I disagree with only the final paragraph! I think it's clear that audiences don't really want this, which is why even these big Marvel and Star Wars movies are underperforming. They still make a stupid amount of money, but it's more because that's all that's available.
The problem is media consolidation. There aren't filmmakers out there making interesting or risky movies because no one will fund that. Definitely Disney (which produces like half of movies currently made) is not going to hand someone like Paul Thomas Anderson (let alone a filmmaker like Paul Thomas Anderson was in the early 90s - unknown and untested) 30-70 million dollars to make a movie.
I know people who work as screenwriters who have been in meetings where they pitch a script and 9 times out of 10, the first question asked is: Can we fit this into IP we already own?
Studio executives have decided that people don't want anything that takes risk and they're not willing to make the financial risk and so you end up with the Barbie movie or the 30th Marvel movie or whatever else.
I'm on the exact same tip, but applied to the modern music landscape. Most of your points are relevant there as well. And I think that internet poisoning is a likely culprit for much of it. Everyone's brains seem to have been rewired in a variety of ways. If making art is one of the most human things we can do-as in no other animals do it-is it possible to make good art as we become less human? Seems tricky.
The most recent movie I watched was Elvis and it was so busy I felt anxious after it ended. So fast paced the entire film, no opportunities to pause or make sense of what you were seeing! In general I haven’t enjoyed new movies either, like you mentioned sequel after sequel, recycled stories, non human. I remember when I first saw a movie in Bluray I thought “this is too crisp and defined that it looks fake” I couldn’t enjoy it. I supposed that was towards the beginning of all things digital taking over over a decade ago. I’ve also noticed an uptick in more horror movies available, not sure why but it’s a bit disturbing to me. I don’t have any streaming services so when I do watch a movie its from Redbox or the library. Browsing my limited choices at Redbox it was just horror film after horror. I’ve just given up on new movies in general, it’s not worth it anymore. Going outside or reading a book is more enjoyable anyways. Again love your humor! (I couldn’t get the video clips to load but my phone is older so probably just me.)
I stopped teaching uni level film studies a couple of years back (retraining to be just a regular ol' English teacher) and part of my decision was that increasingly students would be stuck on the notion that this awful current approach to filmmaking is the //correct// one. Back wen I studied film some 15 years ago, if as a 18-year-old I'd been openly into the current crop of Disney films, Star Wars and Marvel I would have been seen as having - at best - immature taste.
While I wouldn't necessarily have immediately clicked with - say - the films of Ruiz, Varda and Skolimowski, I would have appreciated that they were interesting and had value. Some students certianly still will and do! But it troubling me how many students increasingly saw the approaches of filmmakers like the aforementioned as //incorrect//.
It's a relief to read a detailed diagnosis of the problem with contemporary cinema. As with any creeping unease about the direction of travel in art and society, it's very easy to doubt your own instincts and suspect that you're just older and grumpier.
I'm very concerned about the artistic imagination in C21st, for two reasons.
1 - That scene from Jaws, for example, seems to bear the marks of a spark of inspiration - a visiting production by an eccentric cast of actors who visit the writer's head, often as they're in the silent dark, just settling down to sleep, so the light has to go back on while the skeleton of the scene is scrawled in shorthand on the notebook on the nightstand. I feel like the presence of the bright matchbox of demons on the bedside table threatens this fragile element of the process of being inspired.
2 - We aren't very comfortable with allowing the struggle between good and evil to play out inside ourselves. We're under pressure to be perfect according to a secular idea based on a very crude utilitarianism. It's unfashionable to foster an inward struggle involving God, sexuality and our politics. I have a feeling the struggle might be what imbues the artist's work with depth, weight and humanity.
This was really great. On one topic - is the fact that digital looks so bad and homogenous inherent to digital? Or is it because filmmakers are being lazy with it? I just wonder because Fincher has shot digitally for a while but his movies are still, visually, unmistakably his own. Except for Mank, I guess, which I haven’t seen.
Part of the reason for the unnatural visuals and dialogue in modern movies is that they are recursive. A significant portion of the populations spends more time looking at screens than other people, so they expect media to reflect what they've seen on screens before, rather than reflect real life. In your Jurassic Park example, the theme song swelling during the Elli/Alan reunion drives this home.
