A Growing indifference to Cinema Going

[Vince W]

Having seen the previews to upcoming films, ive decided I don't really miss going to the movies very much.

Even with the release of new films on streaming media there hasn't been anything I've been willing to pay for.

 

[KGeo777]

Look how bad the Oscars did because of the political agenda they push (which was always there but in earlier times it wasn't so constantly direct). Do they care? I don't think they do. I do not think they are hand-wringing about why people don't watch it and that is the disturbing part because they have a commissar-type arrogance that there is no alternative to their monopoly of ineptitude.

They aren't chasing popularity which is exactly opposed to the claim that Hollywood is only after money.
If it was after money, we would have the best movies possible because they would be seeking to cater to all types of audiences.
They don't do that now. They say China is what matters most. That does not make business sense. If you run an Italian restaurant--you don't change your entire menu to appease Chinese customers without losing your original customer.

My local theater is still closed. They have been closed since last year. And they had so little traffic back then. I wonder how many theaters have gone out of business and who buys the real estate.

On the other hand, there is a business here that is devoted to setting up outdoor movie screens for projection in parks and other places--so people still want to go out and see something-but most of the time-the movies they are screening, are 10-20-30 years old at least.

I was reading about the new found popularity of giallo and Eurocrime films. Only in the last ten years have these films become popular with cinephile circles. I suspect one reason is boredom with the current offerings.

 

[AlexH]

I was very excited to return to the cinema this week. I watched Gladiator which I hadn't seen before. A great film to see on the big screen, and a brilliant return to the cinema.

 

[JunkMonkey]

"They say China is what matters most. That does not make business sense. If you run an Italian restaurant--you don't change your entire menu to appease Chinese customers without losing your original customer."

That is a rubbish analogy. A restaurant is one single location with customers coming to it because of the unique product it offers. Different foods can be served in different restaurants. En with chains. The menu in a chain in the US is different from the menu in the same chain in a different country - Royale with Cheese anyone? A movie is a product that is shipped around the world and is (essentially) the same everywhere (except where censors chop out bits that offend local sensibilities). The film market is global. The restaurant business is local.

 

[KGeo777]

"They say China is what matters most. That does not make business sense. If you run an Italian restaurant--you don't change your entire menu to appease Chinese customers without losing your original customer."

That is a rubbish analogy. A restaurant is one single location with customers coming to it because of the unique product it offers. Different foods can be served in different restaurants. En with chains. The menu in a chain in the US is different from the menu in the same chain in a different country - Royale with Cheese anyone? A movie is a product that is shipped around the world and is (essentially) the same everywhere (except where censors chop out bits that offend local sensibilities). The film market is global. The restaurant business is local.

Each country has its unique ethnic cuisine. You don't see people going to an Italian restaurant for Chinese cuisine, usually. Of course culture is unique to each region as well. But it also can be global. Like restaurants.
I don't know how likely it is that an Italian restaurant will open in Iran that is run by Bulgarians. It's highly unlikely.
And it wouldn't be considered authentic.

Film was a European invention and the dramatic structure of film came from Europe as well. There have been influences from other places--like Japan had influence on filmmakers in other continents.
Peter Jackson co-authored an interesting paper for a New Zealand film initiative he was backing and he said that genre subjects were dismissed by government funding bodies because they were considered "too Hollywood or American" and the paper pointed out that the fundamentals of theater drama trace to Greece--Hollywood and America did not invent them.

There's some cross-pollination due to the global nature of media distribution but the motto "different strokes for different folks" still applies.
Humor in China is different from humor in other places. The local customs do not translate across the globe. Like languages.

But the fact remains that Hollywood, the big companies--were focused on Europe and then expanded to the globe--today there was an article in the Hollywood Reporter suggesting the love affair with China may be coming to an end.
They make the claim that China has been manipulating Hollywood--I think that is nonsense--Hollywood was courting China for decades (at least as far back as 1976 with the film Nightmare in Badham County) and if it stops focusing on China are they going to make content aimed at Europeans again?
I really doubt it. I think they have no interest in appeasing their first customers.
China manipulating Hollywood does not explain the trends of the last few years either.

They are passing blame for their own idiosyncratic and hostile business operations.
They don't even want to make films that employ in their locale--they may have their base in Los Angeles but they chase foreign zones for off-shoring.
And yet, there have been film companies that operated regionally, and made films that were profitable and avoided all those these globe-trotting antics.
As I said, it's like they are cornering the market on restaurants and insisting everybody eat the same thing. That's how Hollywood works.

