Former Journalist Mark Anthony Green’s New Film Questions Our Relationship With Celebrity Culture–’ We’ve Taken A Dark Turn’ – Essence

The bigger the talent, the bigger the forgiveness. 

That is one of the most striking lines from Opus, a new A24 film written and directed by Mark Anthony Green. The quip was delivered by the movie’s central figure, Alfred Moretti, played by actor John Malkovich. 

Opus follows Ariel, a young writer played by Ayo Edebiri who is invited along with other journalists to the remote compound for an album listening for a legendary pop star (John Malkovich) who mysteriously disappeared thirty years ago. While there, she notices extraordinary things happening at the hands of the celebrity and is the only one to speak out. Sound familiar? 

“It is a film about tribalism,” Green explains. “It’s a film about these people that we idolize and how, for a lot of people, that {idolization} has become their identity. And this global pandemic of tribalism is truly a global pandemic. It’s a heady topic that needs to be explored, but this is a fun way to interrogate if this {celebrity worship} still serves us. I don’t have the answers, but I wanted to help start to ask the questions.” 

This inquisitive process makes sense for Green. For years, he’s been a discerning voice that’s helped shape the cultural conversation from inside the glossy pages of GQ as an editor. While there, he profiled everyone from Jay-Z to Dapper Dan about style. Now, Green is taking that same storytelling prowess to the big screen. Opus, his most ambitious directorial effort yet, is a layered, genre-bending film that marks his bold transition from the bylines of high fashion magazines to the director’s chair in Hollywood. 

When I asked Green why he left a cushy career in journalism to leap Hollywood, his answer was

“I love this question. No one ever regrets chasing their dream. You never hear people talk like that. People hate the sacrifices and rejection they have to make. But you never hear people say, ‘I wanted to be an actor and I hated that I worked on my craft. People don’t usually have that type of regret.” 

He shared that he’d wanted to be a filmmaker since he was a kid but didn’t take the pursuit seriously until about eight years ago, when he released his first project, a short film entitled Trapeze USA, in 2017. 

“It checked every box for me. It scratched every itch. It filled every curiosity. I was so deeply exhausted. I went into debt making it, but I felt a satisfaction that felt like breathing. And then I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t feel like I’m breathing when I’m not doing this.’”

He says it took six years to make Opus, but he felt like he “was breathing” during the arduous process.

“It feels like this is my dream job.”

Unsurprisingly, the semi-autobiographical film explores this through Edebri’s earnest ambition and discerning eye that sees through the smoke, mirrors, and eroded morality of fame. Green admits that he embedded himself in various parts of the film without giving too much away. 

“I am in every pixel of every frame of this movie,” he says. “There are things that I put into this movie subconsciously that are very of me, and I didn’t know that until I showed it to my friends and family, and they pointed out all of these things.” 

He continues: “There’s some of me and my outlook in every part of this movie. And I think that one of the reasons why making a film is so scary is because it’s so deeply personal. It’s so deeply vulnerable. But I’m even more proud to show this part of myself to the world. I guess there’s part of me that hopes they like me.” 

Opus is in theaters nationwide.