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December 11, 2003
TT: What's the rush?
A reader writes, apropos of my posting on the box-office "failure" of Master and Commander:The thing that always occurs to me when I read about the "failure" of some ambitious new film is this - how much of the cycle of fast consumption and a very narrow definition of success sets up failure as an inevitability? I'm not phrasing this correctly. Modern movie "success" is predicated on getting butts in the seats right away - and that's not how adults see movies, for the most part.
Who has time? You've got to work, and clean the house, rake the leaves, fix the toilet, make time for your spouse and children, or friends and family, find a babysitter - or wait for your married friends to find one - go to the gym, feed your mind and spirit in whatever fashion pleases you - arts, news, theater, athletics, cooking, sex, all of the above. Going to the movies is terrific, but not really a communal act and as such falls a little further down in my list of priorities - and I suspect I'm not alone here. Does Hollywood know this?
Maybe it is different in the city, where there is a more logical flow from theater to restaurant to conversation, but out here in the hinterlands, you go, and then you stand in the parking lot dragging out the moment before you go to your separate cars and depart. Maybe you go to dinner after, but by the time you figure out where, get into your separate vehicles and drive there, the immediacy of the experience has changed. Everyone lives 20 or 30 minutes away from each other, so it is not that easy to travel together - and the babysitter dollar factor can not be discounted. I also think there is a 9/11 aspect to movie going, just in terms of where people prioritize their time these days.
When the success or failure of a movie is measured in weeks and instant gratification dollars, most films (adult or otherwise) disappear from the multiplex before I can see them. The perfect exception is My Big Fat Greek Wedding - which, I know, had a tiny budget - a terrific, funny film. Because it was slow building it got to hang around for a while, giving adult people with complex scheduling challenges a chance to find the time to see it, recommend it and sometimes see it again. I probably don't understand the economics of cinemas well enough, but it just seems to me that the "failure" of a film is, in many cases, less about its ultimate audience, its ultimate financial and critical achievements, and more about who's willing to rush out and see it right away. And since that definition of success is skewed towards exploding things and the people who rush out to see them explode, a catch-22 emerges. What's wrong with a slow building success? Is it somehow un-American? Or something to be less proud of? I really don't get it - the elevation of immediacy over the celebration of quality. And the lesson seems to have been lost on the movie business, particularly when it comes to so-called adult oriented movies.
This summer I had hoped to see the documentary Spellbound - it played in the next town over for a week. I barely knew it was there before it was gone - and I just don't understand how that's good marketing, or marketing that has any understanding of the demands of daily life. Movie advertising focuses on the opening week and then peters away to make room for the next thing....Over half the space in the multiplex is devoted to only one or two films, with everything else crammed into the leftover spaces, with more limited show schedules....bragging rights dependent on opening grosses, not total grosses. It encourages the production of shoddy, cheap and exciting movies, endless sequels and safe bets, which will make a lot of money right away and then disappear without leaving any kind of lasting impression and sets up a cycle of expectation where there is no room for any other style or approach.
Gosh, I'm cranky today. Reading about the film industry definition of success always pushes my buttons, particularly after having sat through Matrix Reloaded (I refuse to see Revolutions on the "fool me once" principal). Master & Commander was very expensive, true, but I don't doubt it will make money - ultimately. Foreign rights, DVD, and the audience that will read the reviews, hear their friends say good things and go see it as long as its in the theater. I don't know if that will qualify as success by current standards, but I think its pretty OK. Let's check again in a year.
To all of which I have just two things to say:
(1) This explains why I look forward to the day when (as I argued in my original posting) "the adventurous indie flicks of the not-so-distant future...find their audiences not in theatrical release, but via such new-media distribution routes as direct-to-DVD and on-demand digital cable."
(2) Thanks for writing. I couldn't have put it better if I'd stayed up all night.
Posted December 11, 2003 12:02 PM
