Recently writing about the politics of artists I discussed Upton Sinclair's view of artists' "sensitivity" leaving them vulnerable to the propaganda of the day--and David Walsh's perhaps not dissimilar view of the artists' working methods (unconscious, intuitive, emotional, impressionistic, centered on the concrete image, as against an analytical approach), with this reinforced by "Bohemianism, individualism, egotism," were prone to leave them running behind their times politically, and indeed susceptible to reactionary agendas.
Yet our stereotypes are different, and it seems worth asking why. One possibility is that we are seeing artists through the eyes of that sort of person prone to exaggerate the political difference between themselves and anyone who disagrees with them --in this case, of the conservative who exchanges words with one mild liberal and feel themselves besieged by extreme leftists. Still another is that the aforementioned Bohemianism of artists, their flouting society's standards, etc., make them seem more leftish than they really are to people who do not inquire too deeply into their attitudes. However, there is also the possibility, or even likelihood, that those "hero" and "martyr" artists make a greater impression than the astutely career-minded artists who play it safe, producing what their patrons require of them. Certainly their life stories appear more dramatic, which may have something to do with this--but one can also argue that they make a contribution out of proportion to their numbers, a Theodore Dreiser, for example, making a far greater mark on the culture than a Booth Tarkington precisely because he challenged rather than affirmed the conventionalities of his day.
In turn one might argue that, given the way artists so often run behind the times, it may be that periods in which there is something other than orthodoxy touching on their sensitivities--in which, perhaps, there are great popular movements afoot--produce more than their share of such artists, and thus more of those who ultimately produce something that endures. Returning to the case of Dreiser, the early twentieth century which produced him (and figures such as Upton Sinclair, and Sinclair Lewis, and Jack London, and F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck) can seem such a period. By contrast the years since the Depression and World War II have been very different--with the stream of such thinning out to a reactionary postmodernism. The result is that where a century on Dreiser, if unloved by the literary establishment in a manner bespeaking their own conservatism ("treated like a 'dead dog'" in Walsh's words) retains his stature as one of the century's greats a century after An American Tragedy, those who are the toast of New York today are likely to slip into the same comparative obscurity as a Tarkington.
Friday, April 19, 2024
David Walsh on the Politics of Artists
Not long ago I cited Upton Sinclair's remarks in Mammonart about the tendency of artists toward the political right in a way extending beyond mere careerism. There was, too, the artistic "sensitivity" that made artists susceptible to the orthodoxy of the day, and the impression of grandeur the rich and powerful strive to make.
As it happens, David Walsh has had some thoughts to offer here, going beyond mere artistic "sensitivity" and the ways in which it leaves artists open to such influence. He specifically suggests that an artist's way of thinking and working, with the unconscious and intuitive, with "sense perception, immediate impressions and emotions," so central, has them thinking and feeling in images, rather than analyzing philosophically and scientifically. Besides leaving them easily propagandized, this also leaves them responsive to irrationalist, anti-rationalist and subjectivist attitudes, with the tendency reinforced "Bohemianism, individualism, egotism." The result has been their running behind the times intellectually--and indeed highly susceptible to reactionary influences. Hence the appeal of Friedrich Nietzsche to so many artists in the pre-World War I period, and after, who, as "wrote scathingly about bourgeois mediocrity and complacency . . . criticized religion and Christian piety and slavishness . . . stood for the 'liberation of the instincts,' spontaneity, egoism . . . intoxication," and appeared "anti-Establishment" in a way that could appeal particularly strongly to those with rebellious impulses (against bourgeois conformity, certainly), while looking more "alluring and apparently 'poetic' than looking at the difficult, often harsh, often tedious conditions of the working class."
As it happens, David Walsh has had some thoughts to offer here, going beyond mere artistic "sensitivity" and the ways in which it leaves artists open to such influence. He specifically suggests that an artist's way of thinking and working, with the unconscious and intuitive, with "sense perception, immediate impressions and emotions," so central, has them thinking and feeling in images, rather than analyzing philosophically and scientifically. Besides leaving them easily propagandized, this also leaves them responsive to irrationalist, anti-rationalist and subjectivist attitudes, with the tendency reinforced "Bohemianism, individualism, egotism." The result has been their running behind the times intellectually--and indeed highly susceptible to reactionary influences. Hence the appeal of Friedrich Nietzsche to so many artists in the pre-World War I period, and after, who, as "wrote scathingly about bourgeois mediocrity and complacency . . . criticized religion and Christian piety and slavishness . . . stood for the 'liberation of the instincts,' spontaneity, egoism . . . intoxication," and appeared "anti-Establishment" in a way that could appeal particularly strongly to those with rebellious impulses (against bourgeois conformity, certainly), while looking more "alluring and apparently 'poetic' than looking at the difficult, often harsh, often tedious conditions of the working class."
Are Artists Naturally Conservative? A Few Thoughts
In his extraordinary study Mammonart Upton Sinclair declared that "the path to honor and success in the arts has been through the service and glorification of the ruling classes," with this not only a matter of "entertaining them," but "teaching their subjects and slaves to stand in awe of them"; that artists more readily walk that path because their very "sensitiv[ity]" makes them even more susceptible than most to the propagandizing of authority that they in turn join in, making them creatures of "snobbery and subservience, timidity and worship of tradition," exemplified by how "[e]very little tea-party poet . . . cherishes a strong and cruel dream" such as Nietzsche, Carlyle, Kipling offer.
One thus gets an impression from this that artists are natural conservatives--quite at odds with popular images of artistic radicalism. Of course, as Sinclair makes clear exceptions abound--exceptions which commonly pay the price for not "playing the game" as demanded of them--"hero artists and martyr artists, men who have produced what they believed to be the best, in the face of obloquy, ridicule, starvation, even the dungeon and the stake."
Still, looking at popular culture, and not least Hollywood's movies, it seems to me impossible not to be struck by the relentlessness of such work in glorifying the wealthy and powerful, and validating the order that has made them so; and to think that if some artists become heroes and martyrs, this is the default mode for practitioners of the profession, or at least those which manage to get recognized as artists at all--a very different thing from the far larger set above which we can put the label "Artist."
