“American” Movies
" . . . the play's the thing . . . " —Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
In a recent outing on this site I gave as an example of the emptiness of American culture the fact that American movies today are British Commonwealth dominated in directors, writers, and performers.
I confess, I love movies, for several reasons. Because the most important human knowledge is contained in stories, dramas, not in formal expositions. (Think the Incarnation.) Also, having always been something of a stumblebum, I love watching people who can move and declaim gracefully. Admittedly, my liking is somewhat soured these days by the movies’ idiot-amusing technical effects and endemic obscene language. Not to mention overdone sex and violence. Good drama cannot escape sex and violence, but they used to do it without copulation and gushing blood onscreen. However, let’s face it, like it or not, the movies are the predominant literary and graphic art form of our time.
Good actors and actresses give some evidence about the state of a culture. Please do not take me as an endorser of their morals or politics. But acting, if done well, is a form of cultural expression that requires some art—intelligence, charm, grace, imagination, and empathy—and reflects an upbringing with some cultural nourishment (and I mean cultural roots, not just some artificial polish). No need to over-emphasize thespian intelligence, which H.L. Mencken took apart properly in "The Cerebral Mime." What I have to say about actors applies to a considerable extent to movie writers and directors as well, except for the better brains of the last two.
American movies have always been under the major influence of the British and other foreigners. Think of such British mainstays of "American" film as Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Greer Garson, Trevor Howard, Leo G. Carroll, Merle Oberon, Jean Simmons, Boris Karloff, James Mason, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Ray Milland, Joan Collins, Julie Christie, Julie Andrews, Robert Shaw, Peter O’Toole, Maureen O'Hara, Burgess Meredith, Roger Moore, Dudley Moore, Jacqueline Bissett, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, and every star in Gone With the Wind except Clark Gable and Butterfly McQueen. Not to mention a host of "character" actors. This list could be extended endlessly (as could all the lists I am presenting). The British influence was so pervasive that most people thought of these stars as Americans. You want more foreign presence in "American" film? Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Bela Lugosi, Charles Boyer, Leslie Caron, Sophia Loren, Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Maurice Chevalier, Maximilian Schell, Louis Jourdan; Errol Flynn and Rod Taylor (Australia); Mary Pickford, Raymond Burr, and Glenn Ford (Canada).
But the British dominance was not always as pervasive as it is today. Many American stars tended to come out of upper- to middle-class Northeast: Bette Davis, Adolphe Menjou, Tyrone Power, Katherine Hepburn, Grace Kelly; Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, Gene Tierney, Jimmy Stewart. Or working- to middle-class Northeast: Susan Hayward, Robert Mitchum, Rita Hayworth, Lucille Ball, Barbara Stanwyck, Charles Bronson. Or the Midwest: Lillian Gish, John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Carole Lombard, Donna Reed, Judy Garland, Anne Baxter, Doris Day, Richard Widmark, Paul Newman, not to forget Rock Hudson, Ronald Reagan, and Roy Rogers. California contributed Shirley Temple, Gregory Peck, Marilyn Monroe, and many more. And the West (beyond the Missouri) was noted for producing rugged stars like Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, George Montgomery, Marlon Brando, Barack Obama*, and James Coburn. There were also considerable numbers of Italian-Americans and Southerners in "earlier days," although not as predominantly as at present.
Italian-Americans in earlier times: Sinatra, Ida Lupino, Don Ameche, Victor Mature, Rita Hayworth, Ernest Borgnine, Alan Alda, (not to mention the directors Minelli, Capra, and more recently Coppola). Southerners from earlier times: Oliver Hardy, Will Rogers, Charles Coburn, Miriam Hopkins, Joseph Cotten, Randolph Scott, Dana Andrews, Shepard Strudwick, Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charrisse, Ava Gardner, Debbie Reynolds, Claude Akins, Andy Griffith, Joanne Woodward, Stacy Keach, Rip Torn (not to mention Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, Audie Murphy, and Johnny Mack Brown), and, of course, Elvis. Joan Crawford, Vincent Price, and Steve McQueen had some Southern in their background.
British domination of American film acting today: Australia: Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Judy Davis, Guy Pearce, Rachel Ward, Colin Firth, Sam Neill, Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown, not to mention the Italian-Australians Greta Scacchi, Anthony LaPaglia, and Eric Bana. And let's not forget that Mel Gibson grew up and got his start Down Under. New Zealand: Russell Crowe. South Africa: Charlize Theron. Canada: Donald Sutherland, Genevieve Bujold, Richard Dreyfuss, Dan Aykroyd, Michael J. Fox, Deborah Kara Unger, Meg and Jennifer Tilly. Ireland: Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Gabriel Byrne, Patrick Bergin, Stephen Rea, Daniel Day-Lewis, Kenneth Branagh, and quite a few other Irish regulars in American movies.
