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The
State Of Cinema
By Andrew Dickson
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Film and
television are undeniably one of the first places that we learn
how to ask someone out on a date, how to kiss, how to rebel against
our parents, how to act in general. Often our own experiences
are best described by explaining: "it was just like the time
in that movie..." To be sure, parents, peers, teachers, relatives,
and even strangers teach us about the same things, and thankfully,
are often on hand to tell us that things aren't quite the way
they seem in our modern cinematic parables. Nevertheless, most
people can point to moments from films or TV that influenced who
they are and how they see the world.
I believe cinema and television to be the most powerful socializing
tools available to date. A very small group of capitalists centered
in Southern California control the means of distribution for this
media here in the States and around the world. The expensive nature
of filmmaking, due in large part to the 100-million-dollar budgets
now commonplace in Hollywood, give these very same businessmen
a virtual monopoly over the means of production as well. Scary.
However, we are now entering what may be the first window of time
where the rest of the world has access to the tools of production,
and the means to distribute the films that result.
About 25 years ago, the process of film distribution in America
(and hence worldwide) changed significantly. Film scholars point
to Jaws as the first modern-day blockbuster. Before Jaws, a film
like Taxi Driver or Breathless would be released in one theater
in each market, usually the one at which it was expected to do
well. As a film’s press and word-of-mouth support increased,
it would be brought to other theaters, creating a wave of movie-going
that allowed other, more challenging films to find an audience.
With Jaws, the rules changed. Films started to be released in
every theater available, and the rising budgets were expected
to be made back on opening weekend. From this point on, story
took a back seat to the money shots and sound bites tailor-made
for the attention-grabbing two-minute trailers that would ensure
a successful run.
This isn't to say that films made before this point were pillars
of moral righteousness. They were, like society itself, sometimes
racist, homophobic, and sexist. But the Jaws model of moviemaking
replaced the art of carefully crafting films that didn't set records
at the box office. Art films with ensemble casts lacking superstars
were phased out, akin to the disappearance of small-town mom and
pop hardware stores after Wal-Mart comes to town. Filmmakers who
were trying to address problems and issues in society in a thoughtful,
critical manner found their ideas disregarded by producers and
movie moguls. Those who tried to work outside of corporate control
couldn't get distribution. As profits eclipsed moral responsibility,
Hollywood became a playground for stereotypes and rehashed plots.
This problem persists today.
Recent films like The Legend of Bagger Vance and Dungeons &
Dragons represent regressions in the way Blacks are represented
in film. Go to any multiplex to find examples of weak female characters,
there as mere props serving the male characters' dramatic and
sexual needs. Middle Easterners, Indians, Native Americans, Japanese,
gays, lesbians, and just about every other minority can point
to recent films where they were portrayed negatively, stereotypically,
and predictably. The irony is that these films are made by very
well-educated, predominately liberal adults. As conservative politicians
decry the agenda and dissenting opinion of Hollywood films from
mainstream values, one shivers to ponder what they would prefer.
The obvious problem is that the films which monopolize theaters
worldwide are made by committee—a slate of producers who
want to make what sells best. The visionary writer/director has
been replaced by producers who have the dubious power to rewrite
drama into romantic comedy. Most of the Hollywood films that come
to a small town or go overseas—arguably the places most in
need of an alternative vision of American society—have been
manhandled by dozens of people. These films may have been written
by one or two people, or adapted from a single author's novel,
but it is not uncommon to have 20 or 30 writers work on a script.
Bring in a female writer to work on the lead actress's dialogue,
bring in an A-list writer to add some 'heart.' There are a gaggle
of producers, each one a bit more creatively frustrated, and more
eager to add their own reinterpretation of the last entertaining
movie they saw, and all possessing veto power with directors who
are often expendable. Ultimately, the studio has final say as
to whether the film is a go-picture, usually depending on how
"safe" the film is and how closely it resembles something
that has worked before.
Equally depressing is that the film industry has done to film
what they never could to music—co-opted the notion of independence.
With a few exceptions, so- called "independent" films
are as vile as Hollywood films. Seldom are they any more challenging
to anyone's worldview than blockbuster fare, and they are usually
more violent. The popular notion of an independent film is a bunch
of pretty faces swiped from the covers of Details magazine, riding
across the desert with a dead body in the trunk, guns at the hip,
and with a stop at the next strip joint on tap. To be sure, most
of what calls itself independent film is the modern day B-movie.
The major studios have all bought or started their own 'art' studios—recycling
the same regressive notions of society, but adding more style.
What masquerade as independent films are 5-million-dollar studio
projects destined to be either a tax write-off or the 'surprise
hit of Sundance.' One is hard-pressed to find anything encouraging
on the American narrative feature landscape.
Even the latest American film movement, the ensemble actors' picture,
embodied by films like American Beauty, Happiness, Magnolia, and
Friends and Neighbors, has shown its true face. While these films
allow actors to break from the chains of the predictable plots
and rehashed scenes of more mainstream fare, one starts to see
this supposed "New American Cinema" as little more than
high- production-value soap opera: highbrow Jerry Springer; upper-class
filmmakers exposing upper middle-class white America as perverted
and morally bankrupt—not exactly a news flash. It may be
refreshing to see films where themes like repressed homosexuality,
pedophilia, incest, and self-hatred are explored, but ultimately
it's like watching a car wreck. After we've driven past, we don't
gain anything, we just feel a little sick.
