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Back in my day ... Those rose tinted glasses are rewriting a lot of history. “I used to be in the movie business where you made something really because you ca

Back in my day ... Those rose tinted glasses are rewriting a lot of history. “I used to be in the movie business where you made something really because you cared about it,” he told NPR. The very definition of movie, he went on, “is in such transition that it doesn’t mean anything right now.” But young people these days dont ...

akiselev 4y ago
I don’t think that critique applies because it’s not really young people driving this stagnation industry side and I don’t think they are the target of the OP’s ire. It’s people like Lorne Michaels who have decades long careers that have their hand prints all over entire genres, the ones who make up the Great Filter that decides where 90% of the big money goes. Most of those people aren’t very young and I suspect face the same concentration of age problem at the top that our politics experiences.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  I like to pick on "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as the birth of what I call the storyboard film. Characters, dialog, character-interaction, even plot are secondary to the primary construction of the film as a string of storyboarded action sequences. Sure, "Raiders" was unabashed about that. It was reviving the style of serials that were constructed in the same manner. And I think there's a place for those films. Sadly that seemed to become the template for The Blockbuster Film ever since. Then "Pirates of the Caribbean" and their whole franchise took that storyboard model to the point where it became almost a parody. There were so many "climatic battles" in those films that I never had any clue as to when the film was actually about to end. (And we seemed to go past two hours for action films on a regular basis by then as well.) When all the super-hero films started crowding the release schedules they were so bad I stopped going to the theater altogether. :-(
  - JetSpiegel 4y ago
    Indeed, the old New Hollywood, the iconoclast directors that were the new hotness (compared to geriatric John Ford and the like), are themselves the old and busted new Old Hollywood, ready for disruption. They did not die as heroes, therefore lasted long enough to become villains.
toyg 4y ago
Lol yeah, it's typical boomerism. Hollywood never really "cared" about anything but high stacks of denominated currency.
- blitzar 4y ago
  That is not at all true. Banging young starlets was of Paramount importance.
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    I think that's spelt Miramax...
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      Plenty of anecdotes about Alfred Hitchcock and Kubrick making suggestions about "the casting couch". Wasn't just Polanski Weinstein...
- labrador 4y ago
  As a boomer I agree with your remark
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
Meanwhile, Martin Scorcese spent virtually his entire career making movies about being depressed, violent, and Italian and somehow that's just good cinema.
- david927 4y ago
  He's generally overrated but Taxi Driver is not good cinema, it's great cinema.
  - ahartmetz 4y ago
    It starts well. But the last third is really weak IMO, it's some juvenile revenge fantasy and then the protagonist is called a hero and gets the girl. I'm not sure that there is any irony there. I was disappointed. Scorsese became better after that.
    - spacechild1 4y ago
      > I'm not sure that there is any irony there. There surely is! This scene is so over the top, it is clearly not meant to be taken literally. Some people even interpret it as a hallucination by Travis while he is dying.
- jhbadger 4y ago
  He really didn't. People who don't really know his work think he just makes mobster movies. But he is actually a quite a varied filmmaker. How does being "depressed, violent, and Italian" fit into The Last Temptation of Christ (which controversially reinterpreted Jesus' story), or Hugo, about the great French filmmaker Georges Méliès? Or Kundun about the Dalai Lama? Or Silence about Japanese Christians?
  - etblg 4y ago
    Even most of his mobster movies aren't really about being depressed or Italian. Casino's main character is Jewish. Gangs of New York is about Irish Catholics and American Protestants. The Departed is about Irishes. The Wolf of Wall Street may be about depression (haven't seen it), but is not about violence nor about Italians. The Irishman certainly has a lot of depression, and certainly violence and Italians, but even then.....it's called the "Irishman". Goodfellas is probably the one prime example that is certainly about violence and Italians, and I'm not sure that's that depressed.
mullingitover 4y ago
> “It should be for the industry,” he said, “and not for the consumers.” It arguably already is, always has been, and that's why it's in decline. The demographics of the Academy put the voting members out of touch with the public in a way that makes the award winners a big list of head-scratchers. I was shook when Everything Everywhere All at Once got a bunch of nominations though, maybe there's hope for this thing.