One thus gets an impression from this that artists are natural conservatives--quite at odds with popular images of artistic radicalism. Of course, as Sinclair makes clear exceptions abound--exceptions which commonly pay the price for not "playing the game" as demanded of them--"hero artists and martyr artists, men who have produced what they believed to be the best, in the face of obloquy, ridicule, starvation, even the dungeon and the stake."
Still, looking at popular culture, and not least Hollywood's movies, it seems to me impossible not to be struck by the relentlessness of such work in glorifying the wealthy and powerful, and validating the order that has made them so; and to think that if some artists become heroes and martyrs, this is the default mode for practitioners of the profession, or at least those which manage to get recognized as artists at all--a very different thing from the far larger set above which we can put the label "Artist."
The Tomb of the Unknown Artist
Looking over the history of literature I am conscious that what I am looking over is a history of what was commissioned, completed, presented, acclaimed, copied, preserved in substance and in memory.
That foundation for literary history is not wrong when we think of literature as what people read.
However, it is more questionable when we think of it as what was written, or what writers tried to write, or of such writing as a record or reflection of the times, for which purpose that basis is a lot less complete and satisfying. Many tried to create, but due to lack of opportunity never finished what they began, or due to censorship in one form or another created and saw their works suppressed before they could make such a mark--and we can only wonder at what might have been created had the circumstances in which they worked been just a little more supportive or free.
Few acknowledge this, or the politics behind it, but to his credit Upton Sinclair does so in Mammonart. As he remarks, "our recognized and successful artists" were generally those who "served their masters gladly and freely." Those who did not "paid the penalty by a life of conflict and exile," while if those writers had the misfortune of being "poor and friendless" they did not even reach the point at which they were persecuted and exiled--or find compensation in "the gratitude of posterity." Rather "their dream-children died unborn, and were buried, along with their parents, in graves unknown," one of which may have had for an epitaph "'Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.'"
Today some of those poor and friendless are submitting their work to the slush piles, and pieces running in places like the Guardian, to their discredit, gloat over how their dream-children will be buried in unknown graves.
That foundation for literary history is not wrong when we think of literature as what people read.
However, it is more questionable when we think of it as what was written, or what writers tried to write, or of such writing as a record or reflection of the times, for which purpose that basis is a lot less complete and satisfying. Many tried to create, but due to lack of opportunity never finished what they began, or due to censorship in one form or another created and saw their works suppressed before they could make such a mark--and we can only wonder at what might have been created had the circumstances in which they worked been just a little more supportive or free.
Few acknowledge this, or the politics behind it, but to his credit Upton Sinclair does so in Mammonart. As he remarks, "our recognized and successful artists" were generally those who "served their masters gladly and freely." Those who did not "paid the penalty by a life of conflict and exile," while if those writers had the misfortune of being "poor and friendless" they did not even reach the point at which they were persecuted and exiled--or find compensation in "the gratitude of posterity." Rather "their dream-children died unborn, and were buried, along with their parents, in graves unknown," one of which may have had for an epitaph "'Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.'"
Today some of those poor and friendless are submitting their work to the slush piles, and pieces running in places like the Guardian, to their discredit, gloat over how their dream-children will be buried in unknown graves.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Is Literacy in Decline?
The claim that the young are inferior to prior age cohorts in studiousness and learning at the same point in their lives is one of the oldest and most grating clichés of the sneering aged--and I suspect has tended to be as inaccurate as it has been trite. In modern times it seems to me that the opposite has tended to be true, due to the spread of educational and cultural opportunity, and changes in curricula that I suspect have been beneficial. (If there is less study of the Classical languages there has been that much more attention to the modern ones. Certainly the teaching of history has progressed beyond the memorization of lists of kings. Etcetera, etcetera.)
Still, there is no question that in recent decades contemporary culture has been undergoing a profound transformation in which, in significant degree, audiovisual content has replaced the written words, and the screen printed media, with great consequences for the tendency to sustained, deep, reading of texts, particularly long texts. It does not seem unreasonable to think diminished use of the faculty is having its consequences--especially for those younger persons whose habits have been more fully formed in the era of the smart phone--all as, for the time being, I am unclear on just what skills they are developing in place of the old reading skills that may render them useful service in a changing world.
Still, there is no question that in recent decades contemporary culture has been undergoing a profound transformation in which, in significant degree, audiovisual content has replaced the written words, and the screen printed media, with great consequences for the tendency to sustained, deep, reading of texts, particularly long texts. It does not seem unreasonable to think diminished use of the faculty is having its consequences--especially for those younger persons whose habits have been more fully formed in the era of the smart phone--all as, for the time being, I am unclear on just what skills they are developing in place of the old reading skills that may render them useful service in a changing world.
Remembering 1998's Lost in Space
The 1998 film adaptation of Lost in Space would seem very much of its time--a feature film based on a '60s-era TV show amid the late '90s space opera boom, which even had a member of the cast of Friends trying to extend their acting career beyond their familiar on-screen persona (Matt LeBlanc an action hero!). Still, it was not very warmly received at the time by critics, while the box office gross, if not low by contemporary standards ($136 million in early 1998 dollars), was still not quite enough to justify the big budget quite evident on the screen. Opinion toward the film does not seem to have grown warmer with time (the critics' and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes are 27 and 24 percent, respectively), while a still more recent Lost in Space remake (a 2018-2021 Netflix series) has probably helped further bury the movie.
Still, even if I have not seen it in a long time I vaguely recall the film having its moments, with some bits cropping up in memory again and again. The premise of the film, as it happened, was that old sci-fi standard--the attempt to save humanity following ecological catastrophe on Earth by finding it another planetary home. Assigned to the mission Major Don West (the LeBlanc character) is initially cynical, thinking it mere corporate public relations--because "every school child" knew that "recycling technology" was going to save the Earth.
Professor John Robinson tells West that every school child had been lied to.
So does it seem when we look back on the earnestness with which people spoke once of recycling--and what we hear of it now as the ecological crisis just goes on getting worse.
