This third weekend of August, with the last megabudgeted wide-release behind us (Elysium came out last week), the last, more modestly produced superhero film just out (Kick-Ass 2 came out this weekend) and the grosses and rankings posted thus far unlikely to change very much between now and Labor Day, it does not seem too early to take stock of the season.
Glancing at both the films, and the financial data, continuity rather than rupture seems to prevail in yet another summer dominated as it has been by high-concept, big-budget spectacles based on familiar products, if not well-known franchises. In line with the last decade's established pattern, superheroes (Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, to a lesser degree The Wolverine) and zombies (World War Z) have done particularly well.
By contrast, science fiction films of other types have done less well, with the audience for such thing as futuristic and space-set stories proving fickle. Again, it was a high-profile sequel to a recent hit that did best, Star Trek: Into Darkness pulling in $227 million in North America and matching this abroad--but its American ticket sales were markedly lower than those of its less-costly predecessor, less than what the producers hoped for, and a reminder that enthusiasm for the brand cannot be taken for granted. The earnings of April's Oblivion topped out at about $90 million, while Pacific Rim and Elysium are fighting for only a little more than that, and After Earth flopped outright. Audiences also proved less than enthusiastic about the Percy Jackson sequel, Sea of Monsters.
It has been much the same story with the season's more grounded action films. Once again, only the latest Fast and Furious sequel held its own against the speculative-themed blockbusters, pulling in $238 million domestically and $782 million globally--a new high for the franchise, even in inflation-adjusted dollars. Meanwhile, despite the advantage of its PG-13 rating, bigger budget, summer release date and Roland Emmerich name (and Channing Tatum's alleged draw), White House Down did less well than March's Olympus Has Fallen. After nearly a month Red 2 has made considerably less than the original, making it unlikely ever to catch up. And the Western-set Lone Ranger, a high-risk gamble no matter how one looked at it, proved to be a bad one, crashing and burning on Independence Day weekend, and pulling in less than $200 million worldwide to date, making it one of the costlier flops of recent years.
This has also been the case with comedy, with sequels to two family-themed animated hits (Monsters, Despicable Me) cleaning up. Among live-action films, the Bucket Brigade was prominent, with This is the End and The Heat, while Adam Sandler and company had another hit with Grown-Ups 2. (By contrast, the more action-oriented animated features Epic, the Pixar spin-off Planes and Turbo were lesser performers, to varying degrees, while The Smurfs 2 and The Hangover III indisputably disappointed in comparison with their predecessors.)
That said, there were a few hits that did not quite fit into this pattern: Baz Luhrmann's remake of The Great Gatsby, the caper film Now You See Me, the horror movie The Conjuring. In fairness, however, Gatsby, the biggest commercial success of the lot, earned a mere $330 million globally, making it just the 13th largest hit of the year, and it is hard to see any of these films changing the market very much.
So once again, we have had a season dominated by sequels, superheroes, zombies, and Pixar, while the Bucket Brigade and Adam Sandler remain the studios' go-to guys for live-action comedy. With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 kicking off summer 2014, and followed up by more superheroes (X-Men with Singer at the helm again, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Michael Bay-produced Turtles), more Transformers and Fast and Furious and Expendables, more remakes of old properties (Godzilla, the Planet of the Apes), more sequels to animated hits (another Planes movie is on its way), and even more comedy from the very same actors and directors (Melissa McCarthy will be back in her directorial debut Tammy, while Jake Kasdan, Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel reteam in Sex Tape), expect much, much, much more of the same this time next year.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Lying About What We Read
Ours is an age of intense anti-intellectualism--and at the same time, endless intellectual one-upsmanship, with seemingly everyone exaggerating their intellectual prowess. People lie about their grades, and the courses they took and finished, and the degrees they have. They lie about the range of their technical proficiency, and the number of languages they speak.1
And, as Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz so memorably sang, "They lie to feel important, about all the books that they've read." Not long ago, Michelle Kerns took on the issue over at the Examiner, presenting a list of "The Top 10 Books People Lie About Reading."
Some of the books that made the list are unsurprising, given how often they are name-dropped precisely because of their notorious length and difficulty--like the "loose baggy monster" that is Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, the Modernist behemoths Ulysses and In Remembrance of Things Past ("Has ANYONE actually read this, other than Proust?" Kerns asks), and of course, the Bible.
My guess about these books is that many perfectly intelligent people start these books really meaning to get through them, and then simply fail to persevere with them all the way to the end, especially when they are not obliged to read them for a course.2
Others, however, struck me as very surprising, not least George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which takes the number one spot on the list. Certainly it is, like the books previously mentioned, the sort of thing much more often cited than understood, but it's also short (three hundred pages or so in most editions), and it struck me as highly readable, so that I would have expected that, given how often it makes school reading lists, a much higher percentage of people would have actually got through it. Ditto Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which I found to be relatively accessible by the standards of pop cosmology.
What people are not reading thus established, what is it that they actually are reading instead? J.K. Rowling and John Grisham, it seems.
What can we take from these lists? I suppose that, while one can argue about the reasons for it, the fact remains that the relatively small number of people who make a habit of reading fiction have little patience for the difficulties presented by those books held in highest esteem by the makers of respectable opinion, or place quite so much stress on the more esoteric pleasures by which the critics set such great store (with even Orwell and Hawking perhaps sufficient to defeat many a worthy reader).
These lists also indicate that, despite the reality of the reading public's tastes, it faithfully pays tribute to what that they feel should define their standards as readers, or which they would at least like others to think define those standards. And that when the conversation turns highbrow, we are more likely to encounter pretension than substance--suggesting that not merely the image but the reality of our intellectual life has been corrupted by the outrageous exaggerations of semi-literate public figures passing themselves off as men and women of letters, the endless "selling of oneself" that grows out of the absorption of all of life by the marketplace, the spiraling insecurity that goes with ever-widening differences in status and anxieties about the same, and even the distortion of our ideals by the caricatures of intellectuality we get from pop culture.
None of these strikes me as a great revelation. But Kerns' post is still worthwhile as a more than anecdotal reminder that those things "which everyone is assumed to know . . . almost everyone does not know," with the contents of the Great Books no exception.
It is a reminder, too, that those who really do bother to read and to think for themselves, however much they may feel as if they fail to meet the standard of accomplishment set by Hollywood morons and other douchebags, have no real cause to feel insecure. Anyone who has bothered to read this post all the way through, and actually understood it, is likely far, far ahead of the pack.
1. Language fluency is an area where delusions and misapprehensions seem particularly commonplace, and oft-exposed. I have long been astonished by the fact that the entire British task force sent to the Falklands in 1982 contained only one fluent Spanish speaker. James Adams, Secret Armies: Inside the American, Soviet and European Special Forces (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), p. 192.
2. As Kerns notes in her 2009 posts, her lists are based on a poll in Britain, but it seems to me that most of what it says carries over to the U.S. fairly well.
And, as Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz so memorably sang, "They lie to feel important, about all the books that they've read." Not long ago, Michelle Kerns took on the issue over at the Examiner, presenting a list of "The Top 10 Books People Lie About Reading."
Some of the books that made the list are unsurprising, given how often they are name-dropped precisely because of their notorious length and difficulty--like the "loose baggy monster" that is Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, the Modernist behemoths Ulysses and In Remembrance of Things Past ("Has ANYONE actually read this, other than Proust?" Kerns asks), and of course, the Bible.
My guess about these books is that many perfectly intelligent people start these books really meaning to get through them, and then simply fail to persevere with them all the way to the end, especially when they are not obliged to read them for a course.2
Others, however, struck me as very surprising, not least George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which takes the number one spot on the list. Certainly it is, like the books previously mentioned, the sort of thing much more often cited than understood, but it's also short (three hundred pages or so in most editions), and it struck me as highly readable, so that I would have expected that, given how often it makes school reading lists, a much higher percentage of people would have actually got through it. Ditto Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which I found to be relatively accessible by the standards of pop cosmology.
What people are not reading thus established, what is it that they actually are reading instead? J.K. Rowling and John Grisham, it seems.
What can we take from these lists? I suppose that, while one can argue about the reasons for it, the fact remains that the relatively small number of people who make a habit of reading fiction have little patience for the difficulties presented by those books held in highest esteem by the makers of respectable opinion, or place quite so much stress on the more esoteric pleasures by which the critics set such great store (with even Orwell and Hawking perhaps sufficient to defeat many a worthy reader).
These lists also indicate that, despite the reality of the reading public's tastes, it faithfully pays tribute to what that they feel should define their standards as readers, or which they would at least like others to think define those standards. And that when the conversation turns highbrow, we are more likely to encounter pretension than substance--suggesting that not merely the image but the reality of our intellectual life has been corrupted by the outrageous exaggerations of semi-literate public figures passing themselves off as men and women of letters, the endless "selling of oneself" that grows out of the absorption of all of life by the marketplace, the spiraling insecurity that goes with ever-widening differences in status and anxieties about the same, and even the distortion of our ideals by the caricatures of intellectuality we get from pop culture.
None of these strikes me as a great revelation. But Kerns' post is still worthwhile as a more than anecdotal reminder that those things "which everyone is assumed to know . . . almost everyone does not know," with the contents of the Great Books no exception.
It is a reminder, too, that those who really do bother to read and to think for themselves, however much they may feel as if they fail to meet the standard of accomplishment set by Hollywood morons and other douchebags, have no real cause to feel insecure. Anyone who has bothered to read this post all the way through, and actually understood it, is likely far, far ahead of the pack.
1. Language fluency is an area where delusions and misapprehensions seem particularly commonplace, and oft-exposed. I have long been astonished by the fact that the entire British task force sent to the Falklands in 1982 contained only one fluent Spanish speaker. James Adams, Secret Armies: Inside the American, Soviet and European Special Forces (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), p. 192.
2. As Kerns notes in her 2009 posts, her lists are based on a poll in Britain, but it seems to me that most of what it says carries over to the U.S. fairly well.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Review: Pacific Vortex! by Clive Cussler.
New York: Bantam Books, 1982, pp. 266.
Clive Cussler's Pacific Vortex! occupies an interesting place in the Dirk Pitt series. While the first book he wrote, it is only the sixth that he published, actually appearing after 1981's Night Probe!1
As all this suggests, the book is evidently an early effort. Certainly many of the elements for which the series are well-known are present in this tale of Pitt going on vacation in Hawaii and getting caught up in the deadly intrigue surrounding a missing U.S. Navy submarine - the James Bondian adventure, particularly heavy on maritime action; the over-the-top villains with their nautically themed conspiracies. Yet, as Cussler himself acknowledges in his foreword, the plot is rather less intricate than in later books (let alone epics like Cyclops). The events of the story are limited to the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands, while the narrative is much more closely focused on Pitt's person and actions.
