Are values, family or otherwise, something we look for in the movies? They used to be – a loooong time ago. But that was before (at least) 1972 when Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris made hip sexuality King of the Cinema. Now I don’t have anything against sex in the movies – or outside of them, for that matter – but it is worth noting the winds may be heading the other way now, away from the ultra-edginess of Last Tango and toward the traditional morality of The Blind Side, the true story of a white Christian housewife who saves a lost child of the ghetto. Surprisingly… well, maybe not so surprisingly… the heart-warming Sandra Bullock film is the audience favorite going into Sunday night’s Oscars. According to Rasmussen, 25% of adults who are going to be watching on Sunday will be pulling for The Blind Side, as opposed to the vaunted Avatar, a film Lionel Chetywynd and I didn’t like very much, which is garnering only 17%.
Does this mean the return of the family movie? This is a strange conundrum. For the executive class family-oriented movies have never really gone away, because it is well known that at the box office the grosses for G and PG-rated fare usually outstrip the racier stuff. But don’t look for artsier Hollywood types to suddenly embrace remakes of Little Women. Normally you don’t win Oscars for that. You win them for Last Tango in Paris, better yet The Last Emperor, a Bertolucci film I hugely admire.
Whatever may happen in the best picture and director categories, look for Sandra Bullock to win the best actress on Sunday night (uh-oh… a prediction… bring out the crow) and look for more of The Blind Side approach to filmmaking in the near future. Call it Tea Party filmmaking. It’s the coming thing. Lionel and I will be doing a post-Oscar special for next Monday (Will Leonardo diCaprio say that Chile happened because of climate change?), but meanwhile check out the latest POLIWOOD: “The Blind Side vs. Last Tango in Park: Values in the Movies.”
Values movies have always done well if well-made. The problem is that Hollyweird is more interested in making movies so the producers can look cool in each other’s eyes – and very often cutting off their noses to spite their faces financially, as well as artistically.
I was reminded of John Gardner’s “On Moral Fiction” in which he argued that the purpose of fiction was to be a vehicle in which the hero modeled the behavior of the gods, for humanity to emulate. In every great movie I remember, there was always an individual worthy of imitation. Lesser movies…not so much.
I was also struck by the references to sexual tension as being so much more compelling that actual sex. Summer and Smoke? The Fugitive Kind? Touch of Evil? William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man? The Maltese Falcon? Casablanca? Sex, sexy films. Passionate films.
Life is short, and I, for one, would rather wrestle with genuine passion than participate is some post-modern Derrida-inspired, pseudo-intellectual circle jerk and pretend that it is passion. Keep Last Tango. Gime On The Waterfront, any day of the week.
I have pretty much quit seeing movies in theater. There are a few I want to see but I will watch them on my 54 inch TV from DVD. The Blind Side will definitely be one. I am also very pleased for Sandra Bullock, another favorite who, it seems to me, has made some poor choices on films to make in the past.
For sexual tension, few do it better than The Maltese Falcon where you know that Bogart has slept with Mary Astor but it is never shown. At the end she hints at it when she can’t believe he will turn her in. The so-called action films are usually aimed at 14 year old boys so that is another waste.
You would think that Hollywood producers and studio money men would look at the gross of Forrest Gump and think maybe family movies with some level of sophistication above Disney would be worth while but the mystery continues. Writing is such a rare talent these days. Too bad the Epstein twins couldn’t be cloned.
I’m curious what you think of Roger Ebert, Roger? He was on Oprah today and I have to admit I felt empathy for him and his wife but the guy is a total Leftist Loony Toons.
‘Last Tango in Paris’ (which I never viewed) was the first mainstream movie about sex? When was that Gurfunkle&Nichaelson movie made?
If you’re talking about, Carnal Knowledge, seaPea, that was 1971,the year before Last Tango. But it is nowhere near as explicit as Bertolucci’s film.
Roger, I don’t think Hollywood will put together more G/PG rated movies. Look at say, Bullock’s “the Proposal” being deep-sixed by Disney despite the money it made for a sequel. Disney was NOT INTERESTED.
What Hollywood is interested in, is NOT movies like the Blind Side. NOT G/PG rated family movies. Hollywood does not want to make them and does not see profit in them.
Hollywood DOES see profit in “merchandising” movies, where toys, towels, sheets, underwear, cartoons, video games, and a zillion other things can be merchandised and sold. This means characters, and basic plotlines, that appeal to tween and younger boys and girls. Disney has done well with Princess Fantasies but has not been able to reach boys. “Doug” the talking dog from “Up” is what Disney and everyone else wants, because … talking dogs SELL, in cartoons and toys, and other things that make money.