British: Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Craig, Kate Beckinsale, Kate Winslett. Clive Owen, Sean Bean, Helena Bonham-Carter, Emma Thompson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Alan Rickman, James Cromwell, Brian Cox, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Samantha Morton, Hugh Grant, Jeremy Irons, Diana Rigg, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Pete Postlewaite, Richard E. Grant, Judi Dench, Gerard Butler, Robert Carlyle, Joanne Whaley-Kilmer, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Tom Wilkinson, Miranda and Natasha Richardson, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, the indestructible Connery and Caine, etc., etc. etc. It would be easy to double this list. There is today hardly to be found an "American" movie in which one or more American characters are not played by a Brit. And of course, other foreigners chime in: Rutger Hauer (Dutch); Klaus Maria Brandauer (Austrian); Antonio Banderas, Javier Bardem, and Penelope Cruz (Spanish); Lena Olin, Dolph Lundgren, Liv Ullmann, and Stellan Skaarsgard (Scandinavian), and Viggo Mortensen (half-Danish). Many French and Italian stars appear in American movies for the money but seldom leave their still civilized countries to reside in Hollywood.
Jewish actors and actresses have always had a considerable presence in the star category, and continue to do so although perhaps not as prominently as before: Mickey Rooney, Kirk Douglas, Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, Walter Matthau, Rod Steiger, Dustin Hoffman, and many others. Of course, big names continue to come from the old stock Northeast with its wealth and other assets: Meryl Streep, Laura Linney, Kyra Sedwick, William Hurt; Susan Sarandon, the disgusting Baldwin brothers, Ed Harris, Bruce Willis, Jodi Foster, Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone; and from the Midwest: Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Gene Hackman, Tom Berenger, John Cusack, Haile Berry, Aidan Quinn; and California: Clint Eastwood, Richard Chamberlain, Meg Ryan, Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon., etc.
My thesis is that the increasing cultural flatness and emptiness of mainstream America is reducing its capacity to produce the continuity of tradition and complexity of personality that makes for top flight acting. The main competition for the Brits' top billing today is coming increasingly from Italian-Americans and Southerners, two groups that have traditional cultural heritages that have not been entirely absorbed into mainstream America. These two groups are steadily rising in their dominance while mainstream Americans are slipping.
Look at the Italian American presence in the top drawer of movie acting today: Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Nicholas Cage, Linda Fiorentino, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Sylvester Stallone, Armand Assante, Carla Gugino, Danny Aiello, Beverly D'Angelo, Leonard DiCaprio, Joe Pesci, Danny DeVito, Mira Sorvino, Vincent Donofrio, Gary Sinese, Maria Bello, Steve Buscemi, Rene Russo, etc. And Southerners: Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Andie McDowell, Holly Hunter, Renée Zellwegger, Kim Basinger, Dennis and Randy Quaid, Tommy Lee Jones, Billy Bob Thornton, Patricia Clarkson, Powers Boothe, Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey, Faye Dunaway, Chris Cooper, Jeff Daniels, Gary Busey, Mimi Rogers, Cybill Shepherd, Kathy Bates, Sean Young, Kathy Baker, Arliss Howard, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and if we must claim them, the siblings Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine. And, of course, Burt Reynolds. It is very worth mentioning that some top African American stars—James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, and Jamie Foxx, for instance—are Southern born and bred.
A number of others come from the Southern border states, were partly raised in the South, or have Dixie in their family background, i.e., their backgrounds are not completely Yankee: Robert Duvall, Steve Martin, John Depp, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Kathleen Turner, Sandra Bullock, Ned Beatty, James Garner, Don Johnson, Suzy Amis.
Much more can be said about the cultural emptiness and decline that today's American cinema reveals: plots regularly stolen from French and Japanese films; endless proliferation of sequels and prequels; Asian martial arts and explosions that are so repetitive and ritualized that they are starting to resemble high-tech kabuki; reliance on video games, comic books, and old TV shows for material; and a general orientation toward adolescent themes. Not to say that there are not good American-made films. The situation for film is somewhat the same as that for book publishing. The big hyped items are usually junk, while Americans continue quietly and steadily to produce unheralded good work.