Still, even if I have not seen it in a long time I vaguely recall the film having its moments, with some bits cropping up in memory again and again. The premise of the film, as it happened, was that old sci-fi standard--the attempt to save humanity following ecological catastrophe on Earth by finding it another planetary home. Assigned to the mission Major Don West (the LeBlanc character) is initially cynical, thinking it mere corporate public relations--because "every school child" knew that "recycling technology" was going to save the Earth.
Professor John Robinson tells West that every school child had been lied to.
So does it seem when we look back on the earnestness with which people spoke once of recycling--and what we hear of it now as the ecological crisis just goes on getting worse.
A Naked Gun Remake? Seriously?
Only lately did I notice that the flood of remakes and reboots nobody asked for being dumped on us by the manure truck that is contemporary Hollywood includes a remake of 1988's hit comedy The Naked Gun.
As is usually the case with Hollywood's remakes the idea completely misses the factors relevant to the original's success.
The Naked Gun, one should remember, was part of that great wave of gag-based comedy emergent in the 1960s through the work of people like Richard Lester and Charles Feldman and Woody Allen, which had a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s in the hands of people like Mel Brooks and the ZAZ team (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker), before entering terminal decline in the '90s, identifiable with the era of the much-maligned Jason Friedburg and Aaron Seltzer.
In those earlier, more productive years, the gag-based comedy was a new way of making a film significantly connected with and complementing the contemporaneous rise of the action movie with James Bond--the two, similarly elevating images presented at an accelerated pace above dramatic conventions, though in the case of the comedy with comedic gags rather than adrenaline-pumping "shocks" or "bumps." (Indeed, it is indicative of the closeness of the two forms that many critics looking at the first Bond movies seem to have thought they were looking at a comedy of this type.)
And just as with the action movie, filmmakers eventually exhausted this genre's possibilities. (Just as the action movie got to a point where the range of set pieces and the things that could be done in and with them was pretty well established, and there was not much to do but repeat them, and there was no going "faster" or "bigger" to any useful effect, there was only so much worth doing with this form--with even a Brooks or ZAZ in the view of most peaking early in their careers, the former with 1974's Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, ZAZ with Airplane!)
The Naked Gun was one of the most memorable of the wave's later films--but a remake seems to me exceedingly unlikely to add to anything but what we already know well, namely Hollywood's utter unhinged determination to keep giving the public the same thing over and over and over again, even as it loses money at the game.
As is usually the case with Hollywood's remakes the idea completely misses the factors relevant to the original's success.
The Naked Gun, one should remember, was part of that great wave of gag-based comedy emergent in the 1960s through the work of people like Richard Lester and Charles Feldman and Woody Allen, which had a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s in the hands of people like Mel Brooks and the ZAZ team (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker), before entering terminal decline in the '90s, identifiable with the era of the much-maligned Jason Friedburg and Aaron Seltzer.
The Naked Gun was one of the most memorable of the wave's later films--but a remake seems to me exceedingly unlikely to add to anything but what we already know well, namely Hollywood's utter unhinged determination to keep giving the public the same thing over and over and over again, even as it loses money at the game.
The Other Things He Said: George R.R. Martin's "Dark Days" Blog Post
Earlier this year a blog post by George R.R. Martin got a bit of attention for its discussion of anti-fans.
As it happened, that was just one of the things he talked about in that post--and I think the rest of the things he had to say merit at least as much attention. Said post, as it happened, was his annual post "looking back over the year that was ending and ahead to the year to come"--and so was this one--but the dominant note was that 2023 was a horrific year, one he is "glad . . . is over," while "so far 2024 looks to be even worse."
Mr. Martin said none of this lightly--or entirely because of personal losses (though Martin reports the deaths of many a longtime colleague and friend Howard Waldrop, for one of whose short story collections, I remember, he wrote a memorable introduction). The "Weimar Republic" turn of American politics, the escalation and spread of war in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and elsewhere (unlike many he did not overlook the conflicts in Myanmar and South America) that leaves him thinking that "[i]f climate change does not get us, war will," make the toxicity of online fan discourse seem a small thing indeed--though I dare say that it is not so inseparable from those other divisions and conflicts that distress him. Indeed, as he writes "[t]he era of rational discourse seems to have ended," such that he has become "cynical" about his own blogging, wondering if, with his undeniable platform, "Has anything I have ever written here ever changed a single mind, a single vote?" and suspecting the answer to be in the negative.
Reading that I wondered what others said in reply--but alas, the comments were disabled for this post. Ideally one might have seen in those comments being on someone saying something offering grounds for hope--but I suspect that the toxicity of which he wrote discouraged his allowing any such thing. Knowing just how real it is I suppose that, as it is a personal blog, and he cannot spend his whole day policing it against spammers and bots and trolls and other refuse of our online life (given how much attention from them a big platform like his would attract), I can hardly fault him for his choice.
As it happened, that was just one of the things he talked about in that post--and I think the rest of the things he had to say merit at least as much attention. Said post, as it happened, was his annual post "looking back over the year that was ending and ahead to the year to come"--and so was this one--but the dominant note was that 2023 was a horrific year, one he is "glad . . . is over," while "so far 2024 looks to be even worse."
Mr. Martin said none of this lightly--or entirely because of personal losses (though Martin reports the deaths of many a longtime colleague and friend Howard Waldrop, for one of whose short story collections, I remember, he wrote a memorable introduction). The "Weimar Republic" turn of American politics, the escalation and spread of war in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and elsewhere (unlike many he did not overlook the conflicts in Myanmar and South America) that leaves him thinking that "[i]f climate change does not get us, war will," make the toxicity of online fan discourse seem a small thing indeed--though I dare say that it is not so inseparable from those other divisions and conflicts that distress him. Indeed, as he writes "[t]he era of rational discourse seems to have ended," such that he has become "cynical" about his own blogging, wondering if, with his undeniable platform, "Has anything I have ever written here ever changed a single mind, a single vote?" and suspecting the answer to be in the negative.