I was with you until you started pounding the MCU in general and that particular scene, specifically.
And the comparison with Jaws doesn't really work. I actually did not like that scene. It's two drunken assholes. Fine. But in the book, neither character would remotely behave like that.
As to the MCU scene, I'll grant you it's at a level no group of friends can achieve IRL but, err, they're super-heroes? They're the best at everything, including friendly banter... :)
That being said, as you noted, that scene (and lots of parts of the MCU) are beloved while everyone agrees that Independence Day, the sequel or the new Ghost buster movie or the latest Jurassic Parks are utter crap. So how much of a courageous stance is it, really, to agree with most movie goer ever?
Great essay, and I pretty much agree with everything, but I feel like there's a potential nitpick to be about the discussion of the two Jurassic Park scenes.
You could reasonably argue that the way the scene plays out in the original isn't normal either, that it isn't how people talk. Likewise in Dominions I think it's reasonable that two people with a history, reuniting for the first time in years, might nervously make small talk until they get comfortable with each other again. (Except for the saying each others' full names, that is weird.)
Instead I think the stronger point to be made about the two scenes is that the original portrays how the situation *feels*. The situation is unreal to just the right amount, such that information and the emotions of the characters can be read off the screen as easily as words from a page. Dominions doesn't bother, and just has the characters announce that they know each other.
In 2016 I went to see Paterson in the cinema with a friend, we both being Jarmush fans. In total there were 3 people in the cinema. In 1990 there was a local cinema that showed The Third Man every night for years. Usually the same crowd meeting there, some newcomers, a place of discourse and intellectual stimulus. Long gone. C’est la vie.
You nailed it. I've had the exact same critiques of modern movies. You even got the exact timing of when these changes began to become noticeable and undeniable.
What a great, well-thought out, and informed rant! I love it!
I’m completely in agreement—this seems to be a product of trying to please the instant-gratification of today’s society, brought on by near zero attention spans and constant distractions.
To anyone who watched the Independence Day sequel, I'm sorry for your loss.
Great essay.
I disagree with only the final paragraph! I think it's clear that audiences don't really want this, which is why even these big Marvel and Star Wars movies are underperforming. They still make a stupid amount of money, but it's more because that's all that's available.
The problem is media consolidation. There aren't filmmakers out there making interesting or risky movies because no one will fund that. Definitely Disney (which produces like half of movies currently made) is not going to hand someone like Paul Thomas Anderson (let alone a filmmaker like Paul Thomas Anderson was in the early 90s - unknown and untested) 30-70 million dollars to make a movie.
I know people who work as screenwriters who have been in meetings where they pitch a script and 9 times out of 10, the first question asked is: Can we fit this into IP we already own?
Studio executives have decided that people don't want anything that takes risk and they're not willing to make the financial risk and so you end up with the Barbie movie or the 30th Marvel movie or whatever else.
I'm on the exact same tip, but applied to the modern music landscape. Most of your points are relevant there as well. And I think that internet poisoning is a likely culprit for much of it. Everyone's brains seem to have been rewired in a variety of ways. If making art is one of the most human things we can do-as in no other animals do it-is it possible to make good art as we become less human? Seems tricky.
The most recent movie I watched was Elvis and it was so busy I felt anxious after it ended. So fast paced the entire film, no opportunities to pause or make sense of what you were seeing! In general I haven’t enjoyed new movies either, like you mentioned sequel after sequel, recycled stories, non human. I remember when I first saw a movie in Bluray I thought “this is too crisp and defined that it looks fake” I couldn’t enjoy it. I supposed that was towards the beginning of all things digital taking over over a decade ago. I’ve also noticed an uptick in more horror movies available, not sure why but it’s a bit disturbing to me. I don’t have any streaming services so when I do watch a movie its from Redbox or the library. Browsing my limited choices at Redbox it was just horror film after horror. I’ve just given up on new movies in general, it’s not worth it anymore. Going outside or reading a book is more enjoyable anyways. Again love your humor! (I couldn’t get the video clips to load but my phone is older so probably just me.)
