Degeneration of an art form

You know I've been complaining about the lack of creativity in big studio movies and the huge number of remakes and sequels/prequels lately. And I'm going to complain a bit more. I just read a great article by Mark Harris called The day the Movies Died and he puts most of my thoughts into words better than I could, so it's definitely worth reading through those four pages.

I know it's a bit exaggerated to say that the whole art form is dying, but there is a ever strengthening trend looming around that doesn't really look good. There will of course be brilliant movies in the future as well, but the thing is that the big studios won't touch them. Now why should I care about the big studios? Everyone knows they are into it just for the money, not the art. Well the thing is that I enjoy watching movies from the big screen. Sure some movies work just as well from my widescreen telly at home, but some movies are so absolutely beautiful that you need to see them on the big screen. And I'm not talking about the CGI filled action adventures that pound your head with an audio-visual assault. I mean movies like for example Winter's Bone (2010), the cinematography is so brilliant and the scenery just doesn't work as well from my telly as it does on the big screen. But now if this current trend continues I can't see a beautifully shot drama at the theaters, unless it's part of an already branded series of comic books, toys, video games or what not. And since the big studios basically control the theaters, that's a big problem looming around.

The thing is that drama just doesn't sell. Like Mark said in his article, the target audience, the adults who actually can and like to use their brain don't really enjoy the cinema multiplexes. I don't either. But there is a huge difference between watching The Road (2009) in a theatre to watching Iron Man 2 (2010) in the theatre, the audience is completely different. The other is half empty with only adults who really want to see the movie and enjoy it as it's supposed, while the other is packed full with kids just killing time in there. Of course the one with the adults is a lot more enjoyable experience as you can focus on the movie and not to the kid who's talking on his phone or the kid who needs to comment everything that happens in the movie to her friend while it's happening or to the kids who are there to discuss their day. The thing is that once you've been to one of those movies you really don't want to go there anymore and would rather stay at home waiting until it's out on DVD. That gives a bad reputation to the theaters for all movies, not only to the ones that are actually like that. The thing is that there used to be theaters aimed for more mature audience, playing arthouse movies and world cinema, kids stayed away from them as they were boring and that was a great thing. But those theaters got removed from the way of these huge cinema multiplexes with dozens of screens and tons of other activities to kill your time while waiting for the movie to start. I really want those one screen theaters back so there would be a place I could go and see movies and really enjoy the experience.

I'm going to speak a bit about Finland here, but I'll bet you can pretty much say the same thing from other countries as well. The big multiplexes are all owned by one company that just made a huge deal with the big Hollywood studios for digital projection of the movies. That basically means that the big studios control even more what we can see in those theaters and that's certainly not a good thing. While Finnish movies are growing more and more popular (last year was a record breaking year for Finnish movies), this deal means that it's coming harder to distribute the domestic films in Finnish theaters. I mean, what the fuck? Are they idiots or what? That's unfortunately how it goes, big grow bigger and anything smaller is being eaten away. Now there is of course the national film archive that hosts screenings from the archive films and those are quite brilliant. But the thing is that I don't want to wait 20 years before I can see a movie on the big screen. That leaves me with one theatre in whole city of Helsinki where I can probably see a new movie that's something else than just the mainstream movies with an audience I really don't want to see it with. Well I don't want to whine about it, it's better than nothing, that's for sure and just think of the horror if that would die too.

Now that the kids are dominating the multiplexes the studios of course play by their rules. Action, adventure, comedy and the occasional thriller based on a well known brand, with tons of audio-visual stimulant to distract the viewer from the bad story is their recipe. Spice it up with the completely unnecessary gimmick like 3D and the sugar rushed kids are going crazy. This means that the big studios eventually won't even bother making movies for the adult audience. Why would you make a movie for the adults with 40 million which will bring back 50 wile you can make a kids movie with 100 million which will bring back 200. It's business and that's a shame. Eventually this leads to all the movies for adult audiences to be made directly for video with a lot smaller budget than it would have got had it been made for the theatrical run. Now throwing money at a movie doesn't of course make it any better, but some movies just need a big budget to make them and this trend is going to be the death of them.

But like I said there will be brilliant movies in the future too as there's lots of great film makers out there, it just might be impossible to see them on the big screen. Not much anyone can do about it except to vote with their wallets. But as the kids seem to have outnumbered us adults in the theaters, that's not going to be easy. I personally promise I won't go see any comic book/sequel/prequel/remake/toy/video game adaptation in a theatre this year and will go see some big studio dramas (if there will be any) in a theatre that's not part of the big monopoly. Independent and other smaller studio movies I will of course go and see as usual (if there will be any).