The writing also tends toward the thin rather than the lean. Ideas, descriptions, scenes are less thoroughly fleshed out than they would be in Cussler's later work, and in some cases, less fleshed out than they should be. The rationale for the villain's actions seems underdeveloped, as does his organization. The underwater complex that is the scene of the final confrontation, while adequately portrayed for the purposes of the climax, feels like an eccentric's hideout rather than the site of a community of hundreds it is supposed to be. Pitt's romance with Summer Moran is likewise underwritten, all the more so given the crucial event in Pitt's life that later novels have made it out to be.2 And Cussler's comparative casualness with technical detail gets to be a bit much. The story's MacGuffin, the submarine Starbuck, is held to be capable of a hundred and twenty-five knot speeds, without a single word offered as to what revolutionary technology enables this incredible performance.
Pitt's world also seems less fully "peopled" than it would later become. The fictional version of the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) is less fully realized than it would be in his later work (though admittedly the organization plays a smaller part here than in most of his stories), and the entourage of characters readers are accustomed to seeing surrounding Pitt still only in development, and used in only limited ways. Admiral Sandecker puts in just a brief appearance at the start, while Al Giordino turns up only in time to take part in the finale. Rudi Gunn is merely mentioned, while Hiram Yeager, Julien St. Perlmutter and Loren Smith do not even seem to be a notion as yet.
Still, if the book comes off not only as a rough prototype for what Cussler would later write, but more generally displays many of the weaknesses common to authors' early efforts (as well as editing that would, in spots, make reviewers scream for blood if it appeared in an indie book), it also displays many of the virtues of those efforts. The action and plotting, while less inventive or elaborate than those of many of the later Pitt novels, nonetheless feel fresher. The same economy with prose that makes this shortest of Pitt's adventures feel thin in places also gives it a brisk pace that compares favorably with later works, like the flabby Trojan Odyssey. And the appeal of the essential concept, the talent of the author for telling this kind of story, are equally evident. The result is not the grandest or best of Pitt's adventures (I remain fondest of Cyclops, Treasure and Sahara), but one I found reasonably satisfying nonetheless.
1. That the first Pitt adventure written was not the first published is not unusual, many an author producing not just several books, but several in the same series, before getting one through the publishing industry's gauntlet - invariably kinder to the repetitive hackwork of an over-the-hill pro than the more original work of a first-timer. To cite but one example, Iain Banks' Consider Phlebas was actually his fourth Culture novel.
2. Those who read the more recent works will also be left wondering when Pitt could possibly have conceived the twins with her who figure so prominently in the novels from Valhalla Rising on. I understand that Cussler has admitted to "goofing" on this score.
Clive Cussler's Pacific Vortex! occupies an interesting place in the Dirk Pitt series. While the first book he wrote, it is only the sixth that he published, actually appearing after 1981's Night Probe!1
As all this suggests, the book is evidently an early effort. Certainly many of the elements for which the series are well-known are present in this tale of Pitt going on vacation in Hawaii and getting caught up in the deadly intrigue surrounding a missing U.S. Navy submarine - the James Bondian adventure, particularly heavy on maritime action; the over-the-top villains with their nautically themed conspiracies. Yet, as Cussler himself acknowledges in his foreword, the plot is rather less intricate than in later books (let alone epics like Cyclops). The events of the story are limited to the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands, while the narrative is much more closely focused on Pitt's person and actions.
The writing also tends toward the thin rather than the lean. Ideas, descriptions, scenes are less thoroughly fleshed out than they would be in Cussler's later work, and in some cases, less fleshed out than they should be. The rationale for the villain's actions seems underdeveloped, as does his organization. The underwater complex that is the scene of the final confrontation, while adequately portrayed for the purposes of the climax, feels like an eccentric's hideout rather than the site of a community of hundreds it is supposed to be. Pitt's romance with Summer Moran is likewise underwritten, all the more so given the crucial event in Pitt's life that later novels have made it out to be.2 And Cussler's comparative casualness with technical detail gets to be a bit much. The story's MacGuffin, the submarine Starbuck, is held to be capable of a hundred and twenty-five knot speeds, without a single word offered as to what revolutionary technology enables this incredible performance.
Pitt's world also seems less fully "peopled" than it would later become. The fictional version of the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) is less fully realized than it would be in his later work (though admittedly the organization plays a smaller part here than in most of his stories), and the entourage of characters readers are accustomed to seeing surrounding Pitt still only in development, and used in only limited ways. Admiral Sandecker puts in just a brief appearance at the start, while Al Giordino turns up only in time to take part in the finale. Rudi Gunn is merely mentioned, while Hiram Yeager, Julien St. Perlmutter and Loren Smith do not even seem to be a notion as yet.
Still, if the book comes off not only as a rough prototype for what Cussler would later write, but more generally displays many of the weaknesses common to authors' early efforts (as well as editing that would, in spots, make reviewers scream for blood if it appeared in an indie book), it also displays many of the virtues of those efforts. The action and plotting, while less inventive or elaborate than those of many of the later Pitt novels, nonetheless feel fresher. The same economy with prose that makes this shortest of Pitt's adventures feel thin in places also gives it a brisk pace that compares favorably with later works, like the flabby Trojan Odyssey. And the appeal of the essential concept, the talent of the author for telling this kind of story, are equally evident. The result is not the grandest or best of Pitt's adventures (I remain fondest of Cyclops, Treasure and Sahara), but one I found reasonably satisfying nonetheless.
1. That the first Pitt adventure written was not the first published is not unusual, many an author producing not just several books, but several in the same series, before getting one through the publishing industry's gauntlet - invariably kinder to the repetitive hackwork of an over-the-hill pro than the more original work of a first-timer. To cite but one example, Iain Banks' Consider Phlebas was actually his fourth Culture novel.
2. Those who read the more recent works will also be left wondering when Pitt could possibly have conceived the twins with her who figure so prominently in the novels from Valhalla Rising on. I understand that Cussler has admitted to "goofing" on this score.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
From Page to Screen: The Politics of Game of Thrones
George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is a political story, and not merely in the sense that its characters are engaged in political conflicts, that those conflicts have been inspired by political history (like England's War of the Roses), or that one might learn tactical lessons from their conduct (which is what seems to have engaged most of those who write about the show's politics). The saga is also political in its having something to say about the world on the page, and to the extent that that world reflects the one in which we actually live, our world as well.
Where a great deal of fantasy, high and low, romanticizes the past in that way critics like Michael Moorcock have long found problematic, Game of Thrones strikes me as a staunchly anti-feudal story. Reading it I am overwhelmed by the sheer creaking, wobbling, arbitrary, bloody instability of a system in which adultery can start a civil war. It may well be that the character of the people in charge makes a difference, that there is such a thing as an honorable lord--but as we see in Eddard's case, their honor does not redeem a bad system. In fact, to the extent that his uprightness makes him insist on the absurd principle legitimizing rulership in Westeros (lineal succession), his honor not only costs him his life, but does much to set the seven kingdoms ablaze.
In its depiction of that blaze, Martin's saga is also an anti-war tale, keeping the reader ever conscious of the brutality and brutalization that follow in its wake. In the first volume Martin seems unable to muster much enthusiasm for Robb Stark's bid to become the King in the North, and for good reason, that quest soon enough proving foolish. We see the men of the Night's Watch driven to and past the breaking point, and turning on their commander and their hosts when they snap. We see what the contending armies do to the countryside as Brienne and Jaime and Arya journey across the desolate Westerosi landscape--Martin's depictions of which are some of the most powerful anti-war writing I can remember encountering in popular fiction in recent decades. And while this is not a story told from the bottom up (our cast of characters are generally the elite of the elite), we never forget that the bottom exists, or how it suffers through it all--life in Flea Bottom certainly bad during the siege of King's Landing, but never really good, even in those times when court poets and gentleman historians write of good kings on the throne bringing peace and prosperity to the land.
Such things come through less forcefully in the show. It may be the case that this is deliberate on the part of the show's makers--but it may also be a reflection of the show's format, the focus on the progress of the main storylines (which have the episodes zipping among a handful of viewpoint characters), and the material limitations of a television production in comparison with a film epic, constraining the series' effect in these respects.
Where a great deal of fantasy, high and low, romanticizes the past in that way critics like Michael Moorcock have long found problematic, Game of Thrones strikes me as a staunchly anti-feudal story. Reading it I am overwhelmed by the sheer creaking, wobbling, arbitrary, bloody instability of a system in which adultery can start a civil war. It may well be that the character of the people in charge makes a difference, that there is such a thing as an honorable lord--but as we see in Eddard's case, their honor does not redeem a bad system. In fact, to the extent that his uprightness makes him insist on the absurd principle legitimizing rulership in Westeros (lineal succession), his honor not only costs him his life, but does much to set the seven kingdoms ablaze.
In its depiction of that blaze, Martin's saga is also an anti-war tale, keeping the reader ever conscious of the brutality and brutalization that follow in its wake. In the first volume Martin seems unable to muster much enthusiasm for Robb Stark's bid to become the King in the North, and for good reason, that quest soon enough proving foolish. We see the men of the Night's Watch driven to and past the breaking point, and turning on their commander and their hosts when they snap. We see what the contending armies do to the countryside as Brienne and Jaime and Arya journey across the desolate Westerosi landscape--Martin's depictions of which are some of the most powerful anti-war writing I can remember encountering in popular fiction in recent decades. And while this is not a story told from the bottom up (our cast of characters are generally the elite of the elite), we never forget that the bottom exists, or how it suffers through it all--life in Flea Bottom certainly bad during the siege of King's Landing, but never really good, even in those times when court poets and gentleman historians write of good kings on the throne bringing peace and prosperity to the land.
Such things come through less forcefully in the show. It may be the case that this is deliberate on the part of the show's makers--but it may also be a reflection of the show's format, the focus on the progress of the main storylines (which have the episodes zipping among a handful of viewpoint characters), and the material limitations of a television production in comparison with a film epic, constraining the series' effect in these respects.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
The Hayao Miyazaki Controversy
In July Hayao Miyazaki recently published an essay criticizing the recent course of the country in the areas of foreign and defense policy, in particular the attitude high-ranking government officials have manifested toward the actions of the Japanese state before and during World War II (such as the practice of sexual slavery by the armed forces1), their handling of the Senkaku Islands dispute with China, and their loudly trumpeted moves to amend Chapter II, Article 9 of the Constitution (in which Japan renounces war, the use of force in international disputes and the maintenance of national armed forces)2.
The essay's publication coincided with the release of his first film since 2008, Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)--a drama about Jiro Horikishi, the designer of the Zero fighter plane of World War II, a story on which this subject matter bears directly--and a parliamentary election where the very policies he criticized have been very much at issue. Unsurprisingly, the essay and the film quickly attracted the ire of right-wing nationalists supportive of the policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who instantly resorted to words like "un-Japanese" and "traitor" to describe the author.
This reaction has drawn rather more news coverage in the American press than the release of the movie itself. It was the controversy that I actually heard about first (over at Kotaku), and which also attracted the attention of venues that do not normally pay much attention to the world of animè (like The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Foreign Policy).
