Film: Foolish Creations Mimicking Their Creators

There is so much going on it’s ridiculous. The dollar is dying thanks to government print ‘n spend, Obama’s enemies list is becoming public as he continues to demolish the republic with unflinchingly dour-faced glee, Iran, North Korea, Russia, blah blah…Oh, and yes, the Government Will Own Your Body bill was just approved by committee. Yay. The headlines are enough to make all of us sick.

Let’s start with something simple, fast, and easy (also, the dog is giving me that “I have GOT to go OUT” look, fate of the nation be damned) to help me get back into the swing of things, shall we?

Francis Ford Coppola, famed “Godfather” director, thinks he knows why Hollywood doesn’t make money any more:

“Cinema is losing the public’s interest,” says Coppola, “because there is so much it has to compete with to get people’s time.”

The profusion of leisure activities; the availability of movies on copied DVD and on the Internet; and news becoming entertainment are reshaping the industry, he says. Companies have combined businesses as customers turn to cheap downloads rather than visit shops or movie theaters.

Hmmm…Not so much, Man Who Makes Not-So-Good Wine. No, the reason cinema is losing the public’s interest is also because Hollywood’s product is colossally, dismally poor.

The stories are bad or, worse, wretched re-hashings of once-good stories (as an example, see 1939’s air-light but still fun “The Women” versus the universally panned 2008 version). Too many of the popular actors are not very talented, if at all, though with the scripts they’re given, it isn’t as if they’re being stretched. Other than the ubiquitous and inexcusably vile torture-porn genre and a few select series of films or studios (Pixar being most notable), most scripts are entirely unimaginative.

Worst of all, though, the characters are nearly all anti-heroes in an age when people need heroes, even fake movie heroes. We’re not given world-changers, but impotent, depressed characters who cannot even overcome inner demons, much less scary world-threatening ones (not that said ‘heroes’ care about anyone but themselves).

Good deeds are continually, brutally punished without any home for a payoff of some kind at the end—not the saving of the city, the nation, the world, not even a recovered or new or even the hope of new loves or joys to soothe the balm of that which was lost. In the meantime, what used to be called “bad guys” are put on pedestals, given each and every reward, each and every great line, and skip away with the whole candy store in the end. It’s foul, it’s depressing, it leaves the audience empty. The vast majority of cinema today tells the viewer, “There is no hope. There is no purpose. There is no meaning, and as such, there is no reason for even something so small as faith.”

We screened 2007’s “3:10 To Yuma” days before watching the original, 1957 version. Though the primary performances and cinematography in the ‘07 version were very good to excellent, when we weighed both films against each other…Well, without giving anything away, the 2007 version left us feeling empty and unsettled.Was it a good movie? Yes…to a point. But in the end…well, if you’ve seen the later film, but especially both, you doubtless know what I mean.

It’s not about wanting a happy ending, it’s whether or not our hero learned anything, accomplished anything, whether he overcame while adhering consistently to principles, and whether a real difference was made, however small. Did it really count? Did the cursing, bleeding, pain, dying—did it ultimately make a difference? Was character developed, something learned, even if not all was perfectly well in the end? Did it matter?

Why do you think the Harry Potter books and films are such a hit? Deep down, they’re about far, far more than magic, and in my mind and many others’, at least one character ends up standing head and shoulders above the one heralded in the series title, becoming a paragon who endured by clinging to one classic value, then grabbing hold of an ancient principle with the other hand. Better yet, the main character (and, presumably, those around him) manages to figure this out. Double win;  if one considers how nicely woven together the series is, it’s a triple win.

The moral ambiguity or outright glorification of immorality in modern films and movies turns off too many Americans, even those who don’t complain about or personally reject such things, much less complain about the endless surfeit of seemingly harmless but clearly pointless adolescent gross-out garbage pumped out by the studios. Nor do people seek the obnoxious moralizing and existential crises that have no place in romantic comedies or films posing as good, old-fashioned entertainment. Can you imagine Nick Charles pausing to lecture bettors on the supposed cruelty of horse racing, or Mr. Chipping waxing ponderously on about whether or not he should step up to serve Brookfield after his retirement? Pah!

No, everything is laced with cynicism in a postmodern, post-Christian world where there is no real higher good, not even everyday good, worth sacrificing for, particularly if it requires someone to deny themselves anything, even a burnt latte from Starbuck’s.

It’s difficult to imagine beloved movie heroes of old doing anything really wrong, at least not without consequence and an acknowledgment of the sin. Ever notice that? As written, the way they reacted to what hit them; we knew they were morally upright, trying to do the right thing, and importantly, willing to give everything up if that was the price to be paid for doing what was right. They weren’t perfect, to be sure, and had moments of temptation, but the point is they overcame temptation and imperfection. The focus was the struggle, the overcoming, not the dark side so popularly lit today.

The struggle with one’s self, what one does when they acknowledge what they’ve done or are being tempted to do is wrong, matters deeply, and far more than the character flaw itself (barring our postmodern assumption that there is no such thing as a character flaw, be it  lying or for torturing other human beings). In that respect, George Bailey and Mr. Incredible aren’t that different, are they?

There is a difference between the good guy and the bad guy in real life, but modern film denies that by comparing the filching of office supplies, alcoholism, or being tempted by the secretary suffered by the good guy—undeniably wrong and sinful things—to the bad guy’s raping, serial philandering, murdering, and bank heists.  But there’s no longer a swell of music when the hero comes clean (unless he’s admitted to clubbing baby seals or not aborting that poor girl’s baby because, well, he was wrong to deny her “need” for an abortion!) or goes home to his own family, bringing flowers for his wife.

While we can’t deny that home theatres, game systems and the ability to watch movies on one’s computer via great things like Netflix are drawing customers from the theatres, it’s also undeniable that a quality product with characters the audience can root for will bring paying customers right back to those same theatres. It takes only a cursory glance of the receipts for theatrical re-releases of films like Gone With The Wind, Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and Lawrence of Arabia to see that. People aren’t flocking to these simply because they’re family-friendly and cultural touchpoints.

Instead of giving us low-quality, ambiguous, heartless films, stop preaching, stop being so hazy about the world and get back to the time-honoured formula with the old college try. But keep providing the same detritus on the silver screen, and you’ll keep losing your audience to other diversions. At least have the courage to tell us what you really think about us; the movie will probably flop, but you’ll have the knowledge you were honest.

Otherwise, your very problem will otherwise keep playing itself out, night after night, to empty theatres: the “heroes” Hollywood insists on giving us aren’t learning anything, and nor are the people providing them to us. It’s a self-destructive circle, and no, Hollywood is not “too big to fail.”