A Theory
So I have been thinking about how everything is cyclicle and how this decade is kind of like the Sixties. My favorite decade for film is the Seventies. So if my theory holds we should be in for another film revolution similar to the Seventies. In the Seventies, it seemed that the revolt was against the studios but today maybe the revolt could be against the "remake" or the "sequel" or the big-budget-spectacular-extravaganza-blockbuster. Hopefully in about 4 years we will find out or maybe it's already happening now with the advent of media compression and personal viewing. Maybe people will just buy movies for their Ipod and share it with friends much like indie music is spread today. Maybe films will start touring agian instead of mass marketed worldwide on the same day.
posted by Anonymous at 1:17 PM
3 Comments:
I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on why this decade is like the sixties.
I'm interested in film theories. I do think that things are often times cyclical or maybe more like a pendulum in the way trends shift and pick up momentum. Power and influence shift from one side to another. In one decade or era, the artist has more power because what the artist is doing is making more money than what the producers are doing. Then the producers learn what the artists are doing and they mass produce it and then the artists are doing different stuff but it's not getting noticed. Then finally it gets noticed and if it is different enough than it makes money and the artists have some power again. In between power shifts there is a time when artist and producer(business) are at their most collaborative selves and (I think) produce the best stuff. Bryan Summers, you said something interesting to me when you said something like - Art needs business to help keep it in check. Maybe you could expound on that.
Even though I argue that there is a pendulum shift that takes place in the trends in and outside of hollywood, I think that it's changing more and more as the audience is becoming more empowered. People don't have to go to the theatre to see films, they don't have to listen to the radio to hear music. In other words we have more options in what we see (or hear) and how we see (or hear) it. And I think the main reason for this is the internet and the so called 'digital age.'
Oh and for the record, I'm a fan of seventies films as well. A few years ago I thought that we were in the middle of the second 'seventies american film revolution' - because of all the indie festivals being at their peak and everything. Mirimax dominance from the late nineties until the last couple of years was kind of the recent peak of the commercialized indie films (Oxy Moron?). But like i said before, i think that because the audience has been empowered by technology, the trends won't shift as much and won't be as exclusive as they have been in the past. Rather there will hopefully continue to be a wide variety of different stuff being produced: huge blockbuster popcorn movies (even sequels), small personal films, strange experimental stuff, and musicals starring clint eastwood.
i just vomitted all over the keyboard and the above is the result.
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