But there is hope. In the last few years there have been significant
developments in the digital and video technology that might allow
for a significant shift in the ways movies and televised entertainment
are made in this country and beyond. Part of the problem in the
past was the ever-rising expense of film stock, equipment, lab
processing and printing, and hard-to-find editing facilities that
often end a project before it's done. Now, you can get a digital
video camera that will plug right into an Apple G4. You can shoot
footage, instantly download it into a bootlegged copy of the Final
Cut Pro program, edit it for as long as you like, and output it
back to your camera. You now have a master without any loss of
quality which you can transfer to film, broadcast quality video,
consumer-ready VHS, or onto the World Wide Web. The whole setup,
with enough tape to keep you busy for months, will cost you less
than three grand, with prices dropping and technology improving
at a breakneck pace. Even better, because these components are
so cheap, film schools, cable access stations, and filmmaker collectives
are able to buy them in great numbers. In many cases, you can
easily find access to all these components for free.
Already there is an explosion of films being made in the basements
and bedrooms of America. The otherwise brilliant film critic Ray
Carney asserts that this is problematic. He yearns for the time
when only a dedicated painter and his minions would spend the
weeks it took to make paint suitable for canvas, back when only
great paintings were made. Today's corner art store with its cheap,
consumer-grade paint, he argues, has created a glut of mediocrity.
I would argue that a world where everyone is a filmmaker, painter
or dancer is a better world; the probability of exposing the next
Cassavettes, Cindy Sherman, or Basquiat increases. Making art,
even bad art, increases self-esteem, happiness, appreciation for
art in general, and improves how you relate to and contribute
to your community. There is no doubt that horrible, unwatchable,
offensive films will be made. Some people will recycle the same
regressive social trends Hollywood film throws at us, but there
will also be great, challenging works of art that have until now
only existed in the minds of frustrated filmmakers.
Now how are these amazing, albeit low-budget and sometimes hard
to watch works going to be seen? The local mall isn't likely to
open up every 10th screen in the multiplex. Even small independent
theaters will prefer to show foreign films with money-making potential
and challenging modest budget American work. The Internet may
be the venue of the future. To be sure, this method of distribution
is in its infancy. Most people who have watched video on the Internet
are likely to wait a few years before they tune in again. The
image is usually broken up and tends to be smaller than a driver's
license. Yet we can look forward to the day where Internet video
streaming fills the entire screen at a quality close to offline
video. The fusion of our computers, stereos, telephones and televisions
into a central console, though a somewhat horrifying prospect,
will, however, break down the current paradigm of limited options.
Imagine tuning in and being able to ignore the latest crap from
ABC and find endless documentaries, personal experimental films,
and features, new and old, from around the world.
Already there are dozens of websites dedicated to showing films
made outside the Hollywood system. For the most part, they are
funny short films, stepping-stones to the next Rob Schneider film.
But look a little harder, and you will find some gems. As the
technology improves, it will be possible to see, for instance,
a feature film from Iran that only showed at the big-city international
film festivals. How profit and commerce will enter into the picture
and change the landscape is yet to be determined. To be sure,
it will be a struggle as Hollywood tries to co-opt, buy out, rip
off, or bury work beyond its control.
But there is a possibility that the process of finding an audience
will be democratized.
In the meantime, as we wait for the Internet to catch up to its
promise, independent filmmakers who are making work on their home
computers may need to look no further than independent music to
find a model for distribution and exhibition of their films. As
films become cheaper to make, touring with them provides a realistic
opportunity to recoup costs or even make a small profit. More
importantly, your work will be seen on the big screen by an audience.
My personal hope is that independent film labels form that could
sell tapes to video stores and help book films in smaller video
theaters, like ATA in San Francisco, that will hopefully continue
to crop up around the country. If filmmakers can make the work
that they want to make, and not feel like as though they have
to pander to the Hollywood notion of a film in order to eventually
make money, interesting work will flourish. These labels would
eventually navigate the changes that will happen with the web,
and help insure that a truly independent voice be heard in the
small towns of America and the world.
The challenge for the next generation will be to see if there
really are new kinds of filmmaking we haven't yet considered—to
take risks that were before unthinkable. Are there a myriad of
unique voices out there, laboring in obscurity, craving to be
heard, that have until now been denied access to the tools of
production or a platform to reach their audience?
I don't want to discredit the amazing work that has been going
on since the birth of film as an art form in world cinema, experimental
film, documentaries, and the occasional Hollywood or 'independent'
film. The films that make us question film itself, our society,
and ourselves are necessary for film to fulfill its promise as
an art form rather than just entertainment. A challenge for the
future will be to facilitate a way for this art to reach not only
the converted audiences that will appreciate it, but also the
unconverted that will be changed by it. |
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