I've been thinking of creating a thread on this topic for a little while after numerous news stories kept concerning me about the direction in which film is heading. I'm a great lover of film, who pre-Covid would attend the cinema two or three times a week, and who loves third quarter 20th century film with directors such as Bergman, Hitchcock, Tarkovsky, Fellini, Kurosawa, Ford and so many others. And so while there were changes around 1980 that bother me (the consuming of the foreign market by the American market and the consuming of the American market by the big Hollywood studios after the era of directors' independence in the 1960s and 1970s), it nevertheless really depresses me where I see where things seem to be going.
A great article in 2014 detailed the death of mid-budget cinema, as studios increasingly rely on increasingly huge budget fare to bring in astronomical box offices, or take gambles on small budget movies with a few small losses being outweighed by successes that would occasionally blow up and make something of a profit. This is seeing a real lack of originality in film, a cursory glance by me of each year of the 2010s' ten biggest Box Offices suggests only eight of the hundred films listed were original screenplays, not based on popular books, biographies of popular figures or (increasingly) comic book adaptations. This is well down from the 2000s, which itself was well down on the 1990s. While an adaptation can be exciting and interesting, there's an increasing reliance on familiarity in selling movies with any large budget behind them.
Paired with this has been the rise of modern streaming. For the regular viewer, undoubtedly it's been a godsend. Netflix particularly has produced quality film such as Roma, The Irishman and Marriage Story, and the library of film at our fingertips no doubt seems infinitesimal and more readily attainable than it ever has before. But as argued by Amazon over a recent lawsuit over ownership of films purchased through Prime, consumers don't actually own the movies or shows they purchase through the website but instead have purchased an indefinite licence. While we owned our DVDs and videos, we no longer do with our streaming purchases. And the streaming companies aren't necessarily showing us films as we know them, with streaming services regularly providing small edits to the movies we know and love without necessarily notifying us (probably most easily highlighted by many of the stupid removals or edits to various classic shows and movies earlier this year, from Gone with the Wind to Community, in an unnecessary response to the Black Lives Matter movement).
The recent announcement that Warner Bros will release all of its new 2021 movies simultaneously in cinemas and on HBOMax furthers the empowerment of the streaming services and the decline of cinema, reeling from the effects of the pandemic this year. The world's second largest cinema chain, Cineworld, stands on the brink of collapse. It's a perilous time for film's original (and, from the director's point of view, generally intended) means of viewing work.
As film production continues to consolidate into a shrinking group of companies, we've seen that these companies are beginning to flex their editorial muscle. Recently watching David Fincher's very good Mank, about the writing of Citizen Kane, I discussed with my friend I'd just watched it with whether or not a movie like Citizen Kane, which eviscerated the most powerful media mogul of its time, could be made today. It didn't take long for me to begin to see an answer, with an article about Apple+'s intervention to kill a series being made about Gawker. The article also details other interventions by Apple, including stopping a production's scene featuring the damaging of a mobile phone. While other companies haven't yet locked down this level of editorial control, it seems inevitable, especially given the above example of edits to popular existing films becoming more common. And today's news, that the creatives behind the most successful film series ever receiving $50 million from a Saudi bank shows that the list of those paying to be exempt from criticism is only growing.
This has been a very long post, so if you're still reading I'm sorry to say I don't really have an answer to close with, but hopefully this can lead to some discussion. The length is due to how many developments I've allowed to build before posting. Film is possibly the most popular and most profitable of all art forms, and its complete capture by corporate interests should be pushed back on by all of us. The current film industry is comprised by a small number of people who can make huge profit through saying very little. Anybody who loves good cinema needs to try to reclaim it.
A great article in 2014 detailed the death of mid-budget cinema, as studios increasingly rely on increasingly huge budget fare to bring in astronomical box offices, or take gambles on small budget movies with a few small losses being outweighed by successes that would occasionally blow up and make something of a profit. This is seeing a real lack of originality in film, a cursory glance by me of each year of the 2010s' ten biggest Box Offices suggests only eight of the hundred films listed were original screenplays, not based on popular books, biographies of popular figures or (increasingly) comic book adaptations. This is well down from the 2000s, which itself was well down on the 1990s. While an adaptation can be exciting and interesting, there's an increasing reliance on familiarity in selling movies with any large budget behind them.
Paired with this has been the rise of modern streaming. For the regular viewer, undoubtedly it's been a godsend. Netflix particularly has produced quality film such as Roma, The Irishman and Marriage Story, and the library of film at our fingertips no doubt seems infinitesimal and more readily attainable than it ever has before. But as argued by Amazon over a recent lawsuit over ownership of films purchased through Prime, consumers don't actually own the movies or shows they purchase through the website but instead have purchased an indefinite licence. While we owned our DVDs and videos, we no longer do with our streaming purchases. And the streaming companies aren't necessarily showing us films as we know them, with streaming services regularly providing small edits to the movies we know and love without necessarily notifying us (probably most easily highlighted by many of the stupid removals or edits to various classic shows and movies earlier this year, from Gone with the Wind to Community, in an unnecessary response to the Black Lives Matter movement).
The recent announcement that Warner Bros will release all of its new 2021 movies simultaneously in cinemas and on HBOMax furthers the empowerment of the streaming services and the decline of cinema, reeling from the effects of the pandemic this year. The world's second largest cinema chain, Cineworld, stands on the brink of collapse. It's a perilous time for film's original (and, from the director's point of view, generally intended) means of viewing work.
As film production continues to consolidate into a shrinking group of companies, we've seen that these companies are beginning to flex their editorial muscle. Recently watching David Fincher's very good Mank, about the writing of Citizen Kane, I discussed with my friend I'd just watched it with whether or not a movie like Citizen Kane, which eviscerated the most powerful media mogul of its time, could be made today. It didn't take long for me to begin to see an answer, with an article about Apple+'s intervention to kill a series being made about Gawker. The article also details other interventions by Apple, including stopping a production's scene featuring the damaging of a mobile phone. While other companies haven't yet locked down this level of editorial control, it seems inevitable, especially given the above example of edits to popular existing films becoming more common. And today's news, that the creatives behind the most successful film series ever receiving $50 million from a Saudi bank shows that the list of those paying to be exempt from criticism is only growing.
This has been a very long post, so if you're still reading I'm sorry to say I don't really have an answer to close with, but hopefully this can lead to some discussion. The length is due to how many developments I've allowed to build before posting. Film is possibly the most popular and most profitable of all art forms, and its complete capture by corporate interests should be pushed back on by all of us. The current film industry is comprised by a small number of people who can make huge profit through saying very little. Anybody who loves good cinema needs to try to reclaim it.