Although the succulent plot of ‘Big Little Lies’ is full of deceit and intrigue, in reality the best drama that surrounds the HBO series is behind the scenes. After reports emerged that season 2 director Andrea Arnold had lost control of the series and that both executive producer Jean-Marc Vallee and HBO had stepped in by taking over editing without the consent of of the director.
Faced with these accusations, many of the fans of the series were upset. It is ironic that precisely a series that deals with women facing imposing and controlling men reflects this drama also behind the scenes of the series.
HBO’s response to the controversy
Now, the president of HBO programming, Casey Bloys, has spoken about what really happened , in the hope of mitigating the damage caused by the information that we have told you before. However, what he has explained has not calmed the fans of the fiction, and they continue to think that Andrea Arnold found herself in an unfair situation.
“There is a lot of misinformation on that subject . To clarify a couple of things. There wouldn’t be a second season without Andrea. We are indebted to her. She got an extraordinary performance from the cast. As anyone who works in television knows, the director does not have ultimate creative control. That creative control was taken from a director is a false premise.” Casey Bloys commented.
He also added that “Normally, a director hands off the cut to the showrunner and production team who perfected the episode. That’s what happened here. The other thing that would clarify is that Jean-Marc Vallee did not unilaterally decide to take charge of the process . Andrea did the director’s cuts for all seven episodes, and turned them over to the showrunner and production team.”
Bloys went on to say that Arnold was aware of the situation beforehand and actually had dinner with Vallee before production, going over scripts and presumably what the season would be like.
Casey Bloys has clarified what happened with the director of ‘Big Little Lies’ | HBO
The HBO executive went on to say that there is a group of editors working on‘Big Little Lies’ which was selected by Jean-Marc Vallee: “Andrea did the director’s cuts, and then they were handed over to the production team. Later they came to Jean-Marc, he is an editor and has a team of editors that he works with. He is detail-oriented in who he works with.”
In this way, HBO washes its hands of affirming that director Andrea Arnold knew of the situation and that she was never given “final creative control” as is usual in these cases. Although the published information affirms that they had assured the director that she would have absolute control to contribute her vision to the project.
The inconsistencies on the part of HBO
One of the inconsistencies on the part of HBO and that the company has not mentioned anything, is the important change of the director of photography. Normally, the directors tend to inherit the team that has worked on the series for most of the seasons to guarantee some kind of continuity in the visual style.
However, for season 2 of ‘Big Little Lies,’ Arnold changed the photography team , bringing in Jim Frohna as the new cinematographer, with whom he had previously worked.
If, as HBO and Jean-Marc Vallee have commented, they let Arnold know in advance that his control was limited, the logical thing is that they would have left Vallee’s director of photographyor that he had brought someone he trusted, as he has done with the team of editors.
Will there be season 3 of ‘Big Little Lies’?
Nicole Kidman expressed interest in the possibility of making new episodes if all the members of the team returned. When Bloys was asked about this possibility, he did not make anything clear, although he did leave open the possibility of making a new season 3: “In my opinion, there is no obvious place to go, but this is an extraordinary group of people. actors and producers, and if they said “we have the best take”, I would listen to them. I would be open.”
If a new season is finally made, it would be interesting to see who would address the direction of the project. Until then, we can only thinkwhat has really happened in the production of season 2.
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