Both the controversy, and the attention paid it, reflect the larger situation of Japan today, which in itself is reflective of the larger situation globally--the increasing stridency of "culture warriors" determined to make the crimes of the past respectable (Russian neo-Stalinism, the French education system's celebration of colonialism), and the loosening of legal restraints on the exercise of military force (such as Germany's legalization of its military's use of force internally last year). Still, Matthew Penney, who offers by far the most detailed analysis of the issue over at The Asia-Pacific Journal's "Japan Focus," presents a reminder that Miyazaki's attackers do not necessarily represent broader Japanese opinion. As he notes,
1. The issue was reignited when Toru Hashimoto--the mayor of Osaka, who, along with Shintaro Ishihara, leads the Japan Restoration Party--defended the policy as a wartime "necessity."
2. The official translation of the text reads as follows:
The essay's publication coincided with the release of his first film since 2008, Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)--a drama about Jiro Horikishi, the designer of the Zero fighter plane of World War II, a story on which this subject matter bears directly--and a parliamentary election where the very policies he criticized have been very much at issue. Unsurprisingly, the essay and the film quickly attracted the ire of right-wing nationalists supportive of the policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who instantly resorted to words like "un-Japanese" and "traitor" to describe the author.
This reaction has drawn rather more news coverage in the American press than the release of the movie itself. It was the controversy that I actually heard about first (over at Kotaku), and which also attracted the attention of venues that do not normally pay much attention to the world of animè (like The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Foreign Policy).
Both the controversy, and the attention paid it, reflect the larger situation of Japan today, which in itself is reflective of the larger situation globally--the increasing stridency of "culture warriors" determined to make the crimes of the past respectable (Russian neo-Stalinism, the French education system's celebration of colonialism), and the loosening of legal restraints on the exercise of military force (such as Germany's legalization of its military's use of force internally last year). Still, Matthew Penney, who offers by far the most detailed analysis of the issue over at The Asia-Pacific Journal's "Japan Focus," presents a reminder that Miyazaki's attackers do not necessarily represent broader Japanese opinion. As he notes,
lost amid the talking points . . . are the strong anti-militarist, anti-revisionist voices that exist among cultural figures such as Miyazaki Hayao and a host of journalists, authors, scholars, and other public figures. Even amid increasing tensions with China, the percentage of Japanese who wish to scrap the 'peace clause' of the Constitution is by some measures lower than it was a decade ago. Kaze Tachinu fits with Miyazaki’s oeuvre and the film and discussions surrounding it are representative of anti-militarist views and critical views of history that continue to be mainstream in Japan.One may hope that this does indeed prove to be the case, and that it matters enough to lessen the danger of the worse consequences one can imagine flowing from the situation--in East Asia, and elsewhere.
1. The issue was reignited when Toru Hashimoto--the mayor of Osaka, who, along with Shintaro Ishihara, leads the Japan Restoration Party--defended the policy as a wartime "necessity."
2. The official translation of the text reads as follows:
Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
A Note on Independent Film
The term "independent film" refers to a mode of filmmaking as old as the cinema, its meaningful use going back at least to the founding of United Artists. Inextricably intertwined with the larger history of the medium, its product has ranged from the quirkily artistic to the crassly commercial, and spanned the full range of genres and styles. The independent film boom that began in the 1980s was propelled by the work of Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Spike Lee and Steven Soderbergh, whose 1989 hit Sex, Lies and Videotape established the market as we know it.
Nonetheless, for me the words conjure a very particular body of work by a very particular group of '90s-era filmmakers, directors like Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused) and Kevin Smith (Clerks), Tom DiCillo (Living in Oblivion) and Doug Liman (Swingers), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) and Neil LaBute (In The Company of Men). I suppose this is because, in my totally subjective, unscientific impression of the field, they set the pattern for most of the product that was to follow. They have also had a greater effect than any of their colleagues on the style and content of studio releases than any of their cohorts--directly through their own, later studio-made films, and indirectly through the big studio filmmakers they influence in ways large and small--so that a great many studio releases also seem "independent" in this sense.1
The most characteristic products of this stream are movies about loser-slackers and frustrated creative types and dimwitted criminals, living at the bottom of the service sector (working in a video rental, perhaps), or the bottom of the media-entertainment complex (especially its film and publishing divisions), or the bottom of the underworld's hierarchy (running errands for small-time gangsters), with the plot typically having them navigating offbeat romances (no Harlequin protagonists, they), artistic endeavors (like trying to make a movie) and neo-noir intrigues (like fake kidnappings)--possibly all at the same time. All this is usually served up by writers and directors clearly eager to impress us with their worldliness and tough-mindedness; shock us with their outrageousness; stun us with their technical virtuosity.
Alas, it all translates to a lot of movies telling a very small number of stories, with the audience subjected to the same scenes over and over and over again (like the hero getting thrown out of the apartment he shares with his girlfriend after the inevitable fight over his aimlessness), peppered with not-very-interesting "big thinks," especially about the subject of capital "R" relationships ("You know, there's a million fine looking women in the world, dude . . ."); "quirky" dialogue-for-its-own-sake (What do they call a quarter-pounder-with-cheese in Belgium?); and ostentatious but pointless displays of cinematic technique typically on the wrong side of the thin line between rip-off and homage, and pop culture references as fast and furious as they are easy, and lazy exercises in metafiction (Swingers delivering all three in its evocations of Reservoir Dogs).
Needless to say, the attempt at worldliness merely demonstrates the narrowness of their concern and vision (reflected in the small range of their subject matter and attitude), the tough-mindedness is all posing, the shock mere tastelessness, the technical displays derivative and pretentious.2 And so instead of smart and cool and edgy, the filmmakers come off as alienated-but-not-very-bright adolescents wallowing in the cynicism and nihilism that come so easily to a would-be artistic type at that age, and frat boy pranksters at their meanest and grossest, and wimps talking big and hoping that will be enough to keep anyone from challenging them to a fight, while in their propensity to affirm the conventional wisdom by story's end despite all that, they also prove themselves awfully superficial and, well, conventional.
In fairness, this does reflect the fact that many of the filmmakers are young people making movies about characters not dissimilar from themselves (frustrated moviemakers making movies about frustrated moviemakers, etc.), and drawing on inspiration from work that speaks to them.3 However, it also suggests that far too many of them are not even trying to transcend their limitations, instead taking the path of least resistance, and so producing a great deal of material which is not merely mediocre, but lazy and stereotyped in exactly the way that independent film is not supposed to be, given the indie movement's raison d'etre of offering an alternative to commercial studio fare.
1. I cite as examples of the tendency toward this particular range of subject matter and sensibility such films as Gary Fleder's Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995), John Herzfeld's 2 Days in the Valley (1996), Quinton Peeple's Joyride (1996), Neil Mandt's Hijacking Hollywood (1997), Peter O'Fallon's Suicide Kings (1997), Robert Meyer Burnett's Free Enterprise (1998), Peter Berg's Very Bad Things (1998) and Valerie Breiman's Love & Sex (1999); Francois Velle's New Suit (2002), Danny Camden's Sol Goode (2003), David Rosenthal's See This Movie (2004), Rob McKittrick's Waiting . . . (2005), Peter Spears' Careless (2006), Paul Soter's Watching the Detectives (2007) and Marianna Palka's Good Dick (2008); and last year's hits Chronicle and Project X.
Where studio fare is concerned, one can find it in Martin Brest's Gigli (2003), in "Bucket Brigade" comedies like The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and Superbad (2007), in the "spoofs" of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, and the prevailing comedic sensibility more generally. Alex Hopper in Battleship (2012), prior to becoming a standard save-the-day action hero, is a standard indie slacker anti-hero, especially in his chicken burrito adventure.
Is this a memorable collection of films? Of course not. But then that's exactly the point, and I hardly seem to be alone in this assessment, as making lists of Pulp Fiction rip-offs, at any rate, seems to be something of a pastime among film critics.
2. The 2006 Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode "Weeping Willow" is a veritable encyclopedia of the clichés of this body of work, complete with obnoxious film students, a crime staged by idiots that predictably goes wrong (in this case, the tried and true fake kidnapping), gratuitous references to Quentin Tarantino, and big thinks on media and fame long past their sell-by date.
3. The continued currency of Quentin Tarantino with college-aged youth (who were not yet born when Reservoir Dogs came out) astonishes me. Of all the filmmakers they could study, this is what they pick? It all puts me in mind of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People's Vincent Lepak.
NOTE: This piece originated as an enlargement of my October 2011's post, "A Fragment on Indie Film," which you can read here.
Nonetheless, for me the words conjure a very particular body of work by a very particular group of '90s-era filmmakers, directors like Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused) and Kevin Smith (Clerks), Tom DiCillo (Living in Oblivion) and Doug Liman (Swingers), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) and Neil LaBute (In The Company of Men). I suppose this is because, in my totally subjective, unscientific impression of the field, they set the pattern for most of the product that was to follow. They have also had a greater effect than any of their colleagues on the style and content of studio releases than any of their cohorts--directly through their own, later studio-made films, and indirectly through the big studio filmmakers they influence in ways large and small--so that a great many studio releases also seem "independent" in this sense.1
The most characteristic products of this stream are movies about loser-slackers and frustrated creative types and dimwitted criminals, living at the bottom of the service sector (working in a video rental, perhaps), or the bottom of the media-entertainment complex (especially its film and publishing divisions), or the bottom of the underworld's hierarchy (running errands for small-time gangsters), with the plot typically having them navigating offbeat romances (no Harlequin protagonists, they), artistic endeavors (like trying to make a movie) and neo-noir intrigues (like fake kidnappings)--possibly all at the same time. All this is usually served up by writers and directors clearly eager to impress us with their worldliness and tough-mindedness; shock us with their outrageousness; stun us with their technical virtuosity.
Alas, it all translates to a lot of movies telling a very small number of stories, with the audience subjected to the same scenes over and over and over again (like the hero getting thrown out of the apartment he shares with his girlfriend after the inevitable fight over his aimlessness), peppered with not-very-interesting "big thinks," especially about the subject of capital "R" relationships ("You know, there's a million fine looking women in the world, dude . . ."); "quirky" dialogue-for-its-own-sake (What do they call a quarter-pounder-with-cheese in Belgium?); and ostentatious but pointless displays of cinematic technique typically on the wrong side of the thin line between rip-off and homage, and pop culture references as fast and furious as they are easy, and lazy exercises in metafiction (Swingers delivering all three in its evocations of Reservoir Dogs).
Needless to say, the attempt at worldliness merely demonstrates the narrowness of their concern and vision (reflected in the small range of their subject matter and attitude), the tough-mindedness is all posing, the shock mere tastelessness, the technical displays derivative and pretentious.2 And so instead of smart and cool and edgy, the filmmakers come off as alienated-but-not-very-bright adolescents wallowing in the cynicism and nihilism that come so easily to a would-be artistic type at that age, and frat boy pranksters at their meanest and grossest, and wimps talking big and hoping that will be enough to keep anyone from challenging them to a fight, while in their propensity to affirm the conventional wisdom by story's end despite all that, they also prove themselves awfully superficial and, well, conventional.