Reading that I wondered what others said in reply--but alas, the comments were disabled for this post. Ideally one might have seen in those comments being on someone saying something offering grounds for hope--but I suspect that the toxicity of which he wrote discouraged his allowing any such thing. Knowing just how real it is I suppose that, as it is a personal blog, and he cannot spend his whole day policing it against spammers and bots and trolls and other refuse of our online life (given how much attention from them a big platform like his would attract), I can hardly fault him for his choice.
Rise of the Anti-Fan
George R.R. Martin blogged some time ago about the ascent of the "anti-fan," who rather than discussing their likes and dislikes in book and film, etc., much prefer to "talk about the stuff they hate than the stuff they love, and delight in dancing on the graves of anyone whose film has flopped."
However, he had nothing to say of why this is happening (at least, nothing explicit)--of why people are so invested in the commercial failure of other people's work when they will not benefit from that failure. (If a Hollywood studio loses money, what is it to them?)
The obvious answer is the country's "culture wars," and the way that, in the course of swallowing up everything else, they have swallowed pop culture too, and the fan discourse about it. Powerful a force as this has been in itself it has been reinforced by the way the pop culture industry promotes its own products, preoccupying everyone with, in the case of film, studio personalities and politics and finances, with budgets and grosses and profits and losses, with what has been described as "market populism" and "corporate wokeness," as part of the effort to get hold our interest amid the obscene cacophony of the contemporary mediasphere. The result is that success and failure are much on our mind--so much so that a movie fan at least as easily ends up an "armchair movie executive" as a student of cinema, while their political sympathies and antipathies are constantly touched on, agitated, provoked, by many a work even before they see it. And all this comes together as they insist that the public is really thinking what they are thinking, and proving it with their dollars. ("See that movie I don't like because of its politics? Look at how it flopped. Because that's not how the public feels about that.") And on and on it has gone until we seem ever less cognizant of there being anything else worth talking about when we talk about movies.
However, he had nothing to say of why this is happening (at least, nothing explicit)--of why people are so invested in the commercial failure of other people's work when they will not benefit from that failure. (If a Hollywood studio loses money, what is it to them?)
The obvious answer is the country's "culture wars," and the way that, in the course of swallowing up everything else, they have swallowed pop culture too, and the fan discourse about it. Powerful a force as this has been in itself it has been reinforced by the way the pop culture industry promotes its own products, preoccupying everyone with, in the case of film, studio personalities and politics and finances, with budgets and grosses and profits and losses, with what has been described as "market populism" and "corporate wokeness," as part of the effort to get hold our interest amid the obscene cacophony of the contemporary mediasphere. The result is that success and failure are much on our mind--so much so that a movie fan at least as easily ends up an "armchair movie executive" as a student of cinema, while their political sympathies and antipathies are constantly touched on, agitated, provoked, by many a work even before they see it. And all this comes together as they insist that the public is really thinking what they are thinking, and proving it with their dollars. ("See that movie I don't like because of its politics? Look at how it flopped. Because that's not how the public feels about that.") And on and on it has gone until we seem ever less cognizant of there being anything else worth talking about when we talk about movies.
The Contraction of the American Box Office: Likely Implications
Considering what we have seen in 2023 and 2024 it can seem as if the American film market may have stabilized at 50-70 percent of its pre-pandemic level in real terms (Americans now going to the movies somewhere around 2-3 times a year instead of 4 as they used to do).
Of course, that leaves the matter of the makeup of that box office--how the gross is likely to be distributed among particular films.
Going by such successes as Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Top Gun and Avatar sequels, The Super Mario Bros Movie, and Barbie, it seems that the biggest movies still have the potential to do as well as they ever did. However, if the ceiling is as high as ever it would seem that the public is less easily drawn out for a new round of the same old thing and hits thus more difficult to produce, with this easier to explain if one remembers how Disney was doing in the mid-'10s. Back then Disney all but regularized the billion-dollar hit (billion in deflated, pre-pandemic, dollars) by focusing on a slew of franchises and brands that could be counted on to deliver such hits with regularity (Marvel, Lucasfilm/Star Wars, Pixar, along with live-action adaptations of its animated classics), and exploiting them with, if far from perfect competence, sufficient competence to rack up more wins than losses. (In 2018 Disney had Solo--but it also had Avengers 3 and Black Panther and Incredibles 2, and more modestly also Wreck-It-Ralph 2 and Ant-Man 2--and 2019 was better still.) Alas, in 2023 the same strategy saw the routinization not of billion-dollar grosses but megabuck disappointments (as seen with Captain Marvel 2, and Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones 5, and Wish, and The Little Mermaid, and Ant-Man 3, with even Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Elemental, if profitable at least, more qualified successes than before).
I thus expect a more volatile box office, perhaps a bit less top-heavy than before because there is less room at the top (far from having nine billion-dollar hits the way 2019 did, 2024 may not even see one, with all that means for the concentration of grosses at the top of the chart), though the broader consequences rest on whether the studios can rise to the challenge of the more difficult market--for instance, making some unexploited genre as popular with filmgoers as the superhero genre has been for the years 2000-2022.
Given everything we know about the people in charge I would not advise holding one's breath in anticipation of such an outcome.
Of course, that leaves the matter of the makeup of that box office--how the gross is likely to be distributed among particular films.
Going by such successes as Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Top Gun and Avatar sequels, The Super Mario Bros Movie, and Barbie, it seems that the biggest movies still have the potential to do as well as they ever did. However, if the ceiling is as high as ever it would seem that the public is less easily drawn out for a new round of the same old thing and hits thus more difficult to produce, with this easier to explain if one remembers how Disney was doing in the mid-'10s. Back then Disney all but regularized the billion-dollar hit (billion in deflated, pre-pandemic, dollars) by focusing on a slew of franchises and brands that could be counted on to deliver such hits with regularity (Marvel, Lucasfilm/Star Wars, Pixar, along with live-action adaptations of its animated classics), and exploiting them with, if far from perfect competence, sufficient competence to rack up more wins than losses. (In 2018 Disney had Solo--but it also had Avengers 3 and Black Panther and Incredibles 2, and more modestly also Wreck-It-Ralph 2 and Ant-Man 2--and 2019 was better still.) Alas, in 2023 the same strategy saw the routinization not of billion-dollar grosses but megabuck disappointments (as seen with Captain Marvel 2, and Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones 5, and Wish, and The Little Mermaid, and Ant-Man 3, with even Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Elemental, if profitable at least, more qualified successes than before).
