Christine Vachon has one of the best track records of anyone in the history of film: Her more than 80 credits as a producer or executive producer include Kids, I Shot Andy Warhol, Boys Don’t Cry, One Hour Photo, Party Monster, The Notorious Bettie Page, Vox Lux, First Reformed, Zola, and the recent Past Lives and A Different Man.
Those films don’t even include those directed by her most enduring creative partner, Todd Haynes. She has produced all 11 of his features, starting with his very DIY 1987 breakthrough Superstar — the tragic story of The Carpenters, told via Barbie dolls — and continuing through 2023’s magnificent May December.
But even Vachon has setbacks, especially as film financiers have become more risk-averse in recent years, particularly when it comes to dramas for grown-ups. She remembers recently approaching some financiers with a script that they agreed was fantastic. But they decided to pass because they just couldn’t figure out who would want the film.
“And I was just like, ‘Jesus, guys: You love it, you think the casting is amazing, you think it’s completely original, and you won’t buy it? That’s depressing,’” Vachon recalls.
Still, the wins outnumber the losses. On the early summer weekend when we spoke with her, at the Provincetown International Film Festival, the then-new film Materialists — her second collaboration with Past Lives director Celine Song — was enjoying the third-best opening weekend ever for an A24 film, and the best-ever for a non-genre A24 film.
Vachon, who leads Killer Films with fellow New York producer Pamela Koffler, has co-written three books on independent filmmaking and speaks regularly at film schools all over the world, while also serving as the artistic director of the MFA Program at Stony Brook Manhattan. So please bear in mind that her list of Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker is by no means all-encompassing. –M.M.
1. A lot of young people say to me, “What’s the path? How do I get to where you are?” And you know, my answer is, “Be born in the ’60s. Come of age in New York City in the ’80s.” It’s not the same path, guys. I don’t know what to tell you. But when I try and pull out things that worked for me, I would say that in some ways, the fact that I knew as little as I did when I told Todd Haynes I wanted to produce his first feature meant that I had a kind of fearlessness, so that was really helpful. I didn’t know how hard it was.
2. I also think that a lot of young people today get very caught up in this idea that there is a path and that they have to tick boxes off to get to be a writer, to get to be a director, to get to be a producer. And I’m a big proponent of just: Walk through the doors that open for you.
You think you want to be in documentaries, but you get an opportunity in publicity? Try it. When I have people come speak at my class who are costume designers or DPs or directors or whatever they are, my first question to them always is, “How did you get here? How did you decide you wanted to be this?” And 90% of the time, the answer is, “Funny you should ask, because I thought I wanted to do this, but then this happened to me…”
Christine Vachon on Nepotism vs. Working Your Way Up
3. Film is accused, quite rightly, of being a very relationship-oriented business. And I see the film sets where everyone has a last name that has had honorifics applied to it. And I know that for a lot of people starting out, that’s daunting. And I’m not going to pretend that nepotism isn’t extremely alive and well — butI do think it’s a business in which you really can work your way up from the bottom, and hard work is noticed and rewarded.
4. I have a 25-year-old daughter, and she loves going to the movies, and she goes all the time, and she bemoans the fact that there’s just not enough to see. We’re in this kind of crazy place: There’s not enough to see, but we’re not making a whole lot. Except for superhero movies.
5. We’re in a real doom and gloom moment right now. But on the other hand, what keeps happening in this business is something just comes out of left field. A movie just suddenly appears and people gravitate towards it. And you think to yourself, “I didn’t see that coming – I didn’t even know there was an audience for that.”
But somehow that movie tapped into something that nobody else tapped into, and that keeps happening. We have to be really original. That’s the only thing that keeps us alive.
Christine Vachon on Producer Credits
6. There’s slightly more concern for work-life balance than in the ’80s when I was a PA. The hours, while still crazy, aren’t really as crazy as they were.There’s a little bit more acknowledgement and respect for better working environments.
7. We should probably talk a little bit about producers. I’m a member of a group called Producers United, and I think we’re sort of at an inflection point around producers. And of course, I could do the “waah, we’re underpaid and underappreciated” and all of that. But I do feel like producers have hit a little bit of a breaking point.
We really need an acknowledgement and understanding of what producers actually do. If you need a movie financed, and somebody comes and says, “I’ll give you half your budget, but I need a co-director credit,” the answer is, “You’re out of your fucking mind.” If they say, “I need a co-writing credit,” same answer: “You didn’t write it, you didn’t direct it, so why would I share my credit with you?”
And they both have guilds that protect them and make sure that that doesn’t happen. But if somebody comes to a producer and says, I’m gonna give you half your budget, but I want a producer credit, our answer is usually “OK,” because there isn’t really a mechanism in place to protect our craft, and and that’s hard.
Main image: Christine Vachon. Photo by Brian Bowen Smith
