Why are – Two very different stories—Kane Parsons’ breakout with A24’s theatrical “Backrooms” and Paul Schrader’s upbeat talk of ChatGPT’s creative help—show a widening generational split over AI’s place in filmmaking. The tension isn’t about banning technology; it’s ab
Last week, two separate stories on IndieWire landed like mirrors held up to the same industry—just angled toward different generations of filmmakers.
The first focused on 20-year-old Kane Parsons. whose viral analog horror phenomenon “Backrooms” is now a major theatrical release from A24. Parsons spoke in detail about his debut film’s shot construction, visual effects, sound design, and narrative world-building. He also described a uniquely high-stakes timing problem: delaying his college applications so he could deliver a movie worthy of the big screen.
The second story centered on 79-year-old Paul Schrader, a towering figure among American screenwriters. He’s best known for 1976’s “Taxi Driver,” a film that earned four Oscar nominations. Over decades. Schrader has moved between screenwriting. directing. and routine media provocation. returning again and again to themes of loneliness. political rot. and spiritual decay through titles like “Raging Bull. ” “American Gigolo. ” and “First Reformed.”.
So it landed with a strange kind of dissonance to read Schrader’s recent keynote address from the industry symposium AI on the Lot in Los Angeles, where he discussed the creative potential of ChatGPT.
The gap isn’t that technology belongs nowhere near art. The gap is that. in living legends’ mouths. “generative” enthusiasm can sound like it’s surrendering the very human judgment that built the work in the first place. The unease grows sharper when the industry’s economic pressure starts rewarding anyone willing to trade reputation for the chance to make “even just one more film.”.
Hollywood has always been obsessed with youth, but the generational turnover inside entertainment feels especially disorienting right now. Many young filmmakers are no longer arriving through familiar pipelines like festivals, studio internships, or film schools. Instead. they come from digital communities that can generate social media buzz long before the broader business understands what it’s looking at.
A movie like Markiplier’s “Iron Lung”—a feature-length film adaptation of an indie video game that was self-distributed but stunned at the box office early this spring thanks to the popularity of its director and star on YouTube—would have sounded nonsensical to many financiers a decade ago. But the cross-platform shift doesn’t erase film history or the lived education behind it. It just reroutes the path into theaters.
And there’s another irony at play: an online world increasingly reshaped by AI sludge has also pushed some viewers to look backward in real life. Repertory screenings, physical media rental stores, microcinemas, and revival theaters keep attracting Gen Z and millennial audiences across North America. Their pull is local community plus a tangible connection to the past—two things that can feel harder to find in a fragmented media landscape.
Many younger cinephiles then turn that love into identity-defining social media content that helps raise awareness about film itself. In that sense, today’s audiences aren’t rejecting movie history so much as actively excavating it. The worry is that this feedback loop may not stay harmless for older creators watching the culture shift under their feet.
For many aging auteurs. the pressure is split: protect an artistic legacy. or take the risky promise of AI—an offer that’s tempting and. in some cases. directly financing. The stakes aren’t abstract. Older storytellers are among the few people capable of contextualizing seismic social and political changes over the last century. Yet the same forces that condition most people to fear irrelevance are also conditioning filmmakers to treat AI not as an accessory. but as an emergency exit.
Reading Schrader’s remarks didn’t mainly sting because he’s experimenting. It stung because of how resigned the language can sound—especially coming from someone who built his career by interrogating his own personal perspective with stubborn precision.
“Why should writers sit around for months searching for a good idea when AI can provide one in seconds?” Schrader said during his keynote speech at AI on the Lot. He also described how ChatGPT could generate a new “Paul Schrader” script idea on command. and he gave the software the affectionate pen name “Alex Indigo.” Schrader said ChatGPT did not write the movie he’s currently working on. but he’s still likely to lean on AI in some way to get it made.
That kind of self-outsourcing—bold coming from a filmmaker who wrote “Taxi Driver”—feels bleak to many because Schrader’s whole reputation is tied to describing. classifying. and interrogating his own creative labor. Minimizing the importance of that labor is one thing. Schrader’s remarks, as presented here, land closer to philosophical recklessness than liberation.
He isn’t alone. Over the last several years. older and middle-aged filmmakers like James Cameron. Darren Aronofsky. and Gareth Edwards have all publicly embraced some version of generative software’s potential role in cinema. Their positions vary widely, and none have gone quite as far as Schrader in publicly experimenting with AI-generated authorship.
Cameron has argued that AI tech could help reduce the cost of blockbusters while maintaining crew headcount. Aronofsky’s Primordial Soup partnered with Google DeepMind on several AI-assisted shorts.
At this year’s AI on the Lot, Edwards praised AI innovation as something that might rank “up there with the camera,” while conceding it has “no taste whatsoever.”