In fairness, this does reflect the fact that many of the filmmakers are young people making movies about characters not dissimilar from themselves (frustrated moviemakers making movies about frustrated moviemakers, etc.), and drawing on inspiration from work that speaks to them.3 However, it also suggests that far too many of them are not even trying to transcend their limitations, instead taking the path of least resistance, and so producing a great deal of material which is not merely mediocre, but lazy and stereotyped in exactly the way that independent film is not supposed to be, given the indie movement's raison d'etre of offering an alternative to commercial studio fare.
1. I cite as examples of the tendency toward this particular range of subject matter and sensibility such films as Gary Fleder's Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995), John Herzfeld's 2 Days in the Valley (1996), Quinton Peeple's Joyride (1996), Neil Mandt's Hijacking Hollywood (1997), Peter O'Fallon's Suicide Kings (1997), Robert Meyer Burnett's Free Enterprise (1998), Peter Berg's Very Bad Things (1998) and Valerie Breiman's Love & Sex (1999); Francois Velle's New Suit (2002), Danny Camden's Sol Goode (2003), David Rosenthal's See This Movie (2004), Rob McKittrick's Waiting . . . (2005), Peter Spears' Careless (2006), Paul Soter's Watching the Detectives (2007) and Marianna Palka's Good Dick (2008); and last year's hits Chronicle and Project X.
Where studio fare is concerned, one can find it in Martin Brest's Gigli (2003), in "Bucket Brigade" comedies like The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and Superbad (2007), in the "spoofs" of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, and the prevailing comedic sensibility more generally. Alex Hopper in Battleship (2012), prior to becoming a standard save-the-day action hero, is a standard indie slacker anti-hero, especially in his chicken burrito adventure.
Is this a memorable collection of films? Of course not. But then that's exactly the point, and I hardly seem to be alone in this assessment, as making lists of Pulp Fiction rip-offs, at any rate, seems to be something of a pastime among film critics.
2. The 2006 Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode "Weeping Willow" is a veritable encyclopedia of the clichés of this body of work, complete with obnoxious film students, a crime staged by idiots that predictably goes wrong (in this case, the tried and true fake kidnapping), gratuitous references to Quentin Tarantino, and big thinks on media and fame long past their sell-by date.
3. The continued currency of Quentin Tarantino with college-aged youth (who were not yet born when Reservoir Dogs came out) astonishes me. Of all the filmmakers they could study, this is what they pick? It all puts me in mind of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People's Vincent Lepak.
NOTE: This piece originated as an enlargement of my October 2011's post, "A Fragment on Indie Film," which you can read here.
Thoughts on Chronicle
Some years ago an acquaintance showed me a script by a friend of his--who was, by the way, no stranger to Hollywood--that he told me was nearly made into a superhero film. (He even named a couple of stars, at the time solidly A-list, who would have been in the lead roles if the project found the sought-after backing.) My impression was that the film was always a long shot. It combined the dramatic material of a small-scale independent movie (an insecure loser loafing about a small town in anticipation of a confrontation with an old enemy) with superhero battles (the loser and his enemy happening to have special abilities), so that I had a hard time seeing anyone willing to put up adequate financing.
Naturally, I was surprised to see 2012's Chronicle. Certainly the story is different. It is less devoted to superhero conventions if in some ways more trite (in its use of the "found footage" gimmick that ultimately becomes quite illogical, and its treatment of the theme of the misuse of power), the hero seethes rather than whines, and the tone is--if you will forgive the overused word--darker (while also being more pretentious and less funny). Still, it offers that same combination of indie-style drama with effects-heavy displays of superhero abilities I wrote off as unlikely.
Naturally I wondered how they closed the gap between even the $12 million they raised (rather more than I pictured the producers of such a film putting up), and the realization of such a concept. The solution was shooting much of the mere 83 minute film in Cape Town, South Africa with a cast of virtual unknowns (no A-listers here), and the conservation of the bulk of the resources for the big finale.
The result, of course, was one of the more noteworthy low-budget successes of recent years, the film grossing ten times what it cost (a rare achievement these days), while also winning a good deal of critical acclaim. Now a sequel is reportedly in the works.
I suppose I underestimated Hollywood's flexibility--but perhaps not by much. What I guess I really underestimated was the continued appeal of the superhero genre for the studios, which gave the production just enough wriggle room not only to get made, but to get the wide distribution that made it a possible franchise.
Naturally, I was surprised to see 2012's Chronicle. Certainly the story is different. It is less devoted to superhero conventions if in some ways more trite (in its use of the "found footage" gimmick that ultimately becomes quite illogical, and its treatment of the theme of the misuse of power), the hero seethes rather than whines, and the tone is--if you will forgive the overused word--darker (while also being more pretentious and less funny). Still, it offers that same combination of indie-style drama with effects-heavy displays of superhero abilities I wrote off as unlikely.
Naturally I wondered how they closed the gap between even the $12 million they raised (rather more than I pictured the producers of such a film putting up), and the realization of such a concept. The solution was shooting much of the mere 83 minute film in Cape Town, South Africa with a cast of virtual unknowns (no A-listers here), and the conservation of the bulk of the resources for the big finale.
The result, of course, was one of the more noteworthy low-budget successes of recent years, the film grossing ten times what it cost (a rare achievement these days), while also winning a good deal of critical acclaim. Now a sequel is reportedly in the works.
I suppose I underestimated Hollywood's flexibility--but perhaps not by much. What I guess I really underestimated was the continued appeal of the superhero genre for the studios, which gave the production just enough wriggle room not only to get made, but to get the wide distribution that made it a possible franchise.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Watching Sharknado
Apparently the Syfy Channel's executives decided some years ago that instead of trying to make good films, they should deliberately make bad ones that viewers can enjoy "ironically," likely on the grounds that this is easier and cheaper, with the tendency epitomized by the movies made for the channel by notorious "mockbuster"-maker The Asylym. Their most characteristic formula is the combination of a B-movie plot (typically involving monster attacks, natural disasters or a combination of the two), an enthusiastic seizure on the hokiest situations to which their premises can lead, and movie and TV stars who have left their fans wondering "What ever happened to them?"
Of course, great bad movies are generally not planned in this manner. Megashark Versus Octopus (2009), which led to not just a direct sequel (2010's Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus), but numerous imitations (like 2010's Mega Piranha, and 2011's Mega Python Versus Gatoroid), is certainly a bad movie, but not entertainingly bad in the manner of, for instance, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002).1 In fact, I usually find the effect of these films rather forced, with Sharknado no exception, down to Ian Zeiring's leaping through the mouth of a flying shark with chainsaw in hand.2 Still, the movie became something of an Internet sensation, helped along by some unlikely tweets (most notoriously, a picture Mia Farrow posted of herself with novelist Philip Roth supposedly watching the film together). The result is that we can now expect Sharknado 2, with the action moved from Los Angeles to New York, and the channel inviting viewers to send in their ideas.
1. As you might guess, watching the film I expected that John Barrowman would remain forever obscure. Of course, that wasn't the case.
2. Indeed, the combination of an aquatic natural disaster with a shark attack on the coast of Southern California was previously attempted with 2009's Malibu Shark Attack, starring Peta Wilson (of La Femme Nikita fame). However, that film--a production of RHI's comparatively serious "Maneater" series--does not wallow in its own stupidity to the degree that Sharknado does.
Of course, great bad movies are generally not planned in this manner. Megashark Versus Octopus (2009), which led to not just a direct sequel (2010's Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus), but numerous imitations (like 2010's Mega Piranha, and 2011's Mega Python Versus Gatoroid), is certainly a bad movie, but not entertainingly bad in the manner of, for instance, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002).1 In fact, I usually find the effect of these films rather forced, with Sharknado no exception, down to Ian Zeiring's leaping through the mouth of a flying shark with chainsaw in hand.2 Still, the movie became something of an Internet sensation, helped along by some unlikely tweets (most notoriously, a picture Mia Farrow posted of herself with novelist Philip Roth supposedly watching the film together). The result is that we can now expect Sharknado 2, with the action moved from Los Angeles to New York, and the channel inviting viewers to send in their ideas.
1. As you might guess, watching the film I expected that John Barrowman would remain forever obscure. Of course, that wasn't the case.
2. Indeed, the combination of an aquatic natural disaster with a shark attack on the coast of Southern California was previously attempted with 2009's Malibu Shark Attack, starring Peta Wilson (of La Femme Nikita fame). However, that film--a production of RHI's comparatively serious "Maneater" series--does not wallow in its own stupidity to the degree that Sharknado does.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
The Return(?) of the '80s Action Movie
This past weekend Sylvester Stallone's Bullet to the Head opened to a mere $4.5 million--a career low for the star. This came a mere three weeks after that other giant of '80s action movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger, saw his post-gubernatorial return to starring roles, Last Stand, open to the only slightly better figure of $6.5 million, also a career low.
This is less surprising than it may seem. Stallone's career peaked more than a quarter of a century ago, in 1985, when Rambo: First Blood, Part II and Rocky IV were the second and third biggest movies of the year--after which he did not see another $100 million hit until he piggybacked onto the Spy Kids franchise in 2003, and if one not unreasonably excludes that, The Expendables in 2010. Schwarzenegger's career peaked in 1991 with his all-time highest grosser Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which after True Lies (1994) and Eraser (1996) turned into a streak of weak performers and outright flops (like The Last Action Hero, and Batman and Robin, and Collateral Damage), in the midst of which the lukewarm Terminator 3 (2003) looks like an island of success.
The action genre simply moved on, to other sorts of protagonist, in other sorts of film. The musclebound hulks who cheerfully mowed down hordes of anonymous cannon fodder in the service of ripped-from-the-headlines bad guys (epitomized, perhaps, by 1985's Commando) gave way to speculative-themed, CGI-based spectacles negotiated by everymen, or by full-blown superheroes. The Bruce Willis-starrer Die Hard in 1988 was already a sign of things to come, and with Tim Burton's Batman in 1989 (starring an unlikely Michael Keaton in the role) the new age had already arrived, before the full departure of the last one, the two eras overlapped in the decade of transition that was the 1990s.
Of course, Schwarzenegger and Stallone tried to adapt. Science fiction and fantasy had already been prominent in Schwarzenegger's list (Conan, Terminator, Predator), and he made his share of such films in the '90s, including a superhero movie (Batman and Robin), and other movies where he played everyman types (like The Sixth Day). Stallone made genre movies, too (1993's Demolition Man and 1995's Judge Dredd). But their established image left them swimming against the current, so that their bad luck with those particular films was close to fatal. Schwarzenegger's departure from filmmaking to politics gave the impression of a man leaving a sinking ship for a sinking ship of state, and Stallone was soon enough looking backward rather than forward, with Rocky Balboa (2006), with Rambo (2008), with The Expendables (2010) and its sequel (2012).
