Originality

Back in the summer of 2007, I worked at a two-screen movie theater in downtown Exeter, New Hampshire, a town of just under 10,000 people.  It was called the Ioka and it had been operational since 1915.  It closed in December 2008 and now it’s an ice cream parlor.

But when I was working there as a sometimes projectionist-apprentice and more often a popcorn salesman, I found I had plenty of downtime to relax.  We didn’t have a lot of customers for a number of reasons, many of which were just aftershocks of the changes in American film culture over the last decade.  I remember Ratatouille, my favorite movie from that summer.  I got to watch different pieces of it many times over.  But I also remember that three-week stretch where we played Transformers (the first one) on screen one and Underdog on screen two.  Those three weeks were unbelievably brutal.  Clearly they only cemented all of my then-17-year-old cynicisms about culture.

I saw Transformers three times, then I dove into reading A Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man to “redeem” myself, I think.  It was one of the more pretentious things I ever did, but I did love the book.  Can’t say the same for Transformers.  And being the levelheaded and responsible consumer that I am, I didn’t go see the sequels.  Mainly because I knew I wouldn’t enjoy them.  So I’ve got to admit, having never actually watched Revenge of the Fallen or Dark of the Moon, I am not qualified to comment on either film specifically.  But I still reacted to the latest television spot for the Dark of the Moon Blu-Ray and DVD release yesterday.

“The Best Action Movie Ever,” says Rusty Gatenby of ABC TV Minneapolis.  I laughed when I saw the spot.  But again, I never even saw the movie.  I’m still just reacting to Transformers 1, I suppose, which is bad criticism.  But what about Robocop?  Die Hard?  Mad Max?  Hot Fuzz, even?  Point Break?  A discussion needed to be had.  My friends around me laughed, too.  Some of them even liked Transformers, and still they agreed with me.  The consensus was that we go to these movies even when we know how bad they will be.  None of them attended Dark of the Moon expecting much.  But they went, which confused me.

Then the other day I came across this piece written by Michael Atkinson, “Straight to Hell,” on a blog called Zero for Conduct.  It’s an astute and opinionated and approximates my understanding of where we’re at right now.  It’s a great cynical cry-out for people to stop paying for sequels and remakes.  I mean, Footloose is actually coming out soon…again.  It’s hard not to see his point if you’ve got any stake in the cinematic arts.

The part that really gave me pause was this:

I know it’s common to decry how stupid we’ve become in toto, and equally common to prove the position wrong by comparing the pop culture of the ‘50s to ours today. Fair enough, but imagine how your parents and grandparents might’ve reacted if you’d told them that in five decades’ time the art form and American life in general would evolve into a universalized obsession with superhero movies. Which were, back then, the kinds of movies that only kids watched, along with cheap giant monster thrillers and beach romcoms. The adults had something else. 

At first, this struck me as a little condescending, but it rang of truth in many ways.  The major films released this summer were X-Men First Class, Green Lantern, Thor, and Captain America.  Adult films just aren’t often released in the summer.

The one I saw and can attest to is The Tree of Life, which, full disclosure, was made by one my favorite directors, Terrence Malick.  It opened in four theaters while The Hangover Part II, Kung Fu Panda, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides stood atop the box office.  Midnight in Paris, another of my favorite recent films, was also doing strong at #7 the weekend Tree of Life was released.

The Tree of Life was a critical and festival success, but it had a harder time finding audiences.  Here’s a photo of a banner that a theater in Connecticut had to post after receiving demands for refunds following Tree of Life screenings:

The thing is, this photo, which is now passed gleefully around cinema message boards, is further validation of the growing gap between critical film analysis and general expectation.  People actually demand a straightforward narrative structure to the point where they demand refunds when those conventions are challenged. I find myself wondering why people go to the movies.  I like to think that I go for exotic and exciting experiences that aren’t otherwise possible.

Regardless of what you thought of The Tree of Life (and I thought it was unlike anything I’d ever seen), I would put forth the notion that it deserves to be recognized for its originality, a quality that I feel is often missing from movies released between the months of March and August.  These strange summer films are experiential escapes, refreshing breaks from the usual.

But as I mentioned earlier, Tree isn’t missing any kind of critical acclaim.  The conversation in my field is kind of split between press junket caption reviews for films like Dark of the Moon (“Best action movie ever!”) and thinkpiece raves for increasingly rare studio-funded art pictures like Tree.  You don’t get those thinkpieces on the films that represent the mainstream.  In this investigation of the trends in present-day American film (and an investigation of their cultural implications), I’m hoping to take an in-depth look at a few new films as indications of different modern trends.

Mostly, I’m hoping the conversation will lead to an unforeseen discovery of originality in the studio film landscape.  This week I’ll be taking a look at Drive and making some brief comparisons to one of its biggest influences, Le Samourai.  More to come soon.