Why should we care about film anymore?

I no longer care about film. Perhaps it is as other aspects of my life grow in importance, or maybe it is because I have “outgrown” it, but I think the real reason is the almost complete failure of the film industry to engage its audience. Like all actors inevitably do, it has sold out, leaving a void filled with unaccountable garbage. I am angry at it, at the new genre of ‘it’s so bad, it’s good’, and at the studios who feed us the same formulas over and over, all the while counting the cash.

At this moment in time, the most prominent feature of film is its easy availability. At the click of a few buttons one can stream, illegally or legally, almost any film ever made, from any moment in time, sometimes even from the future when those “press-only” copies get uploaded onto tv-links or megavideo (now defunct, but immediately replaced by a plethora of other websites). The internet has been saturated by films, and the relatively even mixture of genres and forms has morphed into a mindless ball park of brightly coloured, but hollow, plasticy crowd pleasing ‘thrillers’ which desperately seek to appease the short attention spans of an increasingly disengaged audience.

the distinct lack of quality in modern popular film is sending viewers to the back-catalogue

Take Netflix, a bastion of the digital film age, the category ‘popular on Netflix’ is a particularly interesting reflection of where contemporary taste lies. Welcome to the Punch, Unit and Robocop are currently listed, and indicate two distinct trends: a popularity of the mindless, entertainment genre, and a nostalgic shift in taste. The second trend is evidence of the first, where the distinct lack of quality in modern popular film is sending viewers to the back-catalogue in a desperate attempt to find a film they already know to be satisfying, or at least satisfying relative to the condescending drivel produced currently. This drivel is created in line with the misled aspiration to appeal to a broader and broader market through bigger explosions, shallower characters and longer “value for money” action sequences that are crammed back-to-back in the hope that we forget about characterisation, plot development and structure. Instead the hope is that we will be content with the usual phrase book of clichés that is seemingly passed from studio to studio like a damp, overused porn magazine found in the woods and guiltily shared, each studio taking its cheap pleasure all the while ignoring the underlying, unsettling feeling that this unacceptable, outmoded ideology is soon going to wear thin and disintegrate.

Most frustrating is the underlying assumption that by flooding the market with what are essentially the same three films remade and remade, an audience will accept that there is nothing else on offer and consistently return to the cinema. This philosophy has been proven false, and as much as producers and studio executives will blame piracy on falling cinema attendance, the truth is that they are equally accountable. Their subscription to the notion that good profit equates to good filmmaking is a significant cause of their dire products. Take, for an example, the second highest grossing film of 2009, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This was widely cited as terrible, not just for its appalling message, (that shooting guns whilst riding American-built cars and dragging behind you the most attractive model you can find, is the modern embodiment of all young men’s capitalist, patriarchal dreams and ambitions), but because it demonstrated how any attempt to challenge us or provoke interesting discussion was completely abandoned. The simple fact that this film was written during the writers’ strike, which was cited as an excuse only after it grossed over $402 million dollars, signifies the ability to trade writers for explosions. This trend shows no sign of letting up, and that is because of our compliance in this marketplace.

we, on the outside, are left with the sickly impersonations of interesting films

I have only attacked action films here, but “romantic comedies”, the other major box office cash cow (lower grossing, but cheaper to mass produce), are equally guilty, if not more so, for their adherence to a tired formula. Most tellingly of a decline in demand for challenging films is the shrinking popularity of film festivals, which seem to be more and more alienated from their audience. Cannes is now the hangout for the critics clique, and films are made more for other filmmakers than they are for an outside audience. When I volunteered at the London Film Festival I saw incredible documentaries or challenging dramas play to half empty rooms, with the public put off by higher prices, or simply unaware of their existence (with a few high-profile exceptions). Yet whilst these note-worthy, and important films are playing to twenty people in a small room, over at the multiplexes in Leicester Square, ridiculous, mindless films such as Anonymous, masquerading as intelligent dramas, play to full rooms.

Subsequently as the independent, interesting aspect of the film industry shrinks to only incorporate its members we, on the outside, are left with the sickly impersonations of interesting films, and are given the choice between a Robocop remake or Scorsese’s sickly-sweet, self gratifying The Wolf of Wall Street. I suggest that we stop supporting this aspect of the industry, target the profit driven “entertainment” machines and be angry, outraged even, at the condescending attitude of these studio fat cats, licking themselves on a bed of cash to the background of Transformers 4 (yes it’s really happening). We should hold those cinemas in Leicester Square, and nationwide, accountable for their programmes, demand a higher quality of filmmaking, and refuse the endless recycling of toy franchises in return for a glimpse of something truly interesting, something that when the film is over you can say more about than “that was good” or “that was terrible”, when you can debate the nature of the film for hours, feel challenged and engaged, experience its effect on you outside of a darkened room, then we can care about film again.

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