It would be unacceptable if done with food, and there have been voices who opposed globalization of film because they predicted that it would harm regional voices. It removes opportunities for local artists. Or puts them in a ghetto on the internet (where media companies linked to Hollywood will discourage success for voices that don't fit their agendas).

 

[W Collier]

Great stories are timeless. They may be topically inspired, but the transient topic must inspire a story with timeless themes. "A Tale of Two Cities" is about the French Revolution, but it is timeless because it deals with those elements of human nature which created that revolution but which are eternal in the human condition. One reads "A Tale of Two Cities" today and thinks it could be written about the political violence we see in our own streets.

For a story to be timeless, it must be honest. It must be truthful. Interest in truthful stories among those who pay--pay the artists, pay to distribute the work, pay to publicize it--is a rare thing in history. Truth is rarely kind to the powerful. People whose livelihoods and influence grew out of a fiction, were founded on a fiction, and depend every day on the maintenance of that fiction, will have no interest in timeless truths. The Chinese Communist Party, a genocidal dictatorship exercising absolute control over its population especially in the realm of information and creative content, certainly has no interest in timeless truths. They'll foot the bill for your production to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, and give you access to a market of billions of people, but only so long as your production passes their muster, upholds their vital fictions. Most people in the West today cannot imagine what a totalitarian state, a true Fascism, is like. Literally nothing may exist that does not serve the state, the ruling party. Hollywood is not a genocidal dictatorship, but it is a land of Harvey Weinsteins, corruption, and people whose political convictions are their lives, the source of their identity. Expecting them to promote the telling of timeless truths which would undermine the fiction they have built around themselves is too much. Such people don't tell timeless stories. They dedicate themselves the fictions of the day, shirt-rending screeds which will blend well with the noise of the present mob and the present narrative but which will be forgotten tomorrow, when the mob's sympathies turn another direction. At the very least, no one wants that mob outside his office, threatening boycotts, legal action, and violence.

In such a climate, everything must be shallow. Some of it is shallow and fun, like the MCU. The rest of it is shallow trash, like the holier-than-thou reiterations of popular but transient political sentiment which dominate the Oscars. In either case, it's poor fare for lovers of the art. Only those timeless, truthful stories are actually nutritious to the soul. Hopefully we will see a return to that form in popular cinema, but I suspect not for some time.

But, on the bright side, this also means that it's very easy to tell, in times like these, when you might be getting close to writing something timeless and true, something really good: if no one will publish it and it earns you death threats, it's probably a work of genius. If you end up with your life ruined (or ended), you have achieved the pinnacle of your art. We should all be so lucky.

 

[KGeo777]

That is one helluva post! I am really impressed with the succinct eloquence encompassing all those thoughtful points!

 

[BAYLOR]

From the movie Baron Fink

"The writer is king here at Capital Pictures "
Jack Lipnick

As it turned out for Barton Fink, not true at all.

 

[JunkMonkey]

"each country has its unique ethnic cuisine. You don't see people going to an Italian restaurant for Chinese cuisine, usually. Of course culture is unique to each region as well. But it also can be global. Like restaurants."

Yes but there is cross-fertilisation and fusion in all art. To follow the food analogy a 'Hawaiian pizza' is hardly Italian. Or Hawaiian. Nor is the pizza that you will find in Italian resteraunts around the world. Traditionally Italian pizzas were small. The big, plate-sized things we see around the world in 'authentic' Italian restaurants are an American 're-imagining' of an Italian bread-based food covered in a sauce made (from a fruit originally found in the Americas). There is no authentic 'American' Cinema (though they can keep Birth of a Nation) nor an 'authentic' French cinema, or an 'authentic' Norwegian cinema.

The history of cinema is littered with examples of this cross-fertilisation A fistful of Dollars is a good example, an Italian film using a Japanese template (Yojimbo) set in an American Western milieu (Itself a total fiction), or Casablanca - THE quintessential Holly Golden Era film was directed by a Hungarian, with music by an Austrian, photographed by an American - the only significant speaking parts NOT played by immigrants were Rick and Sam.

Why does 'Hollywood' produce so much sh*t these days? Because it always has done. Huge piles of it. Most of everything is crud. The crud gets ignored, then forgotten and only the really good stuff (and the notoriously bad) remains in the memory. It has always been thus. Trust me. In fifty years time people are going to look back at the early part of the 20th Century with envious eyes and wonder if we knew how lucky we were to have so many genuine masterpieces released. (They'll be wrong of course, just as anyone looking back at the 1970s and thinking that was a Golden Age of Art Cinema would be today. The only difference being that the future people would be MORE wrong because there were some damn fine film made in the Early 70s.)