What I am attempting to illustrate is my belief that mainstream American "culture" is progressively sliding into a materialist and presentistic mind that mostly produces flat and unimaginative people. If I am correct about the rising Southern predominance in cinema acting, that is only a complement to the long-established Southern predominance in the creative aspects of literature and music. (I realize that some of the performers I mention have had long careers and would fit either the "earlier" or the "recent" categories.) Please don't nitpick to death my examples—I may have made some mistakes in labeling. Argue with my thesis all you like. I am eager to hear what the many wise and learned readers of Chronicles have to say on my theme.
*Just testing to see if you are paying attention.
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I admit I can scarcely find anything to fault with or add to this brilliant essay.
Good one, Dr. Wilson. I would add another reason we see so little true acting.
Some time ago, I read a piece examining how long an actor appears on camera before the scene changes. Years ago, it was something like a full minute and perhaps more. Now, it's just a few seconds (in between explosions). Although the article pertained to television, I imagine it applies to films as well.
Thus, the opportunity to demonstrate true acting ability has virtually vanished.
I'm not really qualified to take part in this discussion, because I refuse to watch any film made after 1960 (there are a few exceptions). Nevertheless, I will offer my thoughts, for what they are worth.
It could be that British actors have an unfair advantage over their American counterparts in that they can launch and develop their careers in their own countries, free from foreign competition, before moving on to Hollywood. (British actors and actresses do not regard themselves as successful unless they 'make it' in the UD. American actors, on the other hand, are exposed to foreign competition from the very start.
By the way, is Mickey Rooney really Jewish? I always thought that he was of Irish descent.
One reason for the large number of British actors in American films is the continuing British tradition of repertory theater, from which most British film actors are drawn. Repertory theater, which is not wideapread in the United States, prepares an actor to play a greater variety of roles than do most of the venues in which an American might learn the business of acting.
I'm interested to note Dr. Wilson's remark that the situation for film is comparable to that of book publishing. This is quite perceptive. Until World War II, the U.S. publishing industry was made up of many small companies. These companies were owned and operated by people of a literary bent rather than being subsidiaries of great conglomerates run by lawyers and accountants. The economies of publication, and the tastes of the reading public, made it possible for a publisher to take a risk on a small printing - no more than a few thousand - of someone's first novel. It was under this system that the great authors of a distinctly American literature first came to public attention and flourished (it is also why first editions of major American novelists of this period are now rare and expensive collectors' items).
As the publishing industry has been consolidated into fewer and larger houses, and these placed under "professional management," the economies of publishing have changed. Today it would be rare for a major publisher to order a print run of less than 100,000 trade hardcover books. Naturally, the willingness to risk the amount of money involved in such a production on anything but a safe bet is non-existent. It is certainly one reason (though probably not the only one) why we see so little new literature of merit, while established authors with well-recognized names can turn out hack work by the ream and find ready markets for it. Such writers are equivalent to "bankable" movie stars, whose films, however uninspired, command a return at the box office simply because their names are on the marquee. This is what happens when literature and art are marketed like soap or breakfast cereal.
To another of Dr. Wilson's points - "a general orientation toward adolescent themes."
A significant event in our cultural history was the development, sometime in the 1950s, of an adolescent population that - for perhaps the first time in recorded memory - had significant amounts of idle time and capacity for discretionary spending. This was the result of post-war urbanization and economic prosperity, coupled the generosity of parents who, having themselves grown up during the depression, did not want their children to experience want. A perceptive group of entrepreneurs in the entertainment and fashion industries recognized the potential of this market, and set out to cultivate it.
The result has been the adolescentization of popular culture. Whatever might have been the vagaries of taste in the 1890s, the 1920s, even as late as the 1940s, it was at least the taste of adults. By the mid-'50s, this had begun to change. The "youth rebellion" of the 1960s was in large part contrived, packaged, and sold by middle-aged businessmen in the head offices of recording and film studios and in the garment industry. The consequences are still with us, as we have only to see in looking around ourselves at the trendy slovenliness with which people dress and in observing the ill manners with which they behave, coupled with the cacophony that passes for popular music and the vulgarity and shallowness of the movies, television, and mass-market literature. All of these reflect the mentality of undisciplined adolescence - while the behavior of many of our present-day celebrities is what we might expect of a child in its middle teens if given an unlimited amount of money and no adult supervision.
People who strive for something transcendental are more likely to succeed. To give something extra. Italian Americans, Jewish Americans and Southerners are probably either more religious on average or grew up in cultures which value passion and individual success.
Protestant nations in Europe somehow value egalitarianism more, then Catholic or Orthodox nations. It's a form of guilt/ original sin, I guess. In Dutch we say, 'just act normal, that's crazy enough'. It's not just a statement, it pretty much defines post-Protestant culture in my homeland.
