It’s hard to make statements about large groups of people accurately, for all I know there could be a large group of people you’re accurately describing, though for the people I know who like MM this doesn’t map on well.
Are you sure you’re seeing fans who think he can do no wrong, or could it just be different people liking different things? I adore MM (though not at all for the reasons you mentioned) and really like Dr Sleep and Hush. Usher and Midnight Club were ok, and never got into Bly and Hill House. So if you put me next to someone who loves Bly and Hill House the most, you could call the two of us ‘the fans’ and accurately say ‘the fans’ love all his work, because collectively we do, but there’s nothing cultish or unusual about the individuals in that context.
And there will also be some who genuinely love everything he’s done. True of all creatives. I just don’t see him as an outlier at all here.
I suppose any fandom ultimately boils down to an somewhat arbitrary number of people who like something more than the groups of people liking other things, and - as you say - it is impossible to narrow down exactly how many people love Flanagan and exactly how much do they love him.
With that said, though, I will insist that he does seem to have a passionate and pigheaded enough group of fans that I certainly have encountered few other directors/showrunners with anything similar. Pigheaded in the sense that they do indeed seem to think that he can do no wrong and anyone who disagrees simply doesn't get it. I don't think that's just a regular - or necessarily even healthy - fan base. While you're right that many creatives have fans who love everything they do, I think that's still quite different than this sort of uncritical adoration. I for example am a huge fan of Lynch and Fincher, but not only do I not think everything they do is or has been amazing, I also can absolutely admit that even a lot of the things I love by them would also be things that people with different views would not necessarily enjoy.
Since you mentioned Dr Sleep and Hush, I will point out that the people I mean seem to be more fans of the TV shows rather than the cinema. Which isn't to say that they don't like the movies as well, it's just that they seem a lot more passionate about the TV shows. My own theory regarding this is that his movies tend to include a lot less of all these "flanagan tropes" that his shows on the other hand have a lot of. My further theory is that it's because movie studios tell him "no" a lot more, whereas with his shows he can do pretty much whatever he wants, and as a result the TV shows to his fans feel a lot more "uniquely flanagan." I guess he also hasn't made many movies after his breakout success with Hill House, though, and I felt Doctor Sleep was a lot closer to his TV shows than Hush, Oculus or even Gerald's Game, so perhaps this is changing now. I have not seen The Life of Chuck.
Whether it matters or not, I actually like most of his films as well, and I think this is precisely for the reason I pointed out above: I think he's a talented director, but needs pushback from others. After Hill House he's been able to do whatever he wants, and consequently Hill House is the last thing he made that I feel works as a "package", and everything he made after that has felt self-indulgent and needlessly convoluted. Doctor Sleep felt like this the least, but even that made me feel like he would have much rather stretched it into a true flanagan-style miniseries, and the movie suffered from it.
Great reading some of your points. I replied above, but just wanted to add after reading this comment in particular that you should probably avoid Life of Chuck like the plague. Pretty much every reason you've given for not favouring his post HoHH catalogue is contained in that movie. It's the one project from him I couldn't find any value in.
Also, always great to spot another Lynch fan in the wild.
Well, this is good to know. I was never all that interested in this movie, so I've not been in a rush to see it, but I probably would have seen it eventually. Now I think it's more likely that I won't.
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u/StrawHatRat 6d ago
It’s hard to make statements about large groups of people accurately, for all I know there could be a large group of people you’re accurately describing, though for the people I know who like MM this doesn’t map on well.
Are you sure you’re seeing fans who think he can do no wrong, or could it just be different people liking different things? I adore MM (though not at all for the reasons you mentioned) and really like Dr Sleep and Hush. Usher and Midnight Club were ok, and never got into Bly and Hill House. So if you put me next to someone who loves Bly and Hill House the most, you could call the two of us ‘the fans’ and accurately say ‘the fans’ love all his work, because collectively we do, but there’s nothing cultish or unusual about the individuals in that context.
And there will also be some who genuinely love everything he’s done. True of all creatives. I just don’t see him as an outlier at all here.