I thus expect a more volatile box office, perhaps a bit less top-heavy than before because there is less room at the top (far from having nine billion-dollar hits the way 2019 did, 2024 may not even see one, with all that means for the concentration of grosses at the top of the chart), though the broader consequences rest on whether the studios can rise to the challenge of the more difficult market--for instance, making some unexploited genre as popular with filmgoers as the superhero genre has been for the years 2000-2022.
Given everything we know about the people in charge I would not advise holding one's breath in anticipation of such an outcome.
Josh Varlin's Review of Dune
Back in 2021 Josh Varlin penned an impressive review of the first part of Denis Villeneuve's remake of Dune--strengthened considerably by his familiarity with the novel and its author, which enabled him to have an informed and appreciative but critical perspective on both the book and its adaptation--a far cry from what seemed to me the claquing that generally characterized that movie's reception. (It is telling of the intensity of the claquing that the movie has an 83 percent critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2021, including Best Adapted Screenplay.) While as Mr. Varlin has explained he found Dune's "future for humanity not only improbable but short-sighted and pessimistic," and containing elements he found troubling (like the religious mysticism, and the eugenic element of the plot), he also found it a deep work that, through "graceful imagery," compellingly treated a great many intriguing themes--"anthropological, ecological, anti-colonial, political, even psychological." Looking at Part One of the film he saw a film that "mostly provided an introduction to its own sequel," which did not do very much with all that (indeed, "downplay[ed] several critical aspects of the novel . . . to its detriment")--but hoped that Part Two would make up for that, albeit while recognizing the "pressures" that would work against that possibility. (After all, Dune was being remade as a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster, with all that implies.)
Mr. Varlin has since followed up that first review with a review of Part Two--in which he said that "[i]t is no pleasure to report that those pressures won out against those more 'intriguing' elements of the novel." The world and the plot are greatly simplified through fundamental elisions and modifications (the film notably "ignor[ing] the complex political and economic structures that frame Herbert’s novel, including . . . CHOAM, the Spacing Guild and the Great Houses of the empire," reducing the relationship of Paul and Chani to "a teenage romance," etc.), with "[t]he complex factors motivating" the characters like "the curse of prescience, the desire for a verdant Arrakis, religious prophecies, feudal social norms, ecological constraints . . . hinted at but rarely explored," the "'organic' 'historical' sense, of toil and strife of the oppressed against the oppressors . . . entirely absent from the film," and the "the movement of societies on a mass scale . . . the clash of social forces" just so much "military action," "military pageantry." The result not only "fail[ed] to capture much of what's best in Frank Herbert's" book, but also failing to replace it with anything of substance had the "overall effect [of] . . . hollowing out . . . the novel," leaving "a skeleton at best" of the book and any sort of idea-oriented science fiction for that matter--and a general retreat into mere spectacle" in "a bland," "flat and lifeless" product consisting of a "seemingly endless series of explosions and gunfights."
In short, Dune, Part Two is in itself, and confirms the two-film sequence it closes as, a considerably dumbed-down version of Frank Herbert's narrative--just one way in which it pandered to contemporary prejudices of various kinds. When the claquing dies down, I suppose, and it becomes convenient to run the film down--for instance, because a remake-obsessed Hollywood studio system will want to do this one over again--I suppose we will hear more about that on the way to getting what I am sure we will be promised will be the "definitive" version.
Somehow, I suspect it will not live up to that promise either.
Mr. Varlin has since followed up that first review with a review of Part Two--in which he said that "[i]t is no pleasure to report that those pressures won out against those more 'intriguing' elements of the novel." The world and the plot are greatly simplified through fundamental elisions and modifications (the film notably "ignor[ing] the complex political and economic structures that frame Herbert’s novel, including . . . CHOAM, the Spacing Guild and the Great Houses of the empire," reducing the relationship of Paul and Chani to "a teenage romance," etc.), with "[t]he complex factors motivating" the characters like "the curse of prescience, the desire for a verdant Arrakis, religious prophecies, feudal social norms, ecological constraints . . . hinted at but rarely explored," the "'organic' 'historical' sense, of toil and strife of the oppressed against the oppressors . . . entirely absent from the film," and the "the movement of societies on a mass scale . . . the clash of social forces" just so much "military action," "military pageantry." The result not only "fail[ed] to capture much of what's best in Frank Herbert's" book, but also failing to replace it with anything of substance had the "overall effect [of] . . . hollowing out . . . the novel," leaving "a skeleton at best" of the book and any sort of idea-oriented science fiction for that matter--and a general retreat into mere spectacle" in "a bland," "flat and lifeless" product consisting of a "seemingly endless series of explosions and gunfights."
In short, Dune, Part Two is in itself, and confirms the two-film sequence it closes as, a considerably dumbed-down version of Frank Herbert's narrative--just one way in which it pandered to contemporary prejudices of various kinds. When the claquing dies down, I suppose, and it becomes convenient to run the film down--for instance, because a remake-obsessed Hollywood studio system will want to do this one over again--I suppose we will hear more about that on the way to getting what I am sure we will be promised will be the "definitive" version.
Somehow, I suspect it will not live up to that promise either.
Filming Dune: Messiah? (A Note on the Potential Obstacles)
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
With the second half of Denis Villeneuve's Dune out the verdict is in on the project as a whole. At the moment the reception for that second half, and arguably for the whole, seems stronger than that to the first half back in 2021. (The Rotten Tomatoes critics' score for Part 2 is 93 percent, while the ticket sales have been treated as cause for tears of relief after the prior lousy half year.)
It thus became easy enough to imagine Villeneuve helming a sequel after the first weekend in play, and indeed the word we are hearing now is that a Dune: Messiah adaptation as officially happening.