The disappointing grosses of Last Stand and Bullet to the Head make it clear that the success of The Expendables (modest compared with the really first-string blockbusters) was the triumph of nostalgia and novelty, not the resurrection of yesterday's hero.
This is less surprising than it may seem. Stallone's career peaked more than a quarter of a century ago, in 1985, when Rambo: First Blood, Part II and Rocky IV were the second and third biggest movies of the year--after which he did not see another $100 million hit until he piggybacked onto the Spy Kids franchise in 2003, and if one not unreasonably excludes that, The Expendables in 2010. Schwarzenegger's career peaked in 1991 with his all-time highest grosser Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which after True Lies (1994) and Eraser (1996) turned into a streak of weak performers and outright flops (like The Last Action Hero, and Batman and Robin, and Collateral Damage), in the midst of which the lukewarm Terminator 3 (2003) looks like an island of success.
The action genre simply moved on, to other sorts of protagonist, in other sorts of film. The musclebound hulks who cheerfully mowed down hordes of anonymous cannon fodder in the service of ripped-from-the-headlines bad guys (epitomized, perhaps, by 1985's Commando) gave way to speculative-themed, CGI-based spectacles negotiated by everymen, or by full-blown superheroes. The Bruce Willis-starrer Die Hard in 1988 was already a sign of things to come, and with Tim Burton's Batman in 1989 (starring an unlikely Michael Keaton in the role) the new age had already arrived, before the full departure of the last one, the two eras overlapped in the decade of transition that was the 1990s.
Of course, Schwarzenegger and Stallone tried to adapt. Science fiction and fantasy had already been prominent in Schwarzenegger's list (Conan, Terminator, Predator), and he made his share of such films in the '90s, including a superhero movie (Batman and Robin), and other movies where he played everyman types (like The Sixth Day). Stallone made genre movies, too (1993's Demolition Man and 1995's Judge Dredd). But their established image left them swimming against the current, so that their bad luck with those particular films was close to fatal. Schwarzenegger's departure from filmmaking to politics gave the impression of a man leaving a sinking ship for a sinking ship of state, and Stallone was soon enough looking backward rather than forward, with Rocky Balboa (2006), with Rambo (2008), with The Expendables (2010) and its sequel (2012).
The disappointing grosses of Last Stand and Bullet to the Head make it clear that the success of The Expendables (modest compared with the really first-string blockbusters) was the triumph of nostalgia and novelty, not the resurrection of yesterday's hero.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
The Cult of the Film Star
The old studio system that created the idea of the film star died a half century ago, but the idea of the star has remained, and film industry-watchers continue to view the scene through its particular lens. Actors continue to be thought of as bankable or not bankable, the theory being that this or that individual's presence can guarantee some minimum level of initial success--a "good" opening weekend.
Audiences certainly have their likes and dislikes among actors, which make them more or less likely to buy a ticket, but this is all awfully simple-minded--like the business press's cult of the CEO. Just as in the case of the CEO, what happens is that the most visible, and to the public, most prestigious, member of a large corporate enterprise, gets all the credit (or all the blame) for its doings, as if they were all his or her own. Further removing the tendency from reality is the fact that in today's most successful productions the actors are typically overshadowed by technical spectacle, while cultural flux and the ever-more intrusive tabloid/paparazzi culture make old-fashioned stardom (the identification of an actor with a well-defined, larger-than-life, saleable image) an impossibility.
It seems more accurate, then, to say that stars acquire the image of bankability from their having been in commercially successful films, much more than their having made films commercially successful (just as CEOs derive their prestige from the corporate achievements of their companies). Those who have good, long runs of success owe that success to having been in films with many other selling points (concept, spectacle, the built-in audience brand names bring, a well-timed and heavily promoted release), which went on to do well. That commercial success, however, disproportionately enhanced the auras of the actors involved (especially if their publicists are doing their jobs), and gave them more chances to appear in such films, in a positive feedback loop that culminated in star status.
Especially given the fact that there are just not that many leading roles in major productions to go around, that there are fewer still roles in the kinds of films with a reasonable chance of bringing an actor that kind of attention, that one can suffer only so many failures in a row and still be considered a star, genuine stardom of the kind associated with media ubiquity and seven and eight-figure paydays is elusive, and precarious when one does achieve it. This makes the visibility and stability that a successful franchise can bring to one's career critical to establishing and sustaining star status--while making themselves appear indispensable to a franchise is by far the most obvious way in which an actor can strengthen the idea that they are a draw.
The career of Harrison Ford is an excellent example of this. Picture his list of credits without the Star Wars (1977, 1980, 1983), Indiana Jones (1981, 1983, 1989, 2008) and Jack Ryan (1992, 1994) films (with 1997's Air Force One perhaps best thought of as an "honorary" Jack Ryan movie).1 He had some other successes, to be sure--Witness (1985), Working Girl (1988), The Fugitive (1993), What Lies Beneath (2000)--but if these were all he had to show for his time as an actor he would be a comparatively obscure figure today. And to the extent that his appearance in them helped make them commercial successes, this was doubtless helped by the boost to his standing from his recently playing Han Solo, Indy, and to a lesser extent, Jack--one reason why he experienced so little success after 2000.
And the importance of having a franchise would seem to have only grown since he came onto the scene, to go by the careers of many of today's stars. (Where would Hugh Jackman be without Wolverine? Matt Damon without Jason Bourne? Shia LaBeouf without the Transformers, or the boost he got playing Henry Jones III?) Indeed, the most sensible career paths now seems to be not an actor's moving from one franchise to the next (as Harrison Ford did, getting into Indiana Jones just as Star Wars was running its course, then moving onto Jack Ryan next), but an actor's having multiple franchises going at once. Vin Diesel and Halle Berry, for instance, each came close to having three franchises at the same time--Diesel with the Fast and Furious, XXX and Riddick, Berry with the X-Men, Catwoman and Jinx. Neither actually realized those opportunities, however.2 The only actor who has really flourished to that extent is Robert Downey Jr., with Iron Man, The Avengers and Sherlock Holmes producing megahits year in, year out.
Those who think of Downey as Hollywood's most overrated A-lister, and a grating screen presence who has already had infinitely more than his share of luck in not just continuing to work but becoming a megastar after his earlier Charlie Sheen-like self-destructiveness; and find Iron Man the most insufferable comic book character on the big screen today; can only wonder where the justice is in that.
1. After all, he played an American President in that movie who has facing a techno-thriller-style international crisis--which was exactly what Jack Ryan had become by the novels of the mid-1990s. However, it is worth remembering that the Jack Ryan films are also a reminder of the limits to any one actor's indispensability. Ford was already the second Ryan, just two years after Alec Baldwin's appearance in the role in 1990's The Hunt for Red October, while there was little fuss over Ford's replacement by Ben Affleck in 2002's The Sum of All Fears. Affleck in his turn has been replaced by Chris Pines in the series' second reboot, the upcoming Jack Ryan, which will make for four different actors in the role in a mere five films.
2. Of course, Diesel walked away from Fast and Furious and XXX to stick with Riddick, which was wrecked when 2004's The Chronicles of Riddick underperformed. Halle Berry, meanwhile, saw the projected Jinx series canceled in 2003 after Hollywood became less bullish about female-driven action movie, Catwoman's flopping insured there would be no sequel, and then she was left out of the X-Men series after 2006's The Last Stand. The result has been a long period of lowered profiles for each, with Diesel only recovering after returning to the Fast and Furious franchise in 2009, and Berry's recovery considerably slower than that.
Audiences certainly have their likes and dislikes among actors, which make them more or less likely to buy a ticket, but this is all awfully simple-minded--like the business press's cult of the CEO. Just as in the case of the CEO, what happens is that the most visible, and to the public, most prestigious, member of a large corporate enterprise, gets all the credit (or all the blame) for its doings, as if they were all his or her own. Further removing the tendency from reality is the fact that in today's most successful productions the actors are typically overshadowed by technical spectacle, while cultural flux and the ever-more intrusive tabloid/paparazzi culture make old-fashioned stardom (the identification of an actor with a well-defined, larger-than-life, saleable image) an impossibility.
It seems more accurate, then, to say that stars acquire the image of bankability from their having been in commercially successful films, much more than their having made films commercially successful (just as CEOs derive their prestige from the corporate achievements of their companies). Those who have good, long runs of success owe that success to having been in films with many other selling points (concept, spectacle, the built-in audience brand names bring, a well-timed and heavily promoted release), which went on to do well. That commercial success, however, disproportionately enhanced the auras of the actors involved (especially if their publicists are doing their jobs), and gave them more chances to appear in such films, in a positive feedback loop that culminated in star status.
Especially given the fact that there are just not that many leading roles in major productions to go around, that there are fewer still roles in the kinds of films with a reasonable chance of bringing an actor that kind of attention, that one can suffer only so many failures in a row and still be considered a star, genuine stardom of the kind associated with media ubiquity and seven and eight-figure paydays is elusive, and precarious when one does achieve it. This makes the visibility and stability that a successful franchise can bring to one's career critical to establishing and sustaining star status--while making themselves appear indispensable to a franchise is by far the most obvious way in which an actor can strengthen the idea that they are a draw.
The career of Harrison Ford is an excellent example of this. Picture his list of credits without the Star Wars (1977, 1980, 1983), Indiana Jones (1981, 1983, 1989, 2008) and Jack Ryan (1992, 1994) films (with 1997's Air Force One perhaps best thought of as an "honorary" Jack Ryan movie).1 He had some other successes, to be sure--Witness (1985), Working Girl (1988), The Fugitive (1993), What Lies Beneath (2000)--but if these were all he had to show for his time as an actor he would be a comparatively obscure figure today. And to the extent that his appearance in them helped make them commercial successes, this was doubtless helped by the boost to his standing from his recently playing Han Solo, Indy, and to a lesser extent, Jack--one reason why he experienced so little success after 2000.
And the importance of having a franchise would seem to have only grown since he came onto the scene, to go by the careers of many of today's stars. (Where would Hugh Jackman be without Wolverine? Matt Damon without Jason Bourne? Shia LaBeouf without the Transformers, or the boost he got playing Henry Jones III?) Indeed, the most sensible career paths now seems to be not an actor's moving from one franchise to the next (as Harrison Ford did, getting into Indiana Jones just as Star Wars was running its course, then moving onto Jack Ryan next), but an actor's having multiple franchises going at once. Vin Diesel and Halle Berry, for instance, each came close to having three franchises at the same time--Diesel with the Fast and Furious, XXX and Riddick, Berry with the X-Men, Catwoman and Jinx. Neither actually realized those opportunities, however.2 The only actor who has really flourished to that extent is Robert Downey Jr., with Iron Man, The Avengers and Sherlock Holmes producing megahits year in, year out.
Those who think of Downey as Hollywood's most overrated A-lister, and a grating screen presence who has already had infinitely more than his share of luck in not just continuing to work but becoming a megastar after his earlier Charlie Sheen-like self-destructiveness; and find Iron Man the most insufferable comic book character on the big screen today; can only wonder where the justice is in that.