 

[Vladd67]

Don't forget the Japanese template for A fistful of Dollars was itself based on western books

 

[W Collier]

That is one helluva post! I am really impressed with the succinct eloquence encompassing all those thoughtful points!

You are too kind, sir. Perhaps the only succinct thing I have ever written, if it is. I think I failed to get to any good point, though. If there is a point, it is that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. We can't all write something timeless, but if you (and this is an open invitation) do like the idea of writing and reading things that at least will get you hated by your friends, exiled from your community, or tarred and feathered, I'll consider you good company. How many of you started your own writing primarily because the things you were reading and seeing on the screen were so dumb? I know I'm not the only one.

 

[KGeo777]

The history of cinema is littered with examples of this cross-fertilisation A fistful of Dollars is a good example, an Italian film using a Japanese template (Yojimbo) set in an American Western milieu (Itself a total fiction), or Casablanca - THE quintessential Holly Golden Era film was directed by a Hungarian, with music by an Austrian, photographed by an American - the only significant speaking parts NOT played by immigrants were Rick and Sam.

I once talked to an American about Hollywood and said "US films are more popular than Canadian" and she said "But Hollywood doesn't represent US culture."
I didn't understand at the time but later I did.
There have been American filmmakers--John Ford and DW Griffith for example, who reflected regional American voices and ideas. THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND is a Southerner-focused story. It is amazing they made it given some of the content and perspective. Not even GONE WITH THE WIND was so favorable to the Southerner side of the war.

Casablanca, skillfully made though it was, is war propaganda. It didn't do well when released--understandably--why would US audiences want to embrace a movie that promoted an ongoing war? It's amazing how that film is misinterpreted. It is not a love story--Ingrid Bergman said she didn't see the love story in it. The love story is Rick rediscovering his desire to fight and Claude Rains joins him for pragmatic reasons. That is what the movie is about. Two men, one a disillusioned idealist, who, thanks to Victor, sees that he has to get back into the fight in order to find himself. And Renault, cynical corrupt pragmatist, who takes whatever side is more powerful at the time, joins up but he's the most realistic character because he's only thinking of himself.
Ilsa is told to prostitute herself in order to support the war. She doesn't love Victor and Rick tells her you need to stay with him to keep him focused on the fight.

Homer it isn't.

Hollywood was accused of wanting to get the US into the war--I wonder about a film like The Adventures of Robin Hood since it was unusual given that Robin Hood is not only depicted as a noble, but he's unapologetically seeking to defend the homeland from foreigners-(despite his romance with a Norman Maid Marion)-he even criticizes King Richard for going off on foreign crusades instead of defending the homefront-that opinion would be called fascist today. And yes--it isn't shot in England and most of the cast is from every corner of the globe. Tasmania, South Africa...
By contrast, the Hammer Films' Sword of the Sherwood Forest, is closer to the source location, and has a very different story and approach. This is what you expect--different strokes for different folks.

There's a distinction between Universal horror films of the 1930s and Hammer films of the 50s and 60s too. Someone defined the difference by saying the Universal approach was rooted in the Wiemar era of German film while Hammer was Gainsborough and period drama.
Why is the approach different? Because the background and heritage of the filmmakers and producers and writers are different.
Different strokes for different folks. That is how art works.
Variety, different heritages, different thoughts and ideas.
It is impossible to make a film that is equally acceptable to all people. You'd have to reduce it to abstract color patterns.

The trouble is, there are a few films that are getting Western attention--corporate attention---PARASITE for example--and yet--when are we going to see a film that is all Gaelic being promoted at the Oscars?
Probably never because there is no desire to promote or celebrate regional European voices.

Hollywood has made films that, despite their intense multicultural approach, work as an entertainment if not cozy or identifiable to any particular group of people--but these days, they have stripped the European origins of the art form so much, that it has become chaotic and increasingly irrational in theme and moral viewpoint.
You cannot make an art work that is equally acceptable to all societies and people.
It is impossible.

 

[JunkMonkey]

"But Hollywood doesn't represent US culture."
I didn't understand at the time but later I did."

I was told, when I lived in LA, - that I "hadn't been to America, only L.A." and that was by Americans - so I get where you're coming from.

"Hollywood was accused of wanting to get the US into the war-" Given that most of the studio bosses at the time were Jewish can you blame them?

