Films That Matter (Do They?)

In college, one of the most influential classes I took was on the relationship between politics, culture and film in the 1970s. We watched 2 movies a week, read a book full of Rolling Stone essays and talked out of our asses for hours on end, trying to figure out if culture shaped film or reflected it. There is, of course, no good answer to this question, but like all good film discussions, it’s complex enough that the discussion is one that’s almost always worth having.

Today, the New York Times carries that topic forward, albeit in a small, current eventsy sort of way (as one might expect), with this article, The Problem With Films That Try to Think. The piece argues that Hollywood is currently inundated with socially conscious “idea movies,” but that few, if any, of them actually carry much intellectual heft. Author Caryn James says:

Because these movies are Hollywood products, though, they need to navigate between inoffensively pleasing a mainstream audience and actually saying something. What results is a genre of timid films with portentous-sounding themes, works that offer prepackaged schoolroom lessons or canned debates. Hollywood may be drawn to Big Ideas, but it is always more comfortable with sound-bite-size thoughts.

This is partially correct, but it also forgets some important aspects of dramatic construction that require filmmakers to boil down their ideas into easily digestable chunks. It’s certainly true that many movies passing for socially conscious filmmaking are simple-minded polemics, unable to muster more than some, relatively well written, impassioned speeches in defense of their cause. Some of these, like The Constant Gardener, are well made, despite their simple minded outlook on policy. Others, like Lord of War, are just feebly made films, and their simpleton approach to issues only exaggerates their foulness.

But James, in a rush to make the oh-so-original claim that most of Hollywood is really kind of stupid, forgets that the nature of drama is to strip issues down to two opposing sides, then use inflated rhetoric to deliver the essence of each position with as much passion as an author, director or actor can muster. Screenwriting gurus and narrative structure theorists are always beating the drum of conflict – one book has called it "negotiation" – saying that any given scene should be about two sides, each of which wants something seemingly at odds with what the other wants, going back and forth until the issue at hand is either resolved or it’s made clear that it won’t be resolved (in which case a suggestion should be planted on how one of the characters might attempt to resolve it in the future). The tension created by opposing forces – physical, mental, whatever – is what drives the narrative and what keeps the viewer or reader locked in.

Thus, by its very nature, good screenwriting will take a complex issue and pack it into two easily discernable sides. And because screenwriting favors compression, events and positions become compacted into increasingly smaller, tighter chunks. Sure, we could have films that tackle more abstract ideas, but the general public has a rough time with Soderbergh, much less genuinely obtuse works like those of Beckett and Artaud. The Theatre of Cruelty wouldn't just harm it's audience, it'd starve the producers as well - they'd barely sell any tickets.

Politicians and political journalists are increasingly discovering that dramatic compression and artfully articulated rhetoric makes for high interest in real life political drama as well, which is why so many issues get reduced to easy, partisan talking points, and why the issues with the clearest divisions often play the best. Republicans are against abortion. Democrats are for it. Republicans are for tax cuts. Democrats aren’t. Republicans are against gay marriage. Democrats support it. All of these statements grossly oversimplify the issues at hand. In Hollywood, however, that’s not just the formula, it’s the ideal.

Tarantino Watch: Matt Yglesias brings up another timeless film discussion (at least for the last decade, and likely for the next one too), getting into the ring with those who dismiss Tarantino, saying that one good film (Reservoir Dogs) doesn't make him great. Yglesias is right to decry this notion, for in several decades, we will indeed look back and appreciate anyone capable of producing one or more great films* - whether some of a director's output missed the mark or not won't be an issue. But I can't abide by his criticism of Jackie Brown. Reservoir Dogs remains Tarantino's best film, but Brown, though a bit long, is his most mature and his most human. Plus, it's got Sam Jackson with a fu manchu, and that's worth the price of a ticket any day.

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*By my count, Tarantino has made four.