Not every filmmaker has let that boundary blur. Steven Spielberg has said he sees potential uses for AI in practical production areas. and he specifically cited location scouting this past week. He also opposes using AI to replace writers, directors, or producers essential to core artistic decision-making.
Guillermo del Toro has been even blunter, saying he would “rather die” than use generative AI in his films.
Martin Scorsese hasn’t been as outspoken about generative technology as he was with pre-pandemic Marvel movies. but his long-standing commitment to film preservation and his repeated defense of active audience engagement with cinema carry their own weight. (The 83-year-old has also managed to navigate today’s internet environment well. in large part thanks to the popular TikTok account of his 26-year-old daughter Francesca.).
There’s something hard to shake about watching heroes grapple with disruption that goes well beyond craft. Younger audiences are often hungry for wisdom. which makes it natural to ask why anyone who spent a lifetime making movies would fully embrace tools designed to automate processes that once rewarded experience.
The answer, at least in part, sits inside modern marketing’s obsession with volume and speed. Economic instability and a drift toward black-and-white thinking make it harder to be disliked publicly. and some older tastemakers end up treating AI optimism as a survival posture. In a media environment where productions compete against 24/7 internet feeds and a rapidly changing meme dialect designed to always leave someone out of the loop. AI can start to feel like an existential lifeline.
There’s also a human side that can’t be ignored: physical limitations become more real for artists as they age, and AI can play a significant role in making the world more accessible for both the disabled and elderly.
But serious ethical concerns begin the moment AI is used to overly steer or replace human judgment when generating creative work in Hollywood. For some beloved filmmakers, the issue isn’t merely maintaining celebrity. It’s surviving a digital ecosystem that can degrade confidence when the work stops being tied to constant human effort.
The problem extends well beyond Hollywood. It threatens countless American jobs and exposes internet users to new threats, including AI-assisted scams, fake news reports, and fabricated videos.
Chatbots also increasingly show up as personal companions and therapists. pushing a form of codependence that could impact any age group. but is especially easy for older generations that didn’t grow up on the internet to misplace their trust. The concern isn’t that older people are uniquely gullible—it’s that most people are still learning how to navigate a technological space evolving faster than the American government will regulate it.
Economic pressure doesn’t automatically explain away the contradiction, either. For years, many of the artists now openly celebrating AI taught audiences how power operates. They lived through the rise of cable news. the internet. and social media. as well as multiple wars. wealth consolidation. congressional hearings. criminal trials. and other pivotal events. Historical memory matters here. It helps distinguish false promises from sincere innovation. That memory should make living legends ideal candidates for steadying progress.
Instead, some of the enthusiasm around generative AI can feel paradoxical and maddening.
The frustration deepens for women in particular. The article points to the way older creators exercising authority often comes after decades of fighting for professional opportunities and institutional respect. Time gave audiences late-career brilliance from filmmakers like Jane Campion. Agnès Varda. Claire Denis. and Kathryn Bigelow—work made richer. fiercer. and more self-assured by the lived grind behind it.
It’s why watching older artists experiment with generative technology can trigger tension when competitiveness or futurist curiosity eclipses the impulse to protect the art form itself.
Whether audiences like it or not, younger viewers are stepping into an entertainment market that’s been destabilized. That’s part of the argument for protecting the original voices of legacy filmmakers—especially when some of that group’s AI advocates appear to be acting against the industry’s long-term best interests.
They still deserve engagement because they’ve survived versions of the questions the next generation faces now. They have insight machines do not—and even if they won’t control their excitement about generative tech.
Later in life, Francis Ford Coppola’s continued imperfection stands as a reminder of what can get lost. The article recalls watching 87-year-old Francis Ford Coppola spend his own money making “Megalopolis.” The result is described as self-indulgent and occasionally ridiculous. but unmistakably human.
The piece also returns to a thought from another era: in 1990. accepting his honorary Oscar. then 80-year-old Akira Kurosawa said he still did not feel he had “grasped the essence of cinema.” That. the article argues. is exactly the kind of thought worth protecting—because it suggests evolution and experience shouldn’t be enemies.
For now. one generational divide keeps showing up in the same spotlight: while young filmmakers like Kane Parsons chase big-screen moments by building worlds shot by shot. older legends like Paul Schrader are talking about replacing months of searching with ideas delivered in seconds by ChatGPT—pen named “Alex Indigo. ” placed close to the center of the creative process.
At stake isn’t whether AI exists. It’s whether film’s human judgment is treated as essential—or just another setting you can switch off.
MISRYOUM AI on the Lot Paul Schrader Kane Parsons Backrooms A24 Taxi Driver ChatGPT Alex Indigo IndieWire Iron Lung Markiplier repertory cinema generative AI in film Spielberg Guillermo del Toro James Cameron Darren Aronofsky Gareth Edwards Martin Scorsese Francesca Scorsese Francis Ford Coppola Megalopolis Akira Kurosawa