We All Start Somewhere: Watch the Directorial Debut That Haunts Academy Award Winner Ben Affleck
The first films you make are never going to be your best (unless things go really, really well, and you've got a bit of money behind you). Just because a movie may be someone's first feature, doesn't mean they've never made a film before. Sometimes there are a few gems in that early work, but more often than not, plenty of them are cringe-worthy. That seems to be the case with one of Academy Award-winning Ben Affleck's first short films made in 1993, I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney (catch all that?). Watch the film embedded below.
Apparently this is the film Affleck was talking about in an interview with Entertainment Weekly (thanks to Film School Rejects for the links):
“It’s horrible,” he told Entertainment Weekly a few years ago. “It’s atrocious. I knew I wanted to be a director, and I did a couple of short films, and this is the only one that haunts me. I’m not proud of it…It looks like it was made by someone who has no prospects, no promise.”
The movie is separated into two parts (and there is quite a bit of NSFW language):
He's certainly gone on to bigger and better things, but if you're ever feeling discouraged about your work, just know that Affleck directed the film above and is now nominated for a Director's Guild of America award and Best Picture Academy Award this year for Argo. It's one of the reasons why discouraging others about their work is a complete waste of time: we've all got something we're not proud of -- and that includes those working at the highest level.
So the next time you're thinking about leaving a comment on someone's film that is anything but constructive, consider that they might be standing on the Academy stage one day, while you're sitting at home watching it on television.
Links:
- Ben Affleck's Directorial Debut 1993-part 1 -- YouTube
- Ben Affleck's Directorial Debut 1993-part 2 -- YouTube
[via Film School Rejects]