And yes Warner Bros.' Robin Hood and Hammer's Robin Hood were vastly different beasties. The Warner Brothers film was released in 1938 long before the start of (overt) hostilities when most countries were trying to appease or accommodate Hitler. The Hammer film in 1960 when the war was well and truly over and Britain was emerging from post war rubble and starting to realise it had lost its Empire and was no longer the world power it had been. (A loss it still seems unable to come to terms with.) Different strokes for different times. That's what makes retelling and reinterpreting the same stories so fascinating.

Casablanca. You say it's not a love story but Victor loves Ilsa. "I have seen the lady. And if he did not leave
her in Marseilles nor in Oran, he will not leave her in Casablanca" says Renault at one point. And Ilsa does love Victor, AND Rick - she doesn't which to choose. Rick loves her AND the cause... he doesn't know which to choose. It full of love. It's just that the two stars don't end up with each other as a standard Hollywood romance would have.

And you are just plain wrong when you say Casablanca "didn't do well when released" - according to inter-office memos published in Harmetz's Round up the Usual Suspects (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1993) it cost $1,039,000 and grossed $3,015,000 on its initial release - this was back in the days when the studio system meant that nearly ALL that money was Warner's . It played 10 weeks in the Hollywood Theatre to box office receipts of $225,827 - That's a huge chunk of the budget in in ONE Theatre! By 1955 (last date Warners kept comparable records) of all the films the studio made during the war it was the third highest grossing - only outgrossed by Shine on Harvest Moon, and This is the Army.

 

[KGeo777]

"



"Hollywood was accused of wanting to get the US into the war-" Given that most of the studio bosses at the time were Jewish can you blame them?

And yes Warner Bros.' Robin Hood and Hammer's Robin Hood were vastly different beasties. The Warner Brothers film was released in 1938 long before the start of (overt) hostilities when most countries were trying to appease or accommodate Hitler. The Hammer film in 1960 when the war was well and truly over and Britain was emerging from post war rubble and starting to realise it had lost its Empire and was no longer the world power it had been. (A loss it still seems unable to come to terms with.) Different strokes for different times. That's what makes retelling and reinterpreting the same stories so fascinating.

Casablanca. You say it's not a love story but Victor loves Ilsa. "I have seen the lady. And if he did not leave
her in Marseilles nor in Oran, he will not leave her in Casablanca" says Renault at one point. And Ilsa does love Victor, AND Rick - she doesn't which to choose. Rick loves her AND the cause... he doesn't know which to choose. It full of love. It's just that the two stars don't end up with each other as a standard Hollywood romance would have.

If one is making stories meant to agitate a population with no personal vested interest in the conflict into fighting and dying---it is not cultural expression showing concern for the population's welfare. If you want them to fight and die for you--that's not usually considered a wonderful populist message.
I don't know the specific movies being cited-I am guessing at Robin Hood or the Sea Hawk. There may have been other films much more blunt about it. The issue is not movies reflecting the views of the owners--of course they would--but restrictions that come on other points of view that would be of interest to the audience is a problem--it is a big problem.
I don't think US film would have been better off if only Edison was making them, but the problem is all competition was squeezed out-and by the 1940s it became serious enough that government made an attempt to seem interested in opposing mopnopoly practices. I don't think it was sincere but it did open up some breathing space for a little while.


Ilsa did not love Victor. But she was advised by Rick to ignore her true feelings for the war effort. That's not a universal artistic truth.
War before love?
In the Iliad, Hector ignores the cries of his family to not fight-but that was a personal battle for the himself and homeland--Rick is a mercenary. He was fighting fascists in Spain on principle. He wasn't fighting for the US or to proptect his family from rape and enslavement. he had no family.

Casablanca was not a big hit.
This is like the situation with Catch-22. Catch-22 made it into the top ten for money-but that doesn't mean it was the most popular film. A film that cost 1/4th the budget of Catch-22 could have made triple its money and not crack the top ten.
And in the 1940s there were other film studios, so we don't know how well Casablanca did against a number of other films that may have had more audience reception.

You can't stop multicultural influence. And you can't really get a homogeneous pure national artistic cinema voice. Ignoring the internal differences and regionalism. I am not sure what the solution is other than I know for a fact, that if more people were professionally employed to develop stories and make content that can get access to audiences, quality would improve a lot. Just by the random characteristics of different people and their tastes.

The current state of motion pictures and television is that many points of view have been suppressed to a massive degree.
Viewpoints and artistic sensibilities that would register with particular audiences.