1. After all, he played an American President in that movie who has facing a techno-thriller-style international crisis--which was exactly what Jack Ryan had become by the novels of the mid-1990s. However, it is worth remembering that the Jack Ryan films are also a reminder of the limits to any one actor's indispensability. Ford was already the second Ryan, just two years after Alec Baldwin's appearance in the role in 1990's The Hunt for Red October, while there was little fuss over Ford's replacement by Ben Affleck in 2002's The Sum of All Fears. Affleck in his turn has been replaced by Chris Pines in the series' second reboot, the upcoming Jack Ryan, which will make for four different actors in the role in a mere five films.
2. Of course, Diesel walked away from Fast and Furious and XXX to stick with Riddick, which was wrecked when 2004's The Chronicles of Riddick underperformed. Halle Berry, meanwhile, saw the projected Jinx series canceled in 2003 after Hollywood became less bullish about female-driven action movie, Catwoman's flopping insured there would be no sequel, and then she was left out of the X-Men series after 2006's The Last Stand. The result has been a long period of lowered profiles for each, with Diesel only recovering after returning to the Fast and Furious franchise in 2009, and Berry's recovery considerably slower than that.
The Politics of Continuum, Part III
In my previous post on the politics of the Showcase series Continuum I suggested that the future history of the series at least suggests sympathy on the part of the show's writers for the corporatocracy of the 2077 North American Union.
If anything, this seems to me confirmed by the depictions of the two sides in the show's central conflict. The roles of Keira Cameron as good guy/cop and Edouard Kagame's Liber8 as bad guys/rebels in 2077 are reinforced by the associations they form back in 2012, Keira aligning herself with the police, while Liber8 consorts with criminals--associates unambiguously treated as the good guys and bad guys in 2012. Additionally Keira Cameron's struggle to thwart Liber8 makes her a preserver of the timeline from those who seek to alter the course of history--roles normally allotted hero and villain, respectively. Put another way, Keira Cameron is in the position of Kyle Reese, Liber8 in that of the Terminator, in that series' original 1984 film. This conflates her role as defender of the social order in 2077 with a role as defender of the larger cosmic order.
The differing depictions of the characters themselves also seem noteworthy. Rachel Nichols' beautiful, clean-cut, comfortably upper middle-class heroine torn away from a husband and child toward whom she is loving and devoted, and up against a more numerous force of ruthless adversaries, is a natural to win the audience's sympathies--while Liber8's people generally lack that sort of appeal.1 The depiction of the group's two women (and it does seem notable that there are just two women among the eight) is a case in point. Luvia Peterson's tattooed, bleached ex-con Jasmine Garza conveys a threatening "punk" image. Lexa Doig's Sonya Valentine is more conventionally alluring, but her beauty is less glamourized than Cameron's is (or Doig's was on Andromeda), her viciousness instead played up at every opportunity.
More pointed still is the show's treatment of the group's leader, the curiously named Edouard Kagame.2 Made conspicuously foreign by his name, and physically passable as the popular stereotype of an Islamist terrorist (an image reinforced by the long beard he wears), such an association is strongly reinforced by his first and last scenes in season one.3 In the opening we see him making a statement to the world as big-city skyscrapers explode behind him (images clearly evoking popular memory of the September 11 attacks)--while in the season finale, "Endtimes," he becomes a suicide bomber.
The uneven depiction of the show's violence reflects the same tendency, and not just in those politically charged scenes which suggest an equivalency between Liber8 and al-Qaida. It is not merely the case that Liber8 is willing to kill the innocent to achieve its ends, but also that where Cameron's violent acts are merely in the line of duty for an action hero, their acts are consistently sensationalized--as when the Liber8 members attack a group of bikers in "A Matter of Time." (Sonya Valentine, conspicuously violent even by the standards of her comrades, beats an unarmed man to death with a crowbar, the camera lingering on every strike.)
The effect of such imagery is to uphold the conventional format of good guy cops and bad guy lawbreakers--and along with it, the 2077 status quo. The series may do so in shades of gray rather than stark black and white (such matters as the back stories of the various Liber8 members and the mysterious relationship between Sadler and Kagame keep things from looking too simple), but through the first season at least, it has that effect nonetheless. And so in the end what I see in season one is yet another exercise in postmodern muddle, evasive about whether it is saying anything at all (let alone what it is saying), appearing to be thought-provoking when it is really just pushing the viewers' buttons--but at bottom uncritically accepting of an extreme right-wing view of the world that most viewers seem to take in an equally uncritical fashion. In that it is rather like the show that did so much to set the trend for science fiction television during the past decade, Battlestar Galactica.
1. Upper middle-class, after all, is the strata in which television drama tends to find its protagonists--like its lawyers, its doctors and certain notorious ad-men.
2. The most obvious point of reference seems to be Paul Kagame, the former leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and current President of Rwanda. A controversial figure who is obscure to an American audience (the politics of Central Africa having been shamefully ignored in the U.S. media in the 1990s and 2000s), it is hard to see what effect this name achieves besides making this apparently non-Rwandan character seem more "foreign" to North American ears.
3. It is notable that Amendola has played Middle Eastern characters before, as on the "Deadline" episode of NCIS: Los Angeles. Other notable roles Amendola has taken in the past, such as Salman Rushdie lookalike "Sal Bass" in the Seinfeld episode "The Implant," and Master Bra'tac of pseudo-Egyptianate Chulak in Stargate: SG-1, likewise have a "whiff of the east" about them.
If anything, this seems to me confirmed by the depictions of the two sides in the show's central conflict. The roles of Keira Cameron as good guy/cop and Edouard Kagame's Liber8 as bad guys/rebels in 2077 are reinforced by the associations they form back in 2012, Keira aligning herself with the police, while Liber8 consorts with criminals--associates unambiguously treated as the good guys and bad guys in 2012. Additionally Keira Cameron's struggle to thwart Liber8 makes her a preserver of the timeline from those who seek to alter the course of history--roles normally allotted hero and villain, respectively. Put another way, Keira Cameron is in the position of Kyle Reese, Liber8 in that of the Terminator, in that series' original 1984 film. This conflates her role as defender of the social order in 2077 with a role as defender of the larger cosmic order.
The differing depictions of the characters themselves also seem noteworthy. Rachel Nichols' beautiful, clean-cut, comfortably upper middle-class heroine torn away from a husband and child toward whom she is loving and devoted, and up against a more numerous force of ruthless adversaries, is a natural to win the audience's sympathies--while Liber8's people generally lack that sort of appeal.1 The depiction of the group's two women (and it does seem notable that there are just two women among the eight) is a case in point. Luvia Peterson's tattooed, bleached ex-con Jasmine Garza conveys a threatening "punk" image. Lexa Doig's Sonya Valentine is more conventionally alluring, but her beauty is less glamourized than Cameron's is (or Doig's was on Andromeda), her viciousness instead played up at every opportunity.
More pointed still is the show's treatment of the group's leader, the curiously named Edouard Kagame.2 Made conspicuously foreign by his name, and physically passable as the popular stereotype of an Islamist terrorist (an image reinforced by the long beard he wears), such an association is strongly reinforced by his first and last scenes in season one.3 In the opening we see him making a statement to the world as big-city skyscrapers explode behind him (images clearly evoking popular memory of the September 11 attacks)--while in the season finale, "Endtimes," he becomes a suicide bomber.
The uneven depiction of the show's violence reflects the same tendency, and not just in those politically charged scenes which suggest an equivalency between Liber8 and al-Qaida. It is not merely the case that Liber8 is willing to kill the innocent to achieve its ends, but also that where Cameron's violent acts are merely in the line of duty for an action hero, their acts are consistently sensationalized--as when the Liber8 members attack a group of bikers in "A Matter of Time." (Sonya Valentine, conspicuously violent even by the standards of her comrades, beats an unarmed man to death with a crowbar, the camera lingering on every strike.)
The effect of such imagery is to uphold the conventional format of good guy cops and bad guy lawbreakers--and along with it, the 2077 status quo. The series may do so in shades of gray rather than stark black and white (such matters as the back stories of the various Liber8 members and the mysterious relationship between Sadler and Kagame keep things from looking too simple), but through the first season at least, it has that effect nonetheless. And so in the end what I see in season one is yet another exercise in postmodern muddle, evasive about whether it is saying anything at all (let alone what it is saying), appearing to be thought-provoking when it is really just pushing the viewers' buttons--but at bottom uncritically accepting of an extreme right-wing view of the world that most viewers seem to take in an equally uncritical fashion. In that it is rather like the show that did so much to set the trend for science fiction television during the past decade, Battlestar Galactica.
1. Upper middle-class, after all, is the strata in which television drama tends to find its protagonists--like its lawyers, its doctors and certain notorious ad-men.
2. The most obvious point of reference seems to be Paul Kagame, the former leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and current President of Rwanda. A controversial figure who is obscure to an American audience (the politics of Central Africa having been shamefully ignored in the U.S. media in the 1990s and 2000s), it is hard to see what effect this name achieves besides making this apparently non-Rwandan character seem more "foreign" to North American ears.
3. It is notable that Amendola has played Middle Eastern characters before, as on the "Deadline" episode of NCIS: Los Angeles. Other notable roles Amendola has taken in the past, such as Salman Rushdie lookalike "Sal Bass" in the Seinfeld episode "The Implant," and Master Bra'tac of pseudo-Egyptianate Chulak in Stargate: SG-1, likewise have a "whiff of the east" about them.
On Top Gun 2
Over at War is Boring, a post by Robert Beckhusen on the more dramatic appearances of the F-35 fighter has made in Hollywood films--which have not been much more flattering than the real history of the plane's notoriously troubled development program.
The most interesting part of the post, however, has to do with a film that has not moved out of development hell in three decades, Top Gun 2. Apparently recent plans for that film had Tom Cruise returning as an F-35 test pilot before the project was put on hiatus by the suicide of director Tony Scott--while also being troubled by "uncertainty about the F-35's role in a military increasingly focused on unmanned aircraft." This made the film's planners consider the possibility of having Maverick remotely pilot an aircraft instead, then discard the idea, perhaps because the image of a person sitting in a trailer hundreds or thousands of miles from the combat is less dramatic than one in the cockpit of an aircraft taking direct fire. And in any case, the manned aircraft still has some years ahead of it, especially in the fighter role (where drones are still not serious players).1
Still, the scarcity of plausible scenarios where the United States might take on another country with an air force credible enough to engage its planes in a serious battle, and the increasingly remote nature of the more high-tech forms of combat, are making the techno-thriller harder to pull off--and at least where the big screen was concerned, this was already tough enough back when the original was made. That movie, after all, offered only a very thinly sketched scenario involving an unnamed country as a pretext for the climactic air battle. Unsurprisingly, F-35s--and other American fighters--have been far more prone to go into action against quite different sorts of threats, as in The Avengers and Man of Steel, and this seems likely to remain the case.