Is such a movie a good idea, however?
First of all let us consider what Dune: Messiah was in the original Dune series--not just a follow-up to Dune, but a prelude to the third book, Children of Dune, which concluded the ultimately tragic story of Paul Atreides and clarified What it All Ultimately Meant for Humanity. Adapting just the second book without any expectation of adapting the third seems rather pointless to me--again, a matter of telling just part of the story. (Indeed it was a very sound decision on the part of the then-SciFi Channel when it filmed the second and third books together as a single six-hour miniseries back in 2003.) And as it happens, no one seems to be talking about that third book--partly, I suppose, because the commentariat DO NOT READ BOOKS, and therefore do not know how incomplete a Dune: Messiah would leave the saga.
One should also consider the source material for such a sequel, and its significant differences with the original Dune. As Josh Varlin made very clear, in adapting the first Dune novel Villeneuve's movie did a lot of violence to the background to the later books--enough so that it will have repercussions for any adaptations of the follow-up, like, to cite only the most obvious issue, the fact that at the end of the first film Chani left Paul. (After all, in the book the triangle between Paul, Irulan and Chani is indispensable to the intrigues directed against Paul--as is Chani's dying but leaving Paul newborn twins who are the protagonists of the third book.) The fact that Alia was unborn at that point in the narrative, and could not play her part in the events of the first novel, with all their resonance for the personality that emerges in her mind in the third; the downplaying of the complex power structure of the Empire that proves so important to the second book's plot--such things, too, work against any easy shift from the Dune movies we know to an adaptation of the second and third books of the series. (I will add that I have a hard time picturing Timothée Chalamet being up to the extraordinary dramatic demands that the radical shifts in Paul's fortunes impose on anyone essaying the part--and for that matter, seeing Jason Momoa keeping Duncan Idaho credible in the far more involved performances any faithful adaptation of the third book would require.)
Perhaps more fundamental, Villeneuve's movie hollowed out all the substance in the interest of giving us a big action movie (especially when handling Part Two). Problematic enough with the first book, the later books offer far less scope for that--all as the books get more philosophical. (As the writer for the Hollywood Reporter said, quoting a review on Amazon, Messiah "is 'a lot of sitting around and talking.'") They also get stranger. (Indeed, Varlin, an admirer of the original novel who in his review of the first part said that if the movie did no more than inspire "more people to read Herbert's Dune, it will have done a small service," characterized the later entries in the Dune series as "basically unreadable, except by the most devoted fans.") To satisfy the requirement of the studios for blockbuster-type material that will please fans of Part Two of Dune (expecting the same action-oriented filmmaking, at least as much as continuity with the established plot), we would probably get something nearly unrecognizable--and almost certainly even more dismaying to purists than what we have seen to date. Perhaps that unrecognizable product will sell tickets to the general audience--which is really all the Dauriats of Hollywood care about--but it is easy to picture the compromises in the end pleasing no one.
With the second half of Denis Villeneuve's Dune out the verdict is in on the project as a whole. At the moment the reception for that second half, and arguably for the whole, seems stronger than that to the first half back in 2021. (The Rotten Tomatoes critics' score for Part 2 is 93 percent, while the ticket sales have been treated as cause for tears of relief after the prior lousy half year.)
It thus became easy enough to imagine Villeneuve helming a sequel after the first weekend in play, and indeed the word we are hearing now is that a Dune: Messiah adaptation as officially happening.
Is such a movie a good idea, however?
First of all let us consider what Dune: Messiah was in the original Dune series--not just a follow-up to Dune, but a prelude to the third book, Children of Dune, which concluded the ultimately tragic story of Paul Atreides and clarified What it All Ultimately Meant for Humanity. Adapting just the second book without any expectation of adapting the third seems rather pointless to me--again, a matter of telling just part of the story. (Indeed it was a very sound decision on the part of the then-SciFi Channel when it filmed the second and third books together as a single six-hour miniseries back in 2003.) And as it happens, no one seems to be talking about that third book--partly, I suppose, because the commentariat DO NOT READ BOOKS, and therefore do not know how incomplete a Dune: Messiah would leave the saga.
One should also consider the source material for such a sequel, and its significant differences with the original Dune. As Josh Varlin made very clear, in adapting the first Dune novel Villeneuve's movie did a lot of violence to the background to the later books--enough so that it will have repercussions for any adaptations of the follow-up, like, to cite only the most obvious issue, the fact that at the end of the first film Chani left Paul. (After all, in the book the triangle between Paul, Irulan and Chani is indispensable to the intrigues directed against Paul--as is Chani's dying but leaving Paul newborn twins who are the protagonists of the third book.) The fact that Alia was unborn at that point in the narrative, and could not play her part in the events of the first novel, with all their resonance for the personality that emerges in her mind in the third; the downplaying of the complex power structure of the Empire that proves so important to the second book's plot--such things, too, work against any easy shift from the Dune movies we know to an adaptation of the second and third books of the series. (I will add that I have a hard time picturing Timothée Chalamet being up to the extraordinary dramatic demands that the radical shifts in Paul's fortunes impose on anyone essaying the part--and for that matter, seeing Jason Momoa keeping Duncan Idaho credible in the far more involved performances any faithful adaptation of the third book would require.)
Perhaps more fundamental, Villeneuve's movie hollowed out all the substance in the interest of giving us a big action movie (especially when handling Part Two). Problematic enough with the first book, the later books offer far less scope for that--all as the books get more philosophical. (As the writer for the Hollywood Reporter said, quoting a review on Amazon, Messiah "is 'a lot of sitting around and talking.'") They also get stranger. (Indeed, Varlin, an admirer of the original novel who in his review of the first part said that if the movie did no more than inspire "more people to read Herbert's Dune, it will have done a small service," characterized the later entries in the Dune series as "basically unreadable, except by the most devoted fans.") To satisfy the requirement of the studios for blockbuster-type material that will please fans of Part Two of Dune (expecting the same action-oriented filmmaking, at least as much as continuity with the established plot), we would probably get something nearly unrecognizable--and almost certainly even more dismaying to purists than what we have seen to date. Perhaps that unrecognizable product will sell tickets to the general audience--which is really all the Dauriats of Hollywood care about--but it is easy to picture the compromises in the end pleasing no one.
