November 1, 2003
JUVENALIA:
Adult Movies (James Bowman, October 31, 2003, The American Spectator)
Writing in The New York Times, Elvis Mitchell takes the death of John Schlesinger, legendary director of Midnight Cowboy, as "a reminder that the adult-rated studio film also seems to have died." Nor is "adult-rated" just a euphemism to Mr Mitchell. He goes on to ask, "Is there a fear of dealing with grown-up sexuality in movies? Absolutely." But then he includes among his examples of "films that deal with adult sexuality" Y Tu Mamá También, a movie about two teenage boys whose wet-dream fantasy of sex with an older woman comes true.It was just another indication, if another indication were needed, that we have grown so used to the the movies’ representation of teenage culture and teenage sensibilities that we could hardly recognize a genuinely adult picture in the unlikely event that one were ever presented for our inspection. But then Mr Mitchell may have thought that, because the woman was dying -- a fact which, along with her husband’s unfaithfulness, was meant to account for her improbable willingness to run off with two teenage boys -- and the boys ended up in bed with each other, the movie transcended its puerile origins.
Even if this were true, Y Tu Mama Tambien would still show how far the primary first-run audience of teenagers has to be taken into account by the movies no matter how putatively "adult" their themes if they are to broaden their audience enough to earn back the absurd sums of money it costs to make them. Either there are not enough adults in the first-run audience -- most adults now wait to watch movies until they have come out on video or DVD -- or in the age of what the New York Times, in another article, recently called "re-juveniles," there are just not enough real adults left in the world. Or both. In any event, if you look closely, you will generally find that any successful movie has learned the lesson of how you make movies that will appeal to 13-14 year-olds, whose dollar is most powerful in the movie-marketplace.
One interesting effect of this fact is that today's movies actually seem to have less gratuitous nudity, graphic sex and realistic violence in them than did movies of the 70s. Now if they'd just make the films smarter. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 1, 2003 9:57 AM
Today's films seem to be getting better and better. In sound, color, cinematography, special effects - all technical aspects.
But the story or fable being told - which is the essence of movies - is falling in quality, seemingly with each technical advance.
The director says: we're really going to impress you with sight and sound, but remember to first put your mind on auto-pilot.
Posted by: John J. Coupal at November 1, 2003 10:34 AMI've just checked the movie listings here in Omaha and there is not one movie I would pay money to see.
The only one I'd even entertain the thought of seeing is Seabiscuit. This is only because it is playing at the dollar theater.
For every one good movie produced in Hollywood, there are 10 really terrible movies. That is a shame.
Posted by: pchuck at November 1, 2003 12:41 PMWith the collapse of the original motion picture ratings system in 1967 and the adaptation of the current (albeit slightly modified over time) MPAA rating system of G-M-R-X in 1968, Hollywood for the next 15 years was like a kid in a candy store, reveling in its freedom to show naked bodies, graphic violence and indulge in four-letter words to its heart's content.
Stuff like that still shows up, but the novelty of it has worn off, which is why it's not used as much anymore (except for something like the deliberately over-the-top "Kill Bill"). Special effects play better on the big screen than on even the largest home theater system, so that's where the medium has gone, but as mentioned above, the writing ability, particularly story logic, character definition and plot continuity, has fallen through the floor in the last decade, so that many of today's films have underdeveloped personalities and story lines that fall apart completely if the characters simply act like logical human beings (Roger Ebert harped on this problem with Gene Siskel 20 years ago, calling it "The Idiot Plot" -- that is, for the plot to work, the characters have to act like idiots. Unfortunately, Ebert in the last 5-10 years has been abandoning his own beliefs at times and praising "idiot plot" films based more on idelology than on plot logic.)
Posted by: John at November 1, 2003 1:32 PMJust a general question for anyone who has insight on these matters: what on earth has become of dialogue? In two recent movies I've seen ("Lost in Translation" and "The Station Agent") the entire script consisted of non sequiturs from beginning to end. Not once did any two of the characters hold a coherent conversation with each other. Each of the movies in question had excellent actors who heroically struggled against the deficiencies of the screenplay, but to little avail.
Posted by: Josh Silverman at November 1, 2003 7:22 PMpchuck: "For every one good movie produced in Hollywood, there are 10 really terrible movies. That is a shame."
I don't call that a shame, because it's always been that way as long as movies have been made. I call that a fact of life. It's a validation of Theodore Sturgeon's maxim that 90% of everything is crap.
Posted by: Joe at November 1, 2003 7:44 PMJosh:
You have to be able to sell them in foreign markets and dialogue makes no sense outside of the movies' nation of origin, so movies have no words anymore.
Posted by: OJ at November 1, 2003 9:02 PM'Chicago', 'Pulp Fiction', 'About a Boy', the LoTR trilogy, 'The Sixth Sense', and 'The Matrix' were all excellent, independent of special effects. Hollywood wasn't any better when they were doing the one-a-month musicals, or churning out the Rock Hudson/Doris Day formulas.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 2, 2003 5:16 AMMichael,
I've watched many "one-a-month musicals" that Hollywood churned out in the 1930s and 40s. Their high quality - considering the movie-making limitations of the time - is very impressive to me.
In addition to the astounding Busby Berkeley shots, the films actually told a story.
Posted by: John J. Coupal at November 2, 2003 12:38 PM