104. Where Are Movies Heading?
We recently bought the new Sky Glass TV set that streams its programs and is in many ways an exciting instrument for watching movies, news and sport. The continuously evolving electronic tech for watching moving pictures with sound makes the process both better in many ways and more complicated in other ways – a typical computing anachronism!
However, what concerns me even more is the content of the pictures and TV series that are being churned out masquerading as entertainment. Having said that, there are some gems amongst the dross.
Going back to the earliest days of moving pictures, comedy was in the forefront. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy dominated the screens. There were also romantic stories and some epic pictures on a massive scale like the original “Ben-Hur” made in 1925 starring one of the major stars of that era, Ramon Navarro. This epic gave rise to a remake in 1959 directed by William Wyler, who had worked on the 1925 version as an assistant director. Other epics of the 1920s included “Napoleon,” Eisenstein’s “Ten Days that Shook the World” in 1928, the story of the Russian revolution of 1917, and in 1925 the first version of “The Ten Commandments” directed by Cecil B. DeMille, which he remade with Charlton Heston in 1956.
Hollywood has had a history of doing remakes of earlier successful movies, as well as a later phenomenon, the dreaded “sequel.” The reason for sequels was that the formula – Hollywood loves formulas – states that any sequel made of a successful movie will virtually guarantee to recoup at least 75% of the profits of the original movie. Therefore, provided the sequel was made on a budget lower than 75% of the original profit, it was certain to make money. Remakes of earlier successful movies also gave the producers great confidence that they would succeed financially.
Despite some crazy decisions made by the heads of the major studios, most pictures were made to entertain. It was pretty certain that the audience would leave the cinema cheerful and uplifted by the upbeat ending of the movie. Stories would focus on heroic deeds, great historical events and (around the periods of the two World Wars when numerous pictures were blatant propaganda) extolling the brave men and sometimes women who helped to defeat the Kaiser and later the Nazis or the Japanese.
Despite all their flaws, most pictures were designed to uplift the spirits, with occasional tragedy thrown in. I remember watching “The Third Man” made in 1949, set in postwar Vienna, starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles. It had for me as a romanticist a disturbing ending, when the girl walks away from the hero. It was almost the first time that the happy ending was not employed. Of course, “Casablanca” also had the happy/sad effect of watching Ingrid Bergman finally leave Humphrey Bogart. Despite that, both films were enthralling. One could almost buy into the idea that all was well despite the love interest failing.
A British picture made in 1946, “A Matter of Life and Death,” starring David Niven, Kim Hunter and Marius Goring, combined the reality of World War II with an intriguing element of fantasy. Niven should have died when struggling to pilot his bomber on fire back to Britain. His crew parachuted out, but Niven’s parachute had been burned and, as the craft was about to crash into the sea just short of the coast, he jumped out without a ’chute and survived.
He falls in love with the girl on the radio who tried to guide him to safety. However, up in “heaven” a mistake has been made. He should have died. An eighteenth-century French dandy played by Marius Goring appears on Earth to escort Niven up to “heaven” to stand trial and reach a verdict as to whether he should actually go to “heaven” or not. Meanwhile on Earth, Niven starts to suffer the effects of a head injury and is operated on to save his life while the trial proceeds “upstairs.” I was about fifteen when I saw the movie and was riveted by the whole thing. Apparently, the Catholic Church at the time tried to have it banned as being blasphemous. Frankly, no matter what one’s religious beliefs, I felt it was handled superbly well and gave no real offense to any religious viewpoint.
My point is this: there were very few pictures until perhaps about the 1970s that had a demoralizing effect on the viewer. One was either amused by comedy or sang along to the Beachboys and a wonderful string of MGM musicals like “Singing in the Rain,” “Oklahoma,” and so on. The dramatic works basically ensured that the good guys in the white hats always beat the bad guys in the black hats.
I can’t quite put my finger on the date but there no doubt in my mind that pictures slowly began to mirror less and less hope and emphasized the hopeless condition of mankind … oops, should I say humankind?
I can’t claim to be immune to this creeping effect. In recent years, my reading habits have focused more and more on thrillers, detective stories and political machinations. At first, I used the excuse that they were an easy, quick read and did not require any great intellectual acumen, unlike novels by great writers like Lawrence Durrell. His Alexandrian Quartet is a writing tour de force, but it did require some concentration. Then, there were writers like James Joyce and Henry Miller that made one think and sometimes left me baffled. Now I can pick up a thriller by David Baldacci, John Grisham Lee Child, Harlan Coben, James Patterson and many others, and enjoy escapist entertainment.
But recently, I’ve begun to realize that, exciting and page-turning though these books may be, they all deal with the degraded and ugly side of life. This applies equally to movies and television today. Once again, I’m guilty of becoming wrapped up in these kinds of stories. In the last couple of weeks, my wife Hero and I discovered a highly rated British series called “Line of Duty.”
Yes, it’s fascinating and brilliantly made but the subject matter is awful. It deals with a specialist police squad that investigates fraud and corruption within the police itself. Coppers who are linked to organized crime. The degree of double-dealing, lies and violence is quite horrific. Even so, it’s fascinating how the interviews between the anti-corruption squad and the allegedly “bent” coppers play out. Despite endless formal police language and the spelling out of document dates and numbers, as well as references to certain laws, the viewer remains glued to the screen as the subject under scrutiny is either revealed as guilty, innocent or a likely criminal without enough evidence to convict.
We then watched an American series, based on the Lee Child novels of a character called Jack Reacher. “Reacher” is yet another thriller but very different in style to that of “Line of Duty.” I spent some time analyzing the difference between the two series and decided that it is largely a difference in the emotional level displayed by the characters. The British series is superbly cast and directed but is played at an emotional level of covert hostility. It’s quite creepy. One character that appears in the latter couple of series playing detective superintendent Carmichael, is one of most the convincingly covert characters I’ve ever seen on screen.
In contrast, “Reacher,” although full of action, is played with an element of humor. Reacher is an eccentric character, and the role is performed well. Reacher is played more with an emotion of antagonism or hostility with humor lightening the mood from time to time. Both series have merits and demerits. I would sum up our feeling about them by saying that the British series is a remarkable piece of filmmaking, but we would rather watch “Reacher” which is far less depressing.
My biggest problem is that if we look for something other than cops and robbers, etc., it’s mostly garbage, although there are exceptions. Every now and then a fine picture emerges but I fear that we have all become accustomed to viewing the world of lies, crime and corruption to the point where it seems that this is the entirety of the world of today – which is a pretty desperate statement on the condition of this planet right now.
Roll on ExoTech. Let’s at least simplify and improve part of our lives by having an electronic system that doesn’t scramble our brains and is intent on truthful communication. The current world of entertainment is pretty depressing. Who knows, perhaps ExoBrain may in time provide a vehicle for some positive movies that may lift the emotions of us poor confused humans!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.