50 years ago you could name dozens of directors around the world who made distributed horror films. Today-you would be lucky to name ten, and most of the media buzz is about a single one--Jordan Peele.
It's outrageous to suppress the cultural voices of entire countries and that is the state we are in.
At least in the 1930s there were some attempts to combat Hollywood domination for the sake of home artists--Italy did it, England did it, but it didn't last.
I do not have a solution but the problems are very easy to see and detail in a list.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Casablanca was not a big hit.
This is like the situation with Catch-22. Catch-22 made it into the top ten for money-but that doesn't mean it was the most popular film. A film that cost 1/4th the budget of Catch-22 could have made triple its money and not crack the top ten.
And in the 1940s there were other film studios, so we don't know how well Casablanca did against a number of other films that may have had more audience reception.

Fourth biggest box office gross in 1943 is not a 'big hit'?

The Numbers - Top-Grossing Movies of 1943

Top-Grossing Movies of 1943

www.the-numbers.com

 

[KGeo777]

Fourth biggest box office gross in 1943 is not a 'big hit'?

The Numbers - Top-Grossing Movies of 1943

Top-Grossing Movies of 1943

www.the-numbers.com

Ignoring the ubiquitous Hollywood Accounting issue, that number does not match Wikipedia's sources.
And compare it to This Is the Army--how does that movie end? It ends with a marriage, not characters going off to fight.

It looks like they are including accumulated totals over years not just the original US run.

 

[BAYLOR]

"But Hollywood doesn't represent US culture."
I didn't understand at the time but later I did."

I was told, when I lived in LA, - that I "hadn't been to America, only L.A." and that was by Americans - so I get where you're coming from.

"Hollywood was accused of wanting to get the US into the war-" Given that most of the studio bosses at the time were Jewish can you blame them?

And yes Warner Bros.' Robin Hood and Hammer's Robin Hood were vastly different beasties. The Warner Brothers film was released in 1938 long before the start of (overt) hostilities when most countries were trying to appease or accommodate Hitler. The Hammer film in 1960 when the war was well and truly over and Britain was emerging from post war rubble and starting to realise it had lost its Empire and was no longer the world power it had been. (A loss it still seems unable to come to terms with.) Different strokes for different times. That's what makes retelling and reinterpreting the same stories so fascinating.

Casablanca. You say it's not a love story but Victor loves Ilsa. "I have seen the lady. And if he did not leave
her in Marseilles nor in Oran, he will not leave her in Casablanca" says Renault at one point. And Ilsa does love Victor, AND Rick - she doesn't which to choose. Rick loves her AND the cause... he doesn't know which to choose. It full of love. It's just that the two stars don't end up with each other as a standard Hollywood romance would have.

And you are just plain wrong when you say Casablanca "didn't do well when released" - according to inter-office memos published in Harmetz's Round up the Usual Suspects (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1993) it cost $1,039,000 and grossed $3,015,000 on its initial release - this was back in the days when the studio system meant that nearly ALL that money was Warner's . It played 10 weeks in the Hollywood Theatre to box office receipts of $225,827 - That's a huge chunk of the budget in in ONE Theatre! By 1955 (last date Warners kept comparable records) of all the films the studio made during the war it was the third highest grossing - only outgrossed by Shine on Harvest Moon, and This is the Army.

The only thing Hollywood understands is the movie business and how to please audiences. They understand nothing else.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

When I was a kid it didn't cost a fortune to go to the cinema with your family. It's way beyond what we can afford for a regular treat especially once drinks and popcorn are added. We home educate so in a normal year I wait for the Into Film schools festival at the cinemas and we get free tickets. They also allow teachers to take snacks in. We go to the cinema about eight times in a fortnight (sometimes more sometimes less depending what they are showing)

 

[BAYLOR]

When I was a kid it didn't cost a fortune to go to the cinema with your family. It's way beyond what we can afford for a regular treat especially once drinks and popcorn are added. We home educate so in a normal year I wait for the Into Film schools festival at the cinemas and we get free tickets. They also allow teachers to take snacks in. We go to the cinema about eight times in a fortnight (sometimes more sometimes less depending what they are showing)

The damned concessions drive up the prices . Six dollars for a bag of popcorn, and 10 dollars for ticket.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

The damned concessions drive up the prices . Six dollars for a bag of popcorn, and 10 dollars for ticket.

I know by the time I had paid the bus fare, bought the tickets, popcorn and lunch out our last trip to the cinema was over £200. My parents could do a cinema trip with a really nice lunch for well under £50.

Fact is I can take them horse riding, to the beach, climbing wall or go surfing for much less.