‘I’ ON CULTURE
A friend asked me a profound question: Why are movies these days so bad? So weak? My quick response was that the people involved in making the films are now more interested in money than art. But I quickly realized that was not the full, correct answer.
Let’s look at the films of the past. The nominees for the top Oscar in 1939, considered the best group ever, consisted of Gone With the Wind; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Wuthering Heights; Dark Victory; Love Affair; Of Mice and Men, Ninotchka; Stagecoach; and The Wizard of Oz. That is some group of immortals! Gone With the Wind won.
Fifty years ago, after the number of nominees had been trimmed to five in 1945, we had The Sting, American Graffiti, Cries and Whispers, The Exorcist and A Touch of Class. Yes, a comedown but there were classics there. The Sting won.
Pretty much all of the films made money, often a lot of it. People have been watching and re-watching and newly discovering them. They were not only ranked as classics, but the fans showed up.
This year (back to ten) we have: Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two. Emilia Pérez, I’m Still Here, The Nickel Boys, The Substance, Wicked. Anora is a romantic comedy about a stripper who has a rich sugar daddy. The Brutalist (three and a half hours long!) is a story about an architect who goes through hell after the Holocaust when he comes to America. A Complete Unknown is about the early years of Bob Dylan. Conclave is a soap opera about selecting a pope that is seemingly designed to offend Catholics. Dune is the second half of a very long science fiction story that follows a mystic who becomes a prophet and then emperor. Emilia Pérez is a Spanish language film about a drug kingpin who becomes a transsexual. It is also a musical. I’m Still Here is a Brazilian movie about a female activist looking for her disappeared husband. The Nickel Boys is a story about abused African American teens at a school in segregated Florida. The Substance is a horror film about an aging actress who gets her early beauty back at a terrible price. Wicked is the first half of a musical prequel to The Wizard of Oz before the coming of Dorothy.
Wicked and Dune are the only two films that really found a major audience. The rest were barely seen except by members of the Oscar jury. Basically, the movie business has tossed away the mainstream audience. Few people will see most of the movies, and the vast majority of those will see them at home either through streaming or cable. And this is nothing new. In 2009, the Academy went back to 10 nominations for Best Picture because their members were making the Oscars irrelevant through daffy nominations.
But what is the reason? The main one is that our society is becoming more like Europe, split into elites and proles (Orwell speak for proletarians, the common people). And our movie makers, including the actors (many of whom seem to be low-life idiots based on tabloid news) seem to prefer forgetting the people in order to do vanity projects. Not surprisingly, fewer people now go to the movies.
These “experts” simply have forgotten they are dependent on the people. So, they choose projects that most people with brains would never do and wonder why no one cares. We have seen some good movies; they know how to do them. They just won’t. At least, this is an area in which the “regular folks” do have a voice. If we’re not interested in a film, we don’t go see it. And we are becoming more discerning. My eight-year-old grandson, a Marvel fanatic, told my wife that he was not really all that interested in the upcoming Captain America movie because of bad reports on it. If they can’t fool a second grader, well, what’s left?
Essentially, they are telling us that we don’t count, that our opinions mean nothing. It is not surprising that we really don’t have huge movie stars anymore. No one likes to be dismissed. At the rate Hollywood is going, we might soon see the end of it. And it won’t die with a bang but with a whimper of some fools who think they are smarter than their audience.