There has been no word, however, on whether those behind the Top Gun 2 project have seriously considered sending the movie's pilots up against an alien invasion, the way that a plot line involving an alien was apparently considered for the next sequels to that other giant of military-themed '80s action, Rambo--not that I see that movie getting made any time soon.
1. Combat drones have been much more prominent in the reconnaissance/surveillance and air-to-ground roles (as with the MQ-9 Reaper, or the X-47 now in development), rather than the more complex functioning of taking on other aircraft.
The most interesting part of the post, however, has to do with a film that has not moved out of development hell in three decades, Top Gun 2. Apparently recent plans for that film had Tom Cruise returning as an F-35 test pilot before the project was put on hiatus by the suicide of director Tony Scott--while also being troubled by "uncertainty about the F-35's role in a military increasingly focused on unmanned aircraft." This made the film's planners consider the possibility of having Maverick remotely pilot an aircraft instead, then discard the idea, perhaps because the image of a person sitting in a trailer hundreds or thousands of miles from the combat is less dramatic than one in the cockpit of an aircraft taking direct fire. And in any case, the manned aircraft still has some years ahead of it, especially in the fighter role (where drones are still not serious players).1
Still, the scarcity of plausible scenarios where the United States might take on another country with an air force credible enough to engage its planes in a serious battle, and the increasingly remote nature of the more high-tech forms of combat, are making the techno-thriller harder to pull off--and at least where the big screen was concerned, this was already tough enough back when the original was made. That movie, after all, offered only a very thinly sketched scenario involving an unnamed country as a pretext for the climactic air battle. Unsurprisingly, F-35s--and other American fighters--have been far more prone to go into action against quite different sorts of threats, as in The Avengers and Man of Steel, and this seems likely to remain the case.
There has been no word, however, on whether those behind the Top Gun 2 project have seriously considered sending the movie's pilots up against an alien invasion, the way that a plot line involving an alien was apparently considered for the next sequels to that other giant of military-themed '80s action, Rambo--not that I see that movie getting made any time soon.
1. Combat drones have been much more prominent in the reconnaissance/surveillance and air-to-ground roles (as with the MQ-9 Reaper, or the X-47 now in development), rather than the more complex functioning of taking on other aircraft.
Monday, July 15, 2013
The Japanese Box Office 2002-2012: An Untold Story
It seems today that no major event film comes out without a lot of talk in the press speculating about, and then covering, how it does in China.
This is, of course, not wholly baseless. Hollywood's ever-larger budgets, and the recent fickleness of American audiences, have the industry looking overseas for more and more of its revenue--a pattern reinforced by its increasing emphasis on the kinds of costly but thematically simple films that will perform well globally. And of course, China, which has become the world's second-biggest film market, and is widely believed to be on track to be the first by 2020, figures prominently in such calculations--while that market is becoming increasingly open to imports.
Still, the tone of the American entertainment press in discussing the prospects of Hollywood in these countries tends to be awfully complacent--as one sees looking when looking at one big story it has tended to ignore, namely what happened in what was formerly the world's second-largest movie market, Japan.
In 2002, 16 of the 20 top-grossing films at the Japanese box office, and 9 of the top 10 films, were Hollywood productions, including the six biggest hits of the year--with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at #1, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones at #2, Monsters, Inc. at #3, the Fellowship of the Ring at #4, Spider-Man at #5 and Ocean's Eleven at #6.
By contrast, just 9 of the top 20, and 3 of the top ten were American in 2012, with the year's biggest Hollywood success, Les Miserables, making only the #5 spot.1 (The other two films, incidentally, were Resident Evil: Retribution at #8, and The Avengers at #9.)
One may wonder if 2012 was not simply an exceptionally poor year for American film at the Japanese box office, but an examination of the years in between indicates a steady downward trend in its fortunes, with far fewer American films among the major earners, and these films tending to make less money--collectively, hundreds of millions less than they might have made otherwise in this single market each and every year.2 Additionally, as the hits of 2012 demonstrate, the list of American films that do make money in Japan is more idiosyncratic, Japanese moviegoers not simply going in for the same product as their American counterparts.3 By and large the gap has been filled by Japanese films, just one reflection of Japan's ever-higher profile in the world pop cultural map.4
And that, of course, has been a reflection of Japan's combination of size and affluence as a country of 127 million with a solidly First World per capita income, which is what gave it a domestic market with the purchasing power to support the vibrant film and television industry it now enjoys. Assuming countries like China and Russia continue to expand their economies, there is no reason to think they cannot, and will not, do the same, their own film industries claiming a larger share of those more lucrative home markets, while moviegoers in those markets also become more selective regarding the American movies they see at the theater.5 That these other film industries might then go on to fight for foreign markets as well, competing with Hollywood not just nationally, but internationally, at the multiplex rather than just the art house, is a more distant but far from unrealistic prospect--and underlines the fact that just as Hollywood takes the American moviegoer for granted at its peril, so it does with the world box office.
1. This is, incidentally, a very different pattern from what is seen in other industrialized countries. By contrast, 9 of the top 10 films, and 18 of the top 20 films, at the German box office in 2012 were American, a not atypical figure in that country. A similar pattern holds in Britain, and to a lesser extent, France (where a dozen of the top 20 were American that same year). All of the data used in this post came from Box Office Mojo.
2. Between 2003 and 2007, American films averaged 11 of the top 20 and 6 of the top 10 slots; between 2008 and 2012, just 7 of the top 20 and 3 of the top 10 slots.
3. The weak performance of many of the biggest American blockbusters is worth pointing out. The highest-grossing film at the U.S. box office, The Avengers, admittedly did not do so badly in Japan, still making the top ten (barely). However, the Dark Knight Rises, the second-biggest hit of the year in the U.S., came in at #27; the third-biggest American hit, The Hunger Games--criticized by many even in the U.S. as a rip-off of Japan's own Battle Royale--was all the way down at #95 in Japan; and Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2, sixth at the U.S. box office last year, came in at #106. By contrast, Resident Evil 5, which outdid even The Avengers in Japan, was only a mediocre earner in the U.S., taking in $42 million to be just the seventy-ninth biggest hit of the year in the States.
4. It certainly seems noteworthy that of the three American films to make the list of 2012's top ten earners, Resident Evil was based on a Japanese video game series, while Les Miserables is based on a French musical based on a French concept album based on the classic French novel, rather than being a distinctively or deeply American product. Completing the irony may be the fact that The Avengers was directed by an American widely regarded as owing a significant creative debt to animè (direct or indirect).
5. Of course, this does not always happen. Germany, for instance, with its population of 80 million and GDP of $3.4 trillion could support a rather more robust film industry than it now has (especially with millions more German speakers in neighboring countries like Austria and Switzerland extending the audience for German-language fare). Uwe Boll has remarked on the "art house" sensibility prevailing in German film as a factor, but I have not encountered any explanations of the reasons for this tendency.
This is, of course, not wholly baseless. Hollywood's ever-larger budgets, and the recent fickleness of American audiences, have the industry looking overseas for more and more of its revenue--a pattern reinforced by its increasing emphasis on the kinds of costly but thematically simple films that will perform well globally. And of course, China, which has become the world's second-biggest film market, and is widely believed to be on track to be the first by 2020, figures prominently in such calculations--while that market is becoming increasingly open to imports.
Still, the tone of the American entertainment press in discussing the prospects of Hollywood in these countries tends to be awfully complacent--as one sees looking when looking at one big story it has tended to ignore, namely what happened in what was formerly the world's second-largest movie market, Japan.
In 2002, 16 of the 20 top-grossing films at the Japanese box office, and 9 of the top 10 films, were Hollywood productions, including the six biggest hits of the year--with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at #1, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones at #2, Monsters, Inc. at #3, the Fellowship of the Ring at #4, Spider-Man at #5 and Ocean's Eleven at #6.
By contrast, just 9 of the top 20, and 3 of the top ten were American in 2012, with the year's biggest Hollywood success, Les Miserables, making only the #5 spot.1 (The other two films, incidentally, were Resident Evil: Retribution at #8, and The Avengers at #9.)
One may wonder if 2012 was not simply an exceptionally poor year for American film at the Japanese box office, but an examination of the years in between indicates a steady downward trend in its fortunes, with far fewer American films among the major earners, and these films tending to make less money--collectively, hundreds of millions less than they might have made otherwise in this single market each and every year.2 Additionally, as the hits of 2012 demonstrate, the list of American films that do make money in Japan is more idiosyncratic, Japanese moviegoers not simply going in for the same product as their American counterparts.3 By and large the gap has been filled by Japanese films, just one reflection of Japan's ever-higher profile in the world pop cultural map.4
And that, of course, has been a reflection of Japan's combination of size and affluence as a country of 127 million with a solidly First World per capita income, which is what gave it a domestic market with the purchasing power to support the vibrant film and television industry it now enjoys. Assuming countries like China and Russia continue to expand their economies, there is no reason to think they cannot, and will not, do the same, their own film industries claiming a larger share of those more lucrative home markets, while moviegoers in those markets also become more selective regarding the American movies they see at the theater.5 That these other film industries might then go on to fight for foreign markets as well, competing with Hollywood not just nationally, but internationally, at the multiplex rather than just the art house, is a more distant but far from unrealistic prospect--and underlines the fact that just as Hollywood takes the American moviegoer for granted at its peril, so it does with the world box office.
1. This is, incidentally, a very different pattern from what is seen in other industrialized countries. By contrast, 9 of the top 10 films, and 18 of the top 20 films, at the German box office in 2012 were American, a not atypical figure in that country. A similar pattern holds in Britain, and to a lesser extent, France (where a dozen of the top 20 were American that same year). All of the data used in this post came from Box Office Mojo.
2. Between 2003 and 2007, American films averaged 11 of the top 20 and 6 of the top 10 slots; between 2008 and 2012, just 7 of the top 20 and 3 of the top 10 slots.
3. The weak performance of many of the biggest American blockbusters is worth pointing out. The highest-grossing film at the U.S. box office, The Avengers, admittedly did not do so badly in Japan, still making the top ten (barely). However, the Dark Knight Rises, the second-biggest hit of the year in the U.S., came in at #27; the third-biggest American hit, The Hunger Games--criticized by many even in the U.S. as a rip-off of Japan's own Battle Royale--was all the way down at #95 in Japan; and Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2, sixth at the U.S. box office last year, came in at #106. By contrast, Resident Evil 5, which outdid even The Avengers in Japan, was only a mediocre earner in the U.S., taking in $42 million to be just the seventy-ninth biggest hit of the year in the States.
4. It certainly seems noteworthy that of the three American films to make the list of 2012's top ten earners, Resident Evil was based on a Japanese video game series, while Les Miserables is based on a French musical based on a French concept album based on the classic French novel, rather than being a distinctively or deeply American product. Completing the irony may be the fact that The Avengers was directed by an American widely regarded as owing a significant creative debt to animè (direct or indirect).
