizing is that high-brow cinematic whining most definitely exists. Lodge famously did the same shtick last year with his assaultive and condemn-filled tweets about “Green Book.”