akiselev 4y ago

I don’t think that critique applies because it’s not really young people driving this stagnation industry side and I don’t think they are the target of the OP’s ire. It’s people like Lorne Michaels who have decades long careers that have their hand prints all over entire genres, the ones who make up the Great Filter that decides where 90% of the big money goes. Most of those people aren’t very young and I suspect face the same concentration of age problem at the top that our politics experiences.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
I like to pick on "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as the birth of what I call the storyboard film. Characters, dialog, character-interaction, even plot are secondary to the primary construction of the film as a string of storyboarded action sequences. Sure, "Raiders" was unabashed about that. It was reviving the style of serials that were constructed in the same manner. And I think there's a place for those films. Sadly that seemed to become the template for The Blockbuster Film ever since. Then "Pirates of the Caribbean" and their whole franchise took that storyboard model to the point where it became almost a parody. There were so many "climatic battles" in those films that I never had any clue as to when the film was actually about to end. (And we seemed to go past two hours for action films on a regular basis by then as well.) When all the super-hero films started crowding the release schedules they were so bad I stopped going to the theater altogether. :-(
- JetSpiegel 4y ago
  Indeed, the old New Hollywood, the iconoclast directors that were the new hotness (compared to geriatric John Ford and the like), are themselves the old and busted new Old Hollywood, ready for disruption. They did not die as heroes, therefore lasted long enough to become villains.

toyg 4y ago

Lol yeah, it's typical boomerism. Hollywood never really "cared" about anything but high stacks of denominated currency.

blitzar 4y ago
That is not at all true. Banging young starlets was of Paramount importance.
- alephnerd 4y ago
  I think that's spelt Miramax...
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Plenty of anecdotes about Alfred Hitchcock and Kubrick making suggestions about "the casting couch". Wasn't just Polanski Weinstein...
labrador 4y ago
As a boomer I agree with your remark

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

Meanwhile, Martin Scorcese spent virtually his entire career making movies about being depressed, violent, and Italian and somehow that's just good cinema.

david927 4y ago
He's generally overrated but Taxi Driver is not good cinema, it's great cinema.
- ahartmetz 4y ago
  It starts well. But the last third is really weak IMO, it's some juvenile revenge fantasy and then the protagonist is called a hero and gets the girl. I'm not sure that there is any irony there. I was disappointed. Scorsese became better after that.
  - spacechild1 4y ago
    > I'm not sure that there is any irony there. There surely is! This scene is so over the top, it is clearly not meant to be taken literally. Some people even interpret it as a hallucination by Travis while he is dying.
jhbadger 4y ago
He really didn't. People who don't really know his work think he just makes mobster movies. But he is actually a quite a varied filmmaker. How does being "depressed, violent, and Italian" fit into The Last Temptation of Christ (which controversially reinterpreted Jesus' story), or Hugo, about the great French filmmaker Georges Méliès? Or Kundun about the Dalai Lama? Or Silence about Japanese Christians?
- etblg 4y ago
  Even most of his mobster movies aren't really about being depressed or Italian. Casino's main character is Jewish. Gangs of New York is about Irish Catholics and American Protestants. The Departed is about Irishes. The Wolf of Wall Street may be about depression (haven't seen it), but is not about violence nor about Italians. The Irishman certainly has a lot of depression, and certainly violence and Italians, but even then.....it's called the "Irishman". Goodfellas is probably the one prime example that is certainly about violence and Italians, and I'm not sure that's that depressed.

mullingitover 4y ago

> “It should be for the industry,” he said, “and not for the consumers.” It arguably already is, always has been, and that's why it's in decline. The demographics of the Academy put the voting members out of touch with the public in a way that makes the award winners a big list of head-scratchers. I was shook when Everything Everywhere All at Once got a bunch of nominations though, maybe there's hope for this thing.