Dune's Place in Science Fiction History: A Few Notes
I remember how when I first read Frank Herbert's Dune I was utterly blown away by it--so much so that I had finished the five sequels in a year's time and years later, in spite of reserve toward his son Brian's contributions to the franchise, eagerly read his continuations of the story for two volumes beyond Chapterhouse: Dune (2006's Hunters of Dune and 2007's Sandworms of Dune).
Looking back on Herbert's saga I still respect its accomplishment--but it is not quite the touchstone that it once was for me.
One reason is that I have read a good deal since--including a lot of still earlier work--and seen that a long development of the genre led up to that, what Herbert produced remarkable in many ways, but not so original as it once looked. The galactic scale empire, the cosmic time scale--all this was frankly old hat in 1965, and in some respects others had outdone it long before. (Certainly an Olaf Stapledon's vision had been even wider and broader and more fundamentally idea-packed.) I can add that Dune's protagonist Paul Atreides came to seem just a late expression of the longtime obsession of the genre, and especially the John Campbell crowd (one should remember that that early version of Dune, Dune World, first ran in Campbell's Analog), with the idea of supermen rising above the rest of the species and shifting its destiny, with the eugenics, psychic powers and esoteric training involved in making Paul a superman all familiar elements of that body of work. Indeed, A.E. van Vogt's likewise macro-scale Null-A space operas seemed especially relevant, their protagonist's "cortical-thalamic" training anticipating Paul's training in the techniques of the Bene Gesserit, while what van Vogt called the "famous cortical-thalamic pause" even came to seem the obvious inspiration to the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear. ("'I am now relaxing . . . and all stimuli are making the full circuit of my nervous system . . . Always, I am consciously aware of the stimulus moving up to and through the cortex'" in van Vogt's version; "I will face my fear . . . permit it to pass over and through me" in Herbert's less clinically biomedical and more poetic version.) Even van Vogt's propensity for opening his chapters with epigrams now seemed a precedent for Herbert's own--a more developed, ambitious, artful usage, but one building on that earlier work nonetheless.
I found myself developing a more critical attitude toward some of those old elements, too. The treatment of artificial intelligence here (essentially banning it) struck me as all too much in line with the awkwardness of science fiction writers in the computer age that Vernor Vinge wrote about in his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity"--coming to "an opaque wall across the future" and just not dealing with it. There is also that matter of feudalism-in-space--which seemed more suited to pulpy melodramatics of the George Lucas variety than the more serious stuff Herbert aimed at producing, as I increasingly sympathized with Mack Reynolds' being "sick and tired of reading stories based 10,000 years in the future where all the sciences have progressed fabulously except for one," exemplified by how rather than going forward, or even sideways, we just went backward.
The result was that Dune now looks to me as much monument to the genre's prior growth as foundation for later work, indeed maybe more striking in the first way than in the second--and testament to the limits its writers faced even in this comparatively dynamic era for the field.
Looking back on Herbert's saga I still respect its accomplishment--but it is not quite the touchstone that it once was for me.
I found myself developing a more critical attitude toward some of those old elements, too. The treatment of artificial intelligence here (essentially banning it) struck me as all too much in line with the awkwardness of science fiction writers in the computer age that Vernor Vinge wrote about in his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity"--coming to "an opaque wall across the future" and just not dealing with it. There is also that matter of feudalism-in-space--which seemed more suited to pulpy melodramatics of the George Lucas variety than the more serious stuff Herbert aimed at producing, as I increasingly sympathized with Mack Reynolds' being "sick and tired of reading stories based 10,000 years in the future where all the sciences have progressed fabulously except for one," exemplified by how rather than going forward, or even sideways, we just went backward.
The result was that Dune now looks to me as much monument to the genre's prior growth as foundation for later work, indeed maybe more striking in the first way than in the second--and testament to the limits its writers faced even in this comparatively dynamic era for the field.
The Trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux (Joker 2) is Out
As I remarked before I found the 2019 film Joker to have a very interesting premise and display a good deal of ambition, and achieve moments of real bite--but as is all too often the case in contemporary filmmaking its derivativeness and conventionality ultimately got the better of it, leaving us with elements that proved discordant, and undermined the whole. (When you want to say something about reality it is best to avoid playing "reality games" with the audience--and sticking so close to the inspiration of Martin Scorsese seemed to result in exactly that. It also seemed to me a mistake to make Arthur Fleck such a nonentity.) The result was still a worthwhile film, but to have still fallen short of its potentials.
Of course, the film was a billion dollar hit anyway--which all but guaranteed a sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, which we were told would be a musical. My first thought was that this could see the movie end up New York, New York to its predecessor's Taxi Driver--a big failure following a big hit. Still, I checked out the trailer with interest--and am not sure what to make of it. It gives an impression of a (very) dark and twisted take on that old standard, the romantic comedy musical, with the lovers in question the Joker and Harley Quinn (here not his psychiatrist, but another mental patient at Arkham Asylum). Yet that seems unlikely to be all there is here--especially going by what we have heard about a possible order-of-magnitude ramping up of the violence of the first film, and at the same time, the themes of the first film that caused such a moral panic, namely societal decay, inequality, mental illness, and the confluence of them in monstrosities like the Joker.
Especially reading comparisons to A Clockwork Orange on the part of people who claimed to have seen the script, I suspect we are more likely to see a nihilistic reveling in brutality than any thoughtful attempt at social criticism. That, of course, would be just fine with those who so vocally despised the first movie.
