Lights, Camera, Desperation: Peter Bart Wonders if Filmmaking Will Rise to New Heights Again!
People keep asking, “What’s next?” because things are going to happen soon and the box office hasn’t been great. The strikes will end and a new season will begin, but where are the next movies and streaming shows with new ideas? The question is how they will get there.
When you look at people who broke new ground in the past, you can find some troubling answers. In the past, hit movies were sometimes the result of business planning (The Avengers), an artist’s obsession (Avatar), or a mistake in history (Barbie).
Some big hits, like Midnight Cowboy, got there because they were always rebellious, while others, like Harry Potter, just had to happen. Some of Hollywood’s most culturally ambitious movies, like Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), came out when people didn’t go to the movies as much.
Peter Bart’s Wondering: Could Desperation Lead the Way for Future Movie Masterpieces?
In the past, hit movies were sometimes the result of business planning (The Avengers), an artist’s obsession (Avatar), or a mistake in history (Barbie).
Some big hits, like Midnight Cowboy, got there because they were always rebellious, while others, like Harry Potter, just had to happen. Some of Hollywood’s most culturally ambitious movies, like Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), came out when people didn’t go to the movies as much.
People have tried out bold new ideas that didn’t work in all kinds of popular culture, including movies. At the start of the 1960s, Hollywood saw that more and more people were moving to TV.
They tried to stop this by making Elvis the King a hero in the country. In 1970, when they had the chance, leaders took power away from the people who made deals. In the early 1980s, they gave it back. This is how “high concept” movies got their start. The Beverly Hills Cops got in the way of the Nashvilles.
If we look at how movies were made in the past, we might think that they are made when things are going wrong. Filmmakers often say that the early 1970s were a time when new ideas were born. People who lived through that time remember that everyone felt like there was no way out because the system was broken. The big businesses had no more money.
The best deals for big stars were gone, and money was lost by independent producers. In the end, businesses and artists had to think outside the box because the box was broken. United Artists didn’t have much money, so they took a chance on a British director named John Schlesinger who didn’t know much about the U.S. to make the X-rated, plotless movie Midnight Cowboy with the wrong title, and it paid off.
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