Because movies are increasingly a commodity business. You and I both read the WSJ, even Warners caved basically to Redbox. The $1 rental is killing DVD/Blu-Ray business, and the recession has killed video on demand/downloads. Since the stuff has so much digital restrictions consumers are better off with piracy or simply Redbox.
The other thing Hollywood wants to make is edgy/hip movies that appeal to the “deal.” You know how powerful agents and agencies are, it is all about the “deal” that makes the extended social network happy and produces junk like “the Reader” or Roman Polanski, Hollywood’s hero, lecturing us about Tony Blair allowing water to be poured up KSM’s nose. Moralizing from a child rapist. But that is what Hollywood wants.
Maybe Whoopi can explain during the Oscars how it was not “rape-rape.”
Too bad she’s not hosting.
But that is Hollywood. They don’t even want a sequel to Sandra Bullock’s other big money maker, because you can not turn it into a toy that a ten year old will buy. Meanwhile, because movies don’t make money anymore, Hollywood is falling all over itself to hug a child rapist.
Best Picture, and Director: The Ghost / Roman Polanski. Accepting will be … Charlie Sheen. The house will come down, I tell you.
Poliwood ~ I agree with your overall assessment. Hollywood is definitely faced with a conundrum; however, that conundrum is more than simply the fact that this specific movie has done so well. Rather, the conundrum is that the general population appears to have moved to the right overall. The American population is tired of being told what is right, virtuous, moral, etc. ESPECIALLY by a media that leans heavily left and is most often counter to the population’s views of the world.
Avatar was a highly enhanced version of Ferngully. Most people compared it to Dances with Wolves. No. Ferngully. The problem is that people are less gullible now and could see the thinly veiled storyline to a push for “greening” the USA. Of course, the media discovery of collusion between climate theory scientists just before the movie did not stop people from going to see it, but it did make many realize the politics behind it.
In the end, the only way we, the American people, can keep this going is to talk about the movies like Blind Side and go see them. Then, talk about them in other forums, with our children, by the water cooler, etc.
BTW – We need to support Red Box also. The movie executives are unhappy that Red Box is cutting into their bottom line. This is capitalism, and we should support it. More to that… but I will follow your rules of staying on topic.
Roger:
I respect your opinion, and you certainly know a lot more about Hellywood than i do, but… I remind you about a fellow named Mel Gibson. He made a little movie called The Passion of the Christ, which made him a very, very wealthy man. At the time I said “Ah, perfect! Now we’ll see if Hollywood cares more about money or ideology.” If it was all about money, wouldn’t somebody have tried to cash in on the obviously HUGE market for thoughtful religious films??
Well, as you can see by the massive money making success of the “Mary Magdelene Story” which side won out. Not-so-Holywood prefers to leave untold millions on the table than try to cater to religious movie goers. A remake of Planet of the Apes? Sure! A sequel to every inane move ever made? Absolutely! A single, solitary movie attempt to tap into the Passion audience?? Not so much.
Mike has it right, and so does Whiskey. Merchandising and tie-ins are hugely profitable, and in some ways I can sympathize with that, I don’t blame Hollywood for wanting to make money in itself. In some ways, that’s one of their _healthier_ impulses. But values, ah yes.
The funny thing is that you can’t tell any story, any story at all, without incorporating value judgements into it. It’s impossible to tell a value-neutral story. If the values that motivate the protagonist are too alien to the values that motivate the viewer/reader etc, they won’t see him/her as the protagonist in the first place, even if they’re intended to.
There’s an odd irony to Hollywood’s movies aimed at 14 year old boys, they’re successful in part _because_ the limits of that venue (action and superhero movies, for ex) constrain Hollywood to work within a value frame familiar to and acceptable to the audience. It might be an immature version, but at least it isn’t alien, and when Hollywood tries to put their values in that sort of movie, the genres themselves constrain it.
Thus, in _Iron Man_, Tony Stark is a womanizing jerk in some ways (teenage boy fantasy), but he’s not anti-American, he doesn’t hate the armed forces, and his _overall_ value system is compatible with what most Americans believe or want to believe. His best buddy Rhodey isn’t a thug in uniform, and somehow you know that if the womanizer ever did marry Pepper, he’d be faithful afterward.
(I’m talking about the movie version of him here.)
When Hollywood tries to make ‘movies for adults’, though, they instinctively put _their_ values in, creating characters that audiences often find boring, loathesome, or both. They can’t resist taking shots at people and groups they hate, or sometimes they don’t even realize the people they mock are actually popular and respected by the audience.