THE SCREENWRITING BLOG OF THE BLACK LIST

More thoughts on “hopeful” movies

Posted on December 21, 2008 by Scott

Fresh on the heels of here about “hopeful” films, more fodder for discussion as NY Times film critic A.O. Scott provides this essay in today’s Week In Review: “Reality Can Be Escapist, Too.” In it, Scott talks about three “old” movies — It’s a Wonderful Life, Grapes of Wrath, Sullivan’s Travels – each of which is tied either directly the Great Depression. Scott’s analysis:

The movies themselves are central to how we remember the Great Depression. The mythology of that era includes the idea that Americans all went to the movies because the movies gave them what they needed. On every Main Street the Bijou or the Biograph showed double features that helped ease the sting of desperation and want. Hard-pressed, ordinary folks gratefully lost themselves in satiny, soigné comedies whose very titles — “Trouble in Paradise,” “Easy Living” — hinted of a glamorous, alluring world. There were also tough, socially conscious pictures, a lot of them produced by Warner Brothers and quite a few starring James Cagney. “The Public Enemy,” “Angels With Dirty Faces” — stories of crime, poverty and punishment delivered, especially once the Production Code came into force in 1934, with redemptive, morally affirming endings.

So what to make of today’s movies? Too early to tell as current movies were put into development before the recent economic meltdown. It will be interesting to see what type of movies work and how the overall film business manages during this time. As Scott says:

Will the movies themselves still be there for Americans, and will Americans need them in a time when other entertainments are cheaper, the double feature has gone the way of the Studebaker, and the movie audience shows signs of shrinking? However much has changed since the 1930s, it still seems that in hard times people go to the movies.

But why? To confront their troubles or to escape them? This may be the wrong question and the either/or phrasing too simple. Audiences want to be lulled by romance or tickled by comedy, but they also have a hunger to see reality depicted. Above all there seems a universal appetite to see the rawness of the world given the shapely and soothing order conferred by familiar genres.

Meanwhile another NY Times columnist Frank Rich weighs in today with his own movie-themed essay “Who Wants to Kick a Millionaire.” Rich begins his piece with this reference to Slumdog Millionaire:

DURING the Great Depression, American moviegoers seeking escape could ogle platoons of glamorous chorus girls in “Gold Diggers of 1933.” Our feel-good movie of the year is “Slumdog Millionaire,” a Dickensian tale in which we root for an impoverished orphan from Mumbai’s slums to hit the jackpot on the Indian edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

It’s a virtuoso feast of filmmaking by Danny Boyle, but it’s also the perfect fairy tale for our hard times. The hero labors as a serf in the toilet of globalization: one of those mammoth call centers Westerners reach when ringing an 800 number to, say, check on credit card debt. When he gets his unlikely crack at instant wealth, the whole system is stacked against him, including the corrupt back office of a slick game show too good to be true.

We cheer the young man on screen even if we’ve lost the hope to root for ourselves. The vicarious victory of a third world protagonist must be this year’s stocking stuffer. The trouble with “Slumdog Millionaire” is that it, like all classic movie fables, comes to an end — as it happens, with an elaborately choreographed Bollywood musical number redolent of “Gold Diggers of 1933.” Then we are delivered back to the inescapable and chilling reality outside the theater’s doors.

What does all this mean to screenwriters? As the creative community has done before, we can zero in on the current cultural climate and concoct stories which are Zeitgeist specific. But to be on the safe side, A.O. Scott makes a point worth remembering:

The truth is that every movie, really, is an escape into someone else’s story.

“Escape into someone else’s story.” As long as we find a story that is compelling and entertaining, and write the hell out of it, we’ll be all right.

We end with a special treat, that is if you like to watch white people dancing badly. For those of you who have yet to see Slumdog Millionaire, here is the production & management company Benderspink — presumably all their employees — doing their homage to the Bollywood dance number that ends Slumdog.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJw34FcIlcI]

More thoughts on "hopeful" movies

Posted on December 21, 2008 by admin

The movies themselves are central to how we remember the Great Depression. The mythology of that era includes the idea that Americans all went to the movies because the movies gave them what they needed. On every Main Street the Bijou or the Biograph showed double features that helped ease the sting of desperation and want. Hard-pressed, ordinary folks gratefully lost themselves in satiny, soigné comedies whose very titles — “Trouble in Paradise,” “Easy Living” — hinted of a glamorous, alluring world. There were also tough, socially conscious pictures, a lot of them produced by Warner Brothers and quite a few starring James Cagney. “The Public Enemy,” “Angels With Dirty Faces” — stories of crime, poverty and punishment delivered, especially once the Production Code came into force in 1934, with redemptive, morally affirming endings.

Will the movies themselves still be there for Americans, and will Americans need them in a time when other entertainments are cheaper, the double feature has gone the way of the Studebaker, and the movie audience shows signs of shrinking? However much has changed since the 1930s, it still seems that in hard times people go to the movies.

But why? To confront their troubles or to escape them? This may be the wrong question and the either/or phrasing too simple. Audiences want to be lulled by romance or tickled by comedy, but they also have a hunger to see reality depicted. Above all there seems a universal appetite to see the rawness of the world given the shapely and soothing order conferred by familiar genres.

DURING the Great Depression, American moviegoers seeking escape could ogle platoons of glamorous chorus girls in “Gold Diggers of 1933.” Our feel-good movie of the year is “Slumdog Millionaire,” a Dickensian tale in which we root for an impoverished orphan from Mumbai’s slums to hit the jackpot on the Indian edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

It’s a virtuoso feast of filmmaking by Danny Boyle, but it’s also the perfect fairy tale for our hard times. The hero labors as a serf in the toilet of globalization: one of those mammoth call centers Westerners reach when ringing an 800 number to, say, check on credit card debt. When he gets his unlikely crack at instant wealth, the whole system is stacked against him, including the corrupt back office of a slick game show too good to be true.

We cheer the young man on screen even if we’ve lost the hope to root for ourselves. The vicarious victory of a third world protagonist must be this year’s stocking stuffer. The trouble with “Slumdog Millionaire” is that it, like all classic movie fables, comes to an end — as it happens, with an elaborately choreographed Bollywood musical number redolent of “Gold Diggers of 1933.” Then we are delivered back to the inescapable and chilling reality outside the theater’s doors.