Any moment now, I expect Taylor Swift to announce a presidential bid, probably for 2028. By then, she’ll have done everything else that someone in the entertainment industry could reasonably be expected to have done. Endless hit records and awards? Check. High-profile spats with leading industry figures who have invariably come off worse? Absolutely. And, next up, her cinematic debut, a yet-untitled project that she will both write and direct? Not long to wait now.
The announcement a few days ago that Swift will direct a feature for Searchlight Pictures based on her own screenplay caused much excitement, with appropriate genuflection accompanying the press release. The company’s presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield announced, “Taylor is a once in a generation artist and storyteller. It is a genuine joy and privilege to collaborate with her as she embarks on this exciting and new creative journey.”
Although no details have been announced about the film, that hasn’t stopped online speculation from running its usual rampant course. One would not bet against its having a strong female protagonist, or its revolving around affairs of the heart, or there being a strong musical element, but who knows: perhaps what Swift really wants to do is make an ultra-violent, three-hour-long biopic of King Leopold II of Belgium and his atrocities in the Congo.
Swift has some form in the directorial stakes: her short film All Too Well (Taylor’s Version) has received significant acclaim, including a 2022 VMA Award for Best Direction. Swift has also been heavily involved in the videos for her singles for some time, producing or co-directing many of them. She’s cited an interestingly eclectic range of filmmakers as influences, from Nomadland’s Chloé Zhao and Greta Gerwig to Guillermo del Toro and John Cassavetes, as well as the rather less challenging Nora Ephron. And she’s dipped a toe into acting, too, although it is a shame that her most recent appearances, in Tom Hooper’s disastrous Cats and David O Russell’s flop Amsterdam, went largely unseen by her otherwise rabid fanbase.
Yet whatever she does with her first feature, she must beware the curse of the musician-turned-director, otherwise known as “Madonna Syndrome.” Once upon a time, her predecessor as the most famous female musician in the world had a similarly canny eye on the zeitgeist, a peerless visual sense and mass public adulation. But neither of the two films she directed — the bizarre British comedy Filth and Wisdom and the flop Edward VIII/Wallis Simpson drama W.E — made any kind of critical or commercial impact, and despite the announcement of a self-directed biopic, to star Julia Garner as the Material Girl herself, there is no great clamor for her third film.
This is true of many other leading musicians. The likes of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Prince have all made unsuccessful attempts at becoming filmmakers, while the less talented (naming no names, but Fred Durst) have similarly swung and missed. There are a couple of surprising figures who made one picture that worked (David Byrne’s Coen Brothers-esque True Stories and Frank Sinatra’s war picture None But The Brave), but generally the field of filmmaking has not been kind to those who have made their names through the three-or-four-minute song. Some especially literate figures, such as Nick Cave, have proved themselves fine screenwriters, and many others, from Michael Stipe to Jarvis Cocker, have excelled at witty, striking music videos, but Swift is ploughing a furrow that is as lonely as it is ambitious.
Nonetheless, you would not bet against her succeeding. All her career, she has defined herself against expected norms, and with only the most glancing of exceptions, she has succeeded where many of her peers have failed. So before the inevitable progression to the White House, watching what happens with her first film will be an intriguing and hopefully thrilling endeavor. I’ll be first in line, hoping against hope it’s better than Cats.
