Talk About...Are Films Too Depressing? Part 2
Shootout hosts Peter Bart and Peter Guber continued their crusade against the cascade of depressing films from Hollywood. (Read the start of the crusade, here.)
Seventy years ago, said Bart, the great movies in production in Hollywood's "best" year, 1939, included Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Babes in Arms. "There were musicals, comedies... Audiences were given such a wonderful palette of pictures...It wasn't all dark and depressing and Iraq," said Bart.
The main culprit seems to be the bevy of smaller, speciality films driven by younger directors. These pictures land major stars who agree to work below their usual fees so they can make films that will be perceived as serious and important.
Bart and Guber respect these efforts. But, said Guber, "So many of the films are really depressing...Why would an audience turn out--unless they (are going to buy) vodka and razor blades when they leave the theater. It doesn't mean (a film) can't be thoughtful and it doesn't mean there always has to be a happy ending, but it has to be emotionally fulfilling."
Where are these films coming from? "You wonder why they got made. Who propelled their production?" asked Guber.
Studios need to mandate films that will "fill out the palette," argued Bart. "You really need a Walt Disney or a Louis B. Mayer or someone in the front office to mandate: 'We're going to make a musical or...a series of comedies.'"
Meanwhile, noir is not playing well at the box office, even when major stars are added to the film. The speciality audience is down this year, said Guber, even while major blockbusters are "gigantically up." Lions for Lambs with Tom Cruise and Robert Redford pulled only $9.7 million at the box office. John Cusak's Grace is Gone grossed $36,000.
Guber propsed creating a "razor blade and vodka award show" for the most dour and depressing film that "left you nauseous."
The second half of "Gone With The Wind" is pretty damn depressing. And in 2006, for a counter-example, we had "Dreamgirls", "The Pursuit of Happyness", the final "Pirates" movie, "Little Miss Sunshine", and so forth. Hard to say which of these will stand the test of time, but the whole premise of your story here is pure selection bias, and ultimately makes you sound like grouchy old people longing for the good old days.
Plenty of comedies (and more musicals every year) are made. It's just that more movies of EVERY kind are made now. Kinds that they hadn't even invented yet in 1939. Suffice to say that everyone loves movies and pretty much everyone nowadays is able to find the kinds of movies they like to watch.
Many films this year were very depressing and deserved, I think, to do poorly. But any year with Hairspray, Juno, Once, Charlie Wilson's War, and Ratatouille is not a complete loss. There were also excellent dramas with serious themes that were still satisfying, such as Breach, Into the Wild, and Michael Clayton. I hope that film makers will take a lesson from this year and understand that we go to the movies looking for stories that entertain us, challenge us, and make us thoughtful, but that also distract us for a time from the unrelenting depression of current events.
Part of the reason we've had a spate of "depressing" films recalls another remark made by Peter Bart a few months ago - the so-called "development" process in Hollywood is bankrupt. Even the great comic talents like Mae West, Ruth Gordon, Clare Booth Luce, all the way up through Carol Burnett and writer-directors like Amy Heckerling have had to endure pointlessly subjective arguments with executives who wouldn't know what was funny, and why something was funny, if it had a huge slug above it in capital letters screaming LEAVE THIS ALONE, IT'S FUNNY.
To quote Nora Ephron, "Everyone thinks they have good taste and a sense of humor - but not everyone HAS good taste and a sense of humor." And those that don't seem to get jobs fresh out of college in "development." Even if a comic spec happens to make it, limping and wounded, through the minefield of mediocrity around this Developmental Military Zone, the text is then eviscerated by director producers who think they are Judd Apatow but are not, think they are Kevin Smith but are not, and executives who think they are Peter Guber, but most assuredly are not. Until, at last, you have the experience that Teresa Rebeck had when she saw "Catwoman" for the first time - you sit there and are gobsmacked because not a single word, character, or situation resembles anything that came out of your mind. And if you complain, someone will tell you "if you want so much CONTROL, then why don't you direct it yourself?"
That's why I write for theatre - and I may just stay here. Nobody is going to stop one of my rehearsals and turn around to ask the guy replacing the light bulbs if he thinks the jokes are landing.
With today's 24-hour news channels and the constant negative reports of war, acts of murder, housing & mortgage problems, jobless numbers, etc, the public feels that a movie can be a break from reality; a fantasy of sorts. With all this 'reality' in our faces daily, a fun or uplifting film can 'take us away' for a few hours and lift spirits. So - yes - I think depressing films should be shelved for more enjoyable ones.
I'm in my sixties, so most films made today, are not aimed at me. But I enjoyed the films made in the forties and fifties to this day. Today's popular subjects deal with bathroom humor and foul language or a world that might end. The only time it seams a good character film of any kind is made is when it's a true indie. The powers that be also won't look at newer material. they see dollar signs in retreading know hits. As an actor I still feel movies are to bring people together and leave them with good feelings were they can escape their own every day life. Look at the old westerns and war movies, they always ended with a positive outlook.
yes, i think movies today are too depressing. but, i would want films to be too happy, just romantic comedies. it think there needs to be a balance. too much violence and sex isn't good either at prime ticket prices.
I think the price of movies is depressing.
The last movie I paid full price to see in a theater was Mystic River which left me with wrenching heart and furtive dreams for weeks. Since then, I'm not even tempted to rent a movie, thank The Force for Tivo, eh?
I write today primarily to say Thank You to Mr. Bart and Mr. Guber for past films which I did enjoy, and to AMC for putting your show on the air. I thoroughly enjoy our time together each week, your points of view are entertaining and instructive, you guest interviews are enlightening in the true sense of that word, and I'm old enough to think you're both kinda cute ... not at all depressing.
I wrote this post. My read on Bart and Guber is that they are talking specifically about the recent wave of dark, often political, speciality films--"independent" efforts made by smaller studios (even if some of those are surrogates for the majors) with big stars working below their usual rates. Besides "Lions for Lambs" and "Grace Is Gone" cited in the post above, that would also include "In the Name of Elah" with Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron, which has grossed around $6.7 million at the box office. And perhaps "Rendition," among others. One interesting -- to me -- question the Shootout hosts ask is -- given the number of these films and their relative poor box-office performance -- who is financing them?