Today's movies eschew moral complications or judgment, examinations of inner life experience, and mystery. Producers are embarrassed, however, to admit this in so many words. Holland's films are potentially too disturbing for audiences afraid to look inside of themselves. But, alas, this would not be marketable, and so she exercises some self-restraint. Holland was fortunate, she said, in that she was able to make this movie for the most part as she wished.
Movie stars themselves are a gauge of shifting audience tastes.
The most important quality in today's screen stars, according to Holland, is that they be good-looking. It is yet another indication of people's obsession with externalities and determination to avoid confronting their inner demons. The stupidity of mass culture, she said, is that it represents a sort of escape from freedom. In the past, she explained, people had to deal with dangerous, ultimately tragic, utopian experiments. She feels uncomfortable, she says, when confronted with those who would put down American culture out of hand.