“Beware Falling Stars!”
Daily Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart chooses Oscar week to weigh in about the current state of the movie business in this essay in Vanity Fair. Apart from his snide swipe at the WGA and the work stoppage last year over “esoteric demands for broader compensation in the ‘new media’” [what’s so “esoteric” about wanting fair compensation in an area of exponential growth], it’s an interesting read. Much of the piece is focused on the effects of the economic downturn on movie stars, agencies, and studios — but more pertinent to screenwriters are Bart’s observations about the state of quality movies nowadays, as in there just aren’t that many:
“There are more movies being made, but not more good movies,” says the director of one prestigious festival, who asks not to be identified for fear of hurting the cachet of his own event. “Young filmmakers spend too much time trying to figure out what’s commercial rather than standing on their own sensibilities.”
And their approach isn’t working. Remarkably few movies are getting “picked up” by distributors at major festivals such as Sundance and Toronto. Success stories like The Wrestler are few and far between. (It sold for $4 million at Toronto this fall.) Ask why and the distributors will tell you that there are fewer good movies out there. And some will also admit they’re simply becoming more risk-averse in making their acquisitions.
— — -
So here’s the discomfiting reality that makes studio executives squirm: It’s cable television, not film, that’s generating audience excitement today. Tune in to the typical watercooler chatter (or what passes for it online), and the titles you hear are more often Entourage or Weeds or Dexter or Mad Men, not Doubt or The Reader.
Ask Hollywood’s top filmmakers what forces may pull the community out of its current slough and you often elicit the following answer: The malaise itself is the key. The system needed to be shaken up. The creative community needed a reality check.
“I don’t want to sound like the dopey optimist,” says Paramount’s Brad Grey, “but I think good things will emerge from all this angst and turmoil. We may find ourselves replaying the 60s or some form thereof.”
The new voices that re-invigorated our pop culture in that era emerged from a chaotic whirlwind of social change — Vietnam, drugs, sexual liberation, Black Power. The threat of anarchy seemed pervasive as violence gripped the streets and inspirational leaders were assassinated.
Out of that morass, amazing new voices suddenly took command of our pop culture. Could it happen yet again?
The original moguls of the Hwood movie studio system — Mayer, Goldwyn, Fox, Warners, Cohn — were a lot of things, good and bad, but one thing was certain: They had a passion for movies. The same can’t be said currently where the studios are owned by ginormous multinational corporations, the movie business representing oftentimes rather small segments of the Mother Ship’s overall revenue stream. For them, it’s all about quarterly earnings and bottom lines, not three act structure and character development.
Therefore, it’s safe to assume that the system likely won’t be “shaken up” by bean-counters. Rather it is the creative community that needs to step up to the plate. Slumdog Millionaire is a great example. It may not be a perfect movie, but if you step back and take a meta view — a movie with no stars, set in India, a backdrop of abject poverty, but a strong plot device (the game show) and a strong emotional hook (the lover story) — while it was an enormous risk given the business ‘negatives,’ with veteran storytellers like Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy at the helm, and their distinct vision, what resulted is the equivalent of a shot across Hwood’s bow, a reminder of the magic that can happen when creative types follow their muse.
So hearkening back to the advice from screenwriter Jonah Nolan at this year’s Beyond Words event: “There’s that adage, ‘Write what you you know.’ That sucks. I say write what you want.”
Write what you want. You’re much more likely to tap into the full measure of your creative potential that way and write a great script.
Comment Archive