I stopped teaching uni level film studies a couple of years back (retraining to be just a regular ol' English teacher) and part of my decision was that increasingly students would be stuck on the notion that this awful current approach to filmmaking is the //correct// one. Back wen I studied film some 15 years ago, if as a 18-year-old I'd been openly into the current crop of Disney films, Star Wars and Marvel I would have been seen as having - at best - immature taste.
While I wouldn't necessarily have immediately clicked with - say - the films of Ruiz, Varda and Skolimowski, I would have appreciated that they were interesting and had value. Some students certianly still will and do! But it troubling me how many students increasingly saw the approaches of filmmakers like the aforementioned as //incorrect//.
High marks for not even mentioning CGI. This was delicious.
Timely given it’s the 30th anniversary of the release of Jurassic Park.
It's a relief to read a detailed diagnosis of the problem with contemporary cinema. As with any creeping unease about the direction of travel in art and society, it's very easy to doubt your own instincts and suspect that you're just older and grumpier.
I'm very concerned about the artistic imagination in C21st, for two reasons.
1 - That scene from Jaws, for example, seems to bear the marks of a spark of inspiration - a visiting production by an eccentric cast of actors who visit the writer's head, often as they're in the silent dark, just settling down to sleep, so the light has to go back on while the skeleton of the scene is scrawled in shorthand on the notebook on the nightstand. I feel like the presence of the bright matchbox of demons on the bedside table threatens this fragile element of the process of being inspired.
2 - We aren't very comfortable with allowing the struggle between good and evil to play out inside ourselves. We're under pressure to be perfect according to a secular idea based on a very crude utilitarianism. It's unfashionable to foster an inward struggle involving God, sexuality and our politics. I have a feeling the struggle might be what imbues the artist's work with depth, weight and humanity.
This was really great. On one topic - is the fact that digital looks so bad and homogenous inherent to digital? Or is it because filmmakers are being lazy with it? I just wonder because Fincher has shot digitally for a while but his movies are still, visually, unmistakably his own. Except for Mank, I guess, which I haven’t seen.
Part of the reason for the unnatural visuals and dialogue in modern movies is that they are recursive. A significant portion of the populations spends more time looking at screens than other people, so they expect media to reflect what they've seen on screens before, rather than reflect real life. In your Jurassic Park example, the theme song swelling during the Elli/Alan reunion drives this home.
My podcast co-host is publishing a book that is relevant to this topic.
https://www.tuckerdspress.com/product-page/the-last-decade-of-cinema
I was with you until you started pounding the MCU in general and that particular scene, specifically.
And the comparison with Jaws doesn't really work. I actually did not like that scene. It's two drunken assholes. Fine. But in the book, neither character would remotely behave like that.
As to the MCU scene, I'll grant you it's at a level no group of friends can achieve IRL but, err, they're super-heroes? They're the best at everything, including friendly banter... :)
That being said, as you noted, that scene (and lots of parts of the MCU) are beloved while everyone agrees that Independence Day, the sequel or the new Ghost buster movie or the latest Jurassic Parks are utter crap. So how much of a courageous stance is it, really, to agree with most movie goer ever?
Great essay, and I pretty much agree with everything, but I feel like there's a potential nitpick to be about the discussion of the two Jurassic Park scenes.
You could reasonably argue that the way the scene plays out in the original isn't normal either, that it isn't how people talk. Likewise in Dominions I think it's reasonable that two people with a history, reuniting for the first time in years, might nervously make small talk until they get comfortable with each other again. (Except for the saying each others' full names, that is weird.)
Instead I think the stronger point to be made about the two scenes is that the original portrays how the situation *feels*. The situation is unreal to just the right amount, such that information and the emotions of the characters can be read off the screen as easily as words from a page. Dominions doesn't bother, and just has the characters announce that they know each other.
In 2016 I went to see Paterson in the cinema with a friend, we both being Jarmush fans. In total there were 3 people in the cinema. In 1990 there was a local cinema that showed The Third Man every night for years. Usually the same crowd meeting there, some newcomers, a place of discourse and intellectual stimulus. Long gone. C’est la vie.
You nailed it. I've had the exact same critiques of modern movies. You even got the exact timing of when these changes began to become noticeable and undeniable.
What a great, well-thought out, and informed rant! I love it!
I’m completely in agreement—this seems to be a product of trying to please the instant-gratification of today’s society, brought on by near zero attention spans and constant distractions.