Priding your personal successes is deemed as a form of arrogance and therefore frowned upon, if possible overtaxed and rarely spoken off proudly.
Protestantism is definately a part of the answer you're looking for sir --- in the case the country is only Protestsant nomally, the US South is clearly religious.
I was born in late 1949. I suppose that I am, at least by birth, a member of that generation known as the "Baby Boomers." We have also been referred to as the "Peter Pan Generation," meaning that we have, as a generation, never really grown up. I hold and subscribe to that.
Miss Molly Stewart, a spinster teacher of mine, who continued to teach up into her 80's as a substitute, used to tell us that and idle brain was the devil's workshop. I hold to that too.
Both of my parents were born at home. They both had to work extremely hard in an agrarian society in which the labor of each member of the family was absolutely depended on. Although the notion of the idle teenager was already emerging in their generation in urban settings, such had not made its way to rural Louisiana in the 1920's and 1930's. They were subject to the influences of the radio, which compared to the radio of the early 1950's, was generally benign. My father, although not my mother, managed to make in just prior to turning 20 to a few movies, so that influence was there but was not, at least for my parents and their communities, pervasive. Only a few movies and some restaurants had air conditioning, and almost no one had a car. Electricity was still rare in rural Louisiana right up into WWII and in parts even thereafter. One really big difference between my parents and their parents' generation was that they had gone through eleven years of public education (no Kindergarten or 12th grade, yet). They were therein subjected to and made the objects of Wilsonian nationalism and the emerging state socialism, something my great grandparents had not faced.
I was the very first of my family, materal and paternal, to have been born in a hospital. I was the first to have been bottle-fed. Although I grew up on a farm and worked on it, unlike rural dwellers of today who are really suburbanites, the work which I did and even the farm itself were not absolutely vital to our survival, as had been the case with my parents. By the time I was a teenager, there were plenty of car, lots of air conditioning, televsion, movies, enough money to spend, in relative terms at least, and idle time. In addition, the state began to encroach even more.
In the end, my generation is the Peter Pan Generation. We had too much idle time on our hands. Our expectations - note the advertizing placating our wants, masquerading as needs - note health care - remain basically adolescent. The generation which we begat is even more adolescent than we; the next and the next are even worse. My parents were the last generation of wolves. We were the first dogs, servile to our own whims and to those who get power by plactating them. Our grandkids are, as a generation, hairless Chihuahuas - adolescent, overfed and bloated. (Were the present generations of people actually dogs, we would not have to worry about dog fighting; we'd be thoroughly incapable of it!)
I suppose that the relation on movies and the actors who play in them to a society or culture, whatever that is, is reciprocal. The movies reflect the culture and at the same time change it. Sex, boom , chase with a snippet of "acting" in between - the modern movie.
I have about ceased going to the movies, or picture show as we used to call them. On DVD, I did see a good movie - well made and well acted. It is entitled "Sophie Scholl," a German made movie about a young German student, a Christian, and her brother and circle of friends who dared resist the Nazis in a group know as "die Weiße Rose" (The White Rose). The telling time is about two hours. The told time is about six days, based of the detailed protocols taken of her interrogation by the GESTAPO and kept for us all these years, although just now rediscoverd, by the communist heir of the GESTAPO - STASI. No sex, no explosions, no foul language, no car chases, no PC dialogue, no gore; just good meeting evil, with evil prevailing in the context but with good over coming in the essence.
I was the
An excellent and fun read. It's always embarrassing to admit, but we all love lists. On top of that, a very perceptive observation.
I never really thought of the dominance of British actors in today's cinema.
I noticed only one omission. The author focused his attention on actors and missed the elephant (very intended) in the room.
(Though this mastermind director had a fondness for cameo-acting in his own films)
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with an eminent film theorist about the auteur debate in cinema. He informed me that he was against the auteur theory and that if we were to consistently apply it, even John Ford would often fail in securing full author rights.
The only person deserving of such a title, in his opinion, is Alfred Hitchcock.
Other than that, I learned that Bette Davis is not English and that Ernest Borgnine is Italian.
I do have a couple of corrections to make.
Natalie Wood was not Jewish, but Russian Orthodox.
Eric Bana is not Italian, but Croat from Australia.
Real name - Banadinovic, Eric Banadinovic.
Thanks for corrections, which I expected. Michael, your observations are right on target. I think we have to blame the decline in the number and quality of readers as well as consolidation. There was a