Of course, the film was a billion dollar hit anyway--which all but guaranteed a sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, which we were told would be a musical. My first thought was that this could see the movie end up New York, New York to its predecessor's Taxi Driver--a big failure following a big hit. Still, I checked out the trailer with interest--and am not sure what to make of it. It gives an impression of a (very) dark and twisted take on that old standard, the romantic comedy musical, with the lovers in question the Joker and Harley Quinn (here not his psychiatrist, but another mental patient at Arkham Asylum). Yet that seems unlikely to be all there is here--especially going by what we have heard about a possible order-of-magnitude ramping up of the violence of the first film, and at the same time, the themes of the first film that caused such a moral panic, namely societal decay, inequality, mental illness, and the confluence of them in monstrosities like the Joker.
Especially reading comparisons to A Clockwork Orange on the part of people who claimed to have seen the script, I suspect we are more likely to see a nihilistic reveling in brutality than any thoughtful attempt at social criticism. That, of course, would be just fine with those who so vocally despised the first movie.
Boxoffice Pro's Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Prediction: Thoughts
Boxoffice Pro has issued its prediction for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes--the fourth movie in the rebooted Planet of the Apes series. The publication's staff anticipate a $40-$50 million opening weekend, and a $100-$140 million overall domestic run for the film.
How do these numbers compare with those its predecessors? Consider the figures for these below (presented with the current dollar grosses of which are outside the parentheses, the adjustment of the figures for March 2024 dollars in them):
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)--$177 million ($244 million)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)--$209 million ($274 million)
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)--$147 million ($188 million)
Looking back we can see that the three films were, by summer blockbuster standards, respectable earners, rather than really stellar ones (not one of these movies making its year's top ten in-calendar grossers), while the third film was the low point for the series commercially.* However, that movie's gross was still considerably higher than even the best anticipated for Kingdom, which itself may prove optimistic given this particular film and the market it faces. Coming seven years after the last sequel, and likely seeming unnecessary in the wake of that last film's apparent rounding off a well-received trilogy, extensions of run-down sci-fi franchises are proving a very tough sell these days (the story of 2023).
Still, let us for the moment accept the $100-$140 million figure for now, and put it into a bigger context as part of a bigger worldwide gross. Looking over the international numbers I am struck by how China was an important market for the latter two films (which more than doubled their domestic gross internationally with the help of $100 million+ worth of ticket sales in that country). China being less likely to help out so much this time, I think it safe to guess at a global gross divided more like that of the first film (with the domestic take closer to 40 than 30 percent). That being the case one might anticipate a gross under $450 million, and more likely in the range of $250-$400 million.
At the same time, if the production cost anything like that for the prior two films ($150 million+, before inflation), we could be looking at, between the cost of the production, and the added costs, an outlay of $400-$600 million, necessitating a gross of $500 million+ to get the movie to the break-even point in a relatively optimistic scenario.
The gap between that break-even point, and the likely cost, is such that even a much smaller outlay by the backers than is suggested here may still exceed the film's likely take.**
The result is that it is easy to picture this movie--arguably reflecting the pre-pandemic and pre-2023 logic rather than the thinking demanded by the present situation--losing its backer a good deal of money, perhaps a lot of it. Still, I suspect that just as has been the case in 2023 competition for a place on Deadline's list of the year's biggest flops will prove very stiff indeed, such that I would not rush just yet to claim a spot for it in the list's upper ranks. (For instance, have you heard about this Gladiator 2?)
* The 2011 and 2014 films made only the #11 spot, the 2017 film the 22nd position.
** This is based on usage of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index indicating that $150 million+ in 2014-2017 approximately equal $200 million in early 2024 prices; and, in line with my previously discussed premises, the likelihood that the full expenditure on the film will be 2-3 times the net production budget, the movie need to make up a rough 60 percent of its cost at the box office, and the studios keeping about half the box office gross.
How do these numbers compare with those its predecessors? Consider the figures for these below (presented with the current dollar grosses of which are outside the parentheses, the adjustment of the figures for March 2024 dollars in them):
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)--$177 million ($244 million)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)--$209 million ($274 million)
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)--$147 million ($188 million)
Looking back we can see that the three films were, by summer blockbuster standards, respectable earners, rather than really stellar ones (not one of these movies making its year's top ten in-calendar grossers), while the third film was the low point for the series commercially.* However, that movie's gross was still considerably higher than even the best anticipated for Kingdom, which itself may prove optimistic given this particular film and the market it faces. Coming seven years after the last sequel, and likely seeming unnecessary in the wake of that last film's apparent rounding off a well-received trilogy, extensions of run-down sci-fi franchises are proving a very tough sell these days (the story of 2023).
Still, let us for the moment accept the $100-$140 million figure for now, and put it into a bigger context as part of a bigger worldwide gross. Looking over the international numbers I am struck by how China was an important market for the latter two films (which more than doubled their domestic gross internationally with the help of $100 million+ worth of ticket sales in that country). China being less likely to help out so much this time, I think it safe to guess at a global gross divided more like that of the first film (with the domestic take closer to 40 than 30 percent). That being the case one might anticipate a gross under $450 million, and more likely in the range of $250-$400 million.
At the same time, if the production cost anything like that for the prior two films ($150 million+, before inflation), we could be looking at, between the cost of the production, and the added costs, an outlay of $400-$600 million, necessitating a gross of $500 million+ to get the movie to the break-even point in a relatively optimistic scenario.
The gap between that break-even point, and the likely cost, is such that even a much smaller outlay by the backers than is suggested here may still exceed the film's likely take.**
The result is that it is easy to picture this movie--arguably reflecting the pre-pandemic and pre-2023 logic rather than the thinking demanded by the present situation--losing its backer a good deal of money, perhaps a lot of it. Still, I suspect that just as has been the case in 2023 competition for a place on Deadline's list of the year's biggest flops will prove very stiff indeed, such that I would not rush just yet to claim a spot for it in the list's upper ranks. (For instance, have you heard about this Gladiator 2?)
* The 2011 and 2014 films made only the #11 spot, the 2017 film the 22nd position.
** This is based on usage of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index indicating that $150 million+ in 2014-2017 approximately equal $200 million in early 2024 prices; and, in line with my previously discussed premises, the likelihood that the full expenditure on the film will be 2-3 times the net production budget, the movie need to make up a rough 60 percent of its cost at the box office, and the studios keeping about half the box office gross.
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