"Sometimes a film doesn’t feel like a dialogue between audience and artist so much as it feels like a grand game."
what are you talking about polygon. most things don't feel like dialogue, they feel like antagonism. from long lectures that are not to be interrupted or contradicted to impossible difficulty to posturing over how smart and clever your twists are etc etc etc, and if you're not clamping down on that then you're probably letting your 'fans' tear up your work so they can have the content they want to consume
it took me years of working through guilt and fear and shame to come to the realization that art doesn't have to be antagonistic, that it could be more than a lecture or a challenge or a content delivery system, that they could create space for people to meet, reflect, explore, and contribute, allowing 'audiences' to make something new whether literally a response piece or an edit or just a thought that connects their experiences to those expressed in a given piece, leading to the dissolution of the dichotomy between artist and audience. i didn't have to be a dominating asshole or a spineless coward to make art. art could be good. art could be kind.
and now everyone just kinda talks about art as dialogue as if it's normal and expected and often boring. when the fuck did this happen? what the fuck are you talking about? are you just using dialogue as a shorthand for any generic interaction? none of this has ever been the world i've lived in!