Barry Jenkins feels that he is in a constant struggle to prove his worth as a director despite helming successful movies such as ‘Moonlight’.
Barry Jenkins in constantly trying to prove his worth as a director.
The 45-year-old filmmaker’s 2016 movie ‘Moonlight’ won the Best Picture Oscar but he admits that he struggles to accept his ability behind the camera.
Barry told NPR’s ‘Wild Card with Rachel Martin’: “I made this film, ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’, which is an adaptation of James Baldwin. And there is a great quote that we put into the movie – it’s taken directly from the book: ‘The children had been told that they weren’t worth s*** and everything around them proved it.’
“On one hand, a very lovely, beautiful book, but also a very angry, justifiably angry book.”
The ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ director continued: “And something of that line just stays in the back of my head. And for some reason, I feel like I’ll always be working in the opposite direction to disprove it, you know – that I’m not worth s***.”
Barry believes that his feelings stem from the contrast between his tough upbringing and the life he now has as a successful filmmaker.
He said: “Because of where I come from and what I do, there’s just always this version of me that feels like I’m not enough, you know? That I constantly have to prove, to reaffirm my ability, my value, my merits.
“And so any time I walk onto a set, I walk into a conversation like this – and it sucks because it’s the antithesis to us actually communicating and connecting – is me bringing this voice in the back of my head that feels like I am just simply not good enough. I’m not good enough.”
However, Jenkins says this feeling can be useful in some ways as it prevents him from getting complacent in his work.
He explained: “The flipside is, you know, it keeps me very driven. I am trying to put my full self. I am just trying to be unimpeachably affirmative, of value, of merit – just of merit.
“And I think it’s something that will always be with me, unfortunately, because I don’t think it’s something that adds value.”
Barry has helmed the photorealistically animated picture ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’, which serves as both a sequel and prequel to the 2019 remake of ‘The Lion King’, but revealed that he doesn’t plan to return to all-digital filmmaking again.
He told Vulture: “It is not my thing.
“It is not my thing. I want to work the other way again, where I want to physically get everything there. I always believe that what is here is enough, and let me just figure out what is the chemistry to make alchemy?
“How can these people, this light, this environment, come together to create an image that is moving, that is beautiful, that creates a text that is deep enough, dense enough, rich enough to speak to someone?”
Barry Jenkins is battling to prove his worth as a director