5. Of course, this does not always happen. Germany, for instance, with its population of 80 million and GDP of $3.4 trillion could support a rather more robust film industry than it now has (especially with millions more German speakers in neighboring countries like Austria and Switzerland extending the audience for German-language fare). Uwe Boll has remarked on the "art house" sensibility prevailing in German film as a factor, but I have not encountered any explanations of the reasons for this tendency.
A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen TV Show?
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was the comic which introduced me to Alan Moore, and as might be expected, it deeply impressed me with its sheer literacy and density. This did not quite carry over to the 2003 film, but I nonetheless regard it as underrated; the movie was an affable and visually innovative summer blockbuster.
Apparently FOX has just green-lit a pilot for a TV series based on the comic.
The concept could well make for an appealing TV series. Still, a small-screen version will be able to provide only a limited spectacle--the major draw of stories like these for general audiences--and I am not sure how it can make up for it. FOX can only go so far in presenting an adult take on the material, while something as allusive and cerebral as the original is unlikely to keep 10 million viewers tuning in week after week.
Besides, FOX's history with science fiction shows (from Dark Angel to Terra Nova) and comic book-based properties (like Human Target) does not inspire optimism that even a promising show will have a fair crack at a decent run. It is worth noting, too, that while American television has been more open to period fantasies (like HBO's Game of Thrones), the major networks have been far behind their cable counterparts in this area. And the continuing trend on the Big Four--the shorter leashes on which they put their artists, their fondness for reality TV over the scripted kind--suggest the market will grow only less favorable.
If the show ever airs, I expect to watch--but I won't expect it to stay around for long.
Apparently FOX has just green-lit a pilot for a TV series based on the comic.
The concept could well make for an appealing TV series. Still, a small-screen version will be able to provide only a limited spectacle--the major draw of stories like these for general audiences--and I am not sure how it can make up for it. FOX can only go so far in presenting an adult take on the material, while something as allusive and cerebral as the original is unlikely to keep 10 million viewers tuning in week after week.
Besides, FOX's history with science fiction shows (from Dark Angel to Terra Nova) and comic book-based properties (like Human Target) does not inspire optimism that even a promising show will have a fair crack at a decent run. It is worth noting, too, that while American television has been more open to period fantasies (like HBO's Game of Thrones), the major networks have been far behind their cable counterparts in this area. And the continuing trend on the Big Four--the shorter leashes on which they put their artists, their fondness for reality TV over the scripted kind--suggest the market will grow only less favorable.
If the show ever airs, I expect to watch--but I won't expect it to stay around for long.
The "Experts" on Japan in the '80s, China Today
Back in the 1980s a vast literature analyzing contemporary Japan emerged in the West, and certainly the United States. It became so pervasive, and so influential, that writers about other subjects never missed a chance to comment on the matter, while the concern manifested itself in Hollywood features like Gung Ho and Michael Crichton novels like Rising Sun.1
The larger part of this output was the sheerest drivel, discredited just a short time later.2 (It was taken, for granted, that Japan would never be a great exporter of pop culture, a claim that is now unbelievably embarrassing.) However, worthwhile or not, this stream of writing largely ran dry by the mid-1990s, because American observers had largely discounted Japan as a serious rival--a function of Japan's asset bubble's bursting at the start of the decade, while the United States was becoming heady over its own tech bubble, leading to a new triumphalism, and the end of meaningful debate about the course of the American economy.3 After NAFTA and GATT and Windows 95 the country was committed to neoliberal globalization, and the service-information-FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) economy; to the idea that its way was the only viable one in a globalizing world, and that the other courses charted by Japan (and Germany) were paths to nowhere. Europe was synonymous with Eurosclerosis, Japan with the "lost decade," and no matter how hard or how long an Eamonn Fingleton, for example, tried to argue otherwise, the mainstream was simply not willing to give any alternative perspective a hearing.
Of course, Americans have been mindful of China's double-digit growth during these years, which in the first decade of the twenty-first century saw it edge out Japan to become the world's second-largest economy--and had many observers saying that before long it would be first. However, we have not seen anything comparable to that literature emerge in response to China's rise. That is not to say that the country's boom has not been extensively written about, because it very clearly has. Nor is it to say that writers on the subject have refrained from alarmism and xenophobia, because they very clearly have not. Rather, it is to say that where in the '80s we saw enormous, even obsessive, interest in Japanese business methods, in the sociology of Japanese economic life, and in Japanese culture and society more broadly, we have seen comparatively little interest in these aspects of Chinese life.4
I suppose this is in part because the idea of an Asian economic superpower is no longer so novel; because there is less of a tendency to see international politics in stark bipolar terms, or as a competition between social systems, than there was at the Cold War's end; because China is still playing catch-up (its per-capita output, living standards and overall development still far behind the industrialized nations); and because China's success to date does not seem at all mysterious, instead largely attributed to the government's ruthless practice of export-oriented mercantilism and vast supply of cheap labor in a globalizing world.5 Part of it, too, would seem to be the fact of diminished public interest in foreign news and social science, and that writing on the Middle East (again, mostly drivel, though that's another story) has drawn much of what such interest remains in them during the past decade. And it is also the case that the debate which ended in 1995 has not restarted, despite the calamitous events of the last five years.
Whatever one has to say about other aspects of Western authors' response to China's long boom, that last fact should be deeply worrying to all concerned.
1. I recall, for instance, Len Deighton's history of the early years of World War II, 1993's Blood, Tears and Folly, which relates how the United States and Britain fared against Germany and Japan during the war to the then-current debate about Anglo-American economic competitiveness against Germany and Japan in the 1990s.
2. Western observers do not seem to have been totally at fault for this. In many cases they repeated what was being claimed by Japanese observers--many of those '80s-era oversimplifications appearing in Shintaro Ishihara's own The Japan That Can Say No, for example. Among these is the idea of Japan's industrial success as fundamentally rooted in culture, microeconomic rather than macroeconomic, with much made of the country's corporate culture as the key. There is, too, the idea of Japan as a society which refines others' innovations (craftsmanship over metaphysics, to paraphrase Ishihara). Equally Shintaro gives short shrift to the significance of the asset bubble by then obvious to all, or that the country was reaching the limits of its export-driven growth strategy, and blithely assumes that the country's boom would continue indefinitely.
3. Few observers seem to have noticed the end of debate at that time. The sole exception I am familiar with is French sociologist Emmanuel Todd, who makes the point explicitly in his book After the Empire.
4. That is not to say no interest--as this round-up of titles George J. Gilboy offered a few years back demonstrates--but much less than was the case with Japan two decades earlier. Moreover, the interest in Chinese business practices seems more reflective of concern with actually doing business with the country rather than its treatment as a model for others.
5. We also did not see such a literature regarding the success of the "Tiger" economies (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) because their smallness makes them less of a concern. That South Korea is a country of fewer than 50 million limits its impact on the international economic scene, regardless of how prosperous the country becomes.
The larger part of this output was the sheerest drivel, discredited just a short time later.2 (It was taken, for granted, that Japan would never be a great exporter of pop culture, a claim that is now unbelievably embarrassing.) However, worthwhile or not, this stream of writing largely ran dry by the mid-1990s, because American observers had largely discounted Japan as a serious rival--a function of Japan's asset bubble's bursting at the start of the decade, while the United States was becoming heady over its own tech bubble, leading to a new triumphalism, and the end of meaningful debate about the course of the American economy.3 After NAFTA and GATT and Windows 95 the country was committed to neoliberal globalization, and the service-information-FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) economy; to the idea that its way was the only viable one in a globalizing world, and that the other courses charted by Japan (and Germany) were paths to nowhere. Europe was synonymous with Eurosclerosis, Japan with the "lost decade," and no matter how hard or how long an Eamonn Fingleton, for example, tried to argue otherwise, the mainstream was simply not willing to give any alternative perspective a hearing.
Of course, Americans have been mindful of China's double-digit growth during these years, which in the first decade of the twenty-first century saw it edge out Japan to become the world's second-largest economy--and had many observers saying that before long it would be first. However, we have not seen anything comparable to that literature emerge in response to China's rise. That is not to say that the country's boom has not been extensively written about, because it very clearly has. Nor is it to say that writers on the subject have refrained from alarmism and xenophobia, because they very clearly have not. Rather, it is to say that where in the '80s we saw enormous, even obsessive, interest in Japanese business methods, in the sociology of Japanese economic life, and in Japanese culture and society more broadly, we have seen comparatively little interest in these aspects of Chinese life.4
I suppose this is in part because the idea of an Asian economic superpower is no longer so novel; because there is less of a tendency to see international politics in stark bipolar terms, or as a competition between social systems, than there was at the Cold War's end; because China is still playing catch-up (its per-capita output, living standards and overall development still far behind the industrialized nations); and because China's success to date does not seem at all mysterious, instead largely attributed to the government's ruthless practice of export-oriented mercantilism and vast supply of cheap labor in a globalizing world.5 Part of it, too, would seem to be the fact of diminished public interest in foreign news and social science, and that writing on the Middle East (again, mostly drivel, though that's another story) has drawn much of what such interest remains in them during the past decade. And it is also the case that the debate which ended in 1995 has not restarted, despite the calamitous events of the last five years.
Whatever one has to say about other aspects of Western authors' response to China's long boom, that last fact should be deeply worrying to all concerned.
1. I recall, for instance, Len Deighton's history of the early years of World War II, 1993's Blood, Tears and Folly, which relates how the United States and Britain fared against Germany and Japan during the war to the then-current debate about Anglo-American economic competitiveness against Germany and Japan in the 1990s.
2. Western observers do not seem to have been totally at fault for this. In many cases they repeated what was being claimed by Japanese observers--many of those '80s-era oversimplifications appearing in Shintaro Ishihara's own The Japan That Can Say No, for example. Among these is the idea of Japan's industrial success as fundamentally rooted in culture, microeconomic rather than macroeconomic, with much made of the country's corporate culture as the key. There is, too, the idea of Japan as a society which refines others' innovations (craftsmanship over metaphysics, to paraphrase Ishihara). Equally Shintaro gives short shrift to the significance of the asset bubble by then obvious to all, or that the country was reaching the limits of its export-driven growth strategy, and blithely assumes that the country's boom would continue indefinitely.
3. Few observers seem to have noticed the end of debate at that time. The sole exception I am familiar with is French sociologist Emmanuel Todd, who makes the point explicitly in his book After the Empire.
4. That is not to say no interest--as this round-up of titles George J. Gilboy offered a few years back demonstrates--but much less than was the case with Japan two decades earlier. Moreover, the interest in Chinese business practices seems more reflective of concern with actually doing business with the country rather than its treatment as a model for others.
5. We also did not see such a literature regarding the success of the "Tiger" economies (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) because their smallness makes them less of a concern. That South Korea is a country of fewer than 50 million limits its impact on the international economic scene, regardless of how prosperous the country becomes.
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