Lamenting the Loss of Art in U.S. Film

(April 17, 2009) This is an interesting Reuters article by Bob Tourellotte today about how the mad dash for box office cash cows has eroded and diminished the Artistry and Story impact of today’s films.  But this isn’t a new message, is it?  Something we haven’t heard?  

No, the God squad has railed against this sort of thing for years.  But as we’ve seen time and again, it’s one thing to claim you can do better, it’s a whole other story to actually accomplish that.  

And so while the Christian community will rant and rave and then serve up “The Bike King and the Ten Commandments” which we dealt with HERE or “One Night With the King” which Josh Bell dealt with HERE we will turn our attention to an Oscar Award winning filmmaker, Director Norman Jewison, for the real deal.  Because as a respected insider, he can admonish his brothers and sisters in the Hollywood community in a way we never could.

More importantly, some may even listen.

(EXCERPT)  When award-winning director Norman Jewison, whose hits range from “In the Heat of the Night” to “Moonstruck,” talks about Hollywood today, he does so with a fondness for an industry he sees as an integral part of the world.

But there is one ingredient Jewison says is now missing from U.S.-made motion pictures, which was not always the case. He says the art in filmmaking is mostly gone even in some of the so-called “independent” films from studio divisions.

“Art missing — a lot of it,” he told Reuters recently. “When you look back 15 years at any type of awards that are given, you will find that there are very few major Hollywood films honored. I don’t know how to change that.”

Jewison linked the drop-off in artfully done U.S. movies to the rise of corporate-owned Hollywood studios focused on bottom line profits.

Even in the low-budget “indie” film arena, he said moviemakers are forced to hire big-name stars who will perform for a low salary or find a strong marketing angle to lure audiences before productions get funded. As a result, quality storytelling has taken a back seat to profit potential.

“The film should be the star. The story should be the star,” he said. “Maybe we’ve lost our confidence in stories.”

Jewison, 82, should know.

He has directed serious dramas and madcap comedies, and worked in television and on film in the United States and around the world.

His films have won 12 Oscars. He has been nominated for four, and in 1999, he was given the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Irving Thalberg Award for his long career.

While Jewison said major movies lacked art, he did not disparage Hollywood. In fact, he called it “the ultimate dream factory” and said that in the past 50 years, film has been “the most important medium of communication” around the world.

“I know there’s a lot of schlock out there and I know films are made for money,” he said. “But film has been the dominant art form of the last 100 years and I think it expresses this country…Americans should be proud of their film history.”

Read the Full Article at Yahoo News

###

The Prayer of Josh Bell

We’re on a journey.  A journey, first, to understand the Art and Craft of Filmmaking and, second, to employ a higher standard on our own projects.  A higher standard that is not dictated by the size of your budget.  Of course more money can always help, but as Hollywood has proven time and again…(*cough* godzilla *cough* daredevil) big budgets don’t guarantee squat.    

What film would you make for $150K?  Or $1M?  Or think reeeeeally big…how about $20M?  Well according to Box Office Mojo, that was the budget for 8X Entertainment’s One Night with the King.  Right on!  I’d say we could all agree that $20M is a pretty decent production budget.  And on top of that it’s got Peter O’Toole for crying out loud…you can’t go wrong with Lawrence of Arabia.

I’ll let the following review from Josh Bell take it from here.  It was published the week of October 12, 2006 by Las Vegas Weekly.  It used to be here but has since disappeared.  That’s unfortunate because I feel like this humorous “prayer” sums up what the world thinks of Christian Film in general and certainly this latest film specificially.  I can’t find it online anymore, so I’m re-posting it here at Wired4Film.com because we need to chew loooooooong and hard on these words.  

Dear Lord, why must Your most ardent followers unleash such bad movies in Your name? Surely, as our Creator, You wish for us to have better entertainment than the cut-rate fare that passes for faith-based film? Is Your glory really best served by the Left Behind movies, starring Kirk Cameron, or toothless Mormon comedies, or conspiracy-theory obsessed series The Omega Code?

Perhaps You have been paying attention to the prayers of religious film producers, who no doubt are beseeching You for better scripts, larger budgets and bigger audiences. In particular, those who made The Omega Code and its sequel have been blessed in the creation of their new film, One Night With the King, as it boasts not only lavish production values but also actors with far greater range than their previous big star, Casper Van Dien.

In Your wisdom, Lord, You have delivered unto the producers John Rhys-Davies, Omar Sharif and James Callis, actors who elevate One Night With the King above its stiff storytelling and bland, declaratory dialogue. You have used Your powers to guide the filmmakers to the Old Testament story of Esther (Tiffany Dupont), a Jew who became queen of the Persians and saved her people from the genocidal Haman (Callis).

This story, the origin of the Jewish holiday Purim, is likely to appeal to more of Your followers than the reactionary Christian tales of religious films past, although You might want to send director Michael O. Sajbel a vision imparting to him that a really loud score and lots of sweeping camera movements do not a classical epic make. But his heart is in the right place, Lord, and One Night With the King sometimes succeeds as passable, third-rate entertainment.

But I despair, Lord, that such third-rate passability is all that exists to exalt Your name, and I bet You do, too. Although Dupont is a fine specimen of the beauty of Your creation, she plays Esther like a petulant teen. Surely, Lord, moviegoers would be thankful if next time You inspired more talented people to take on one of Your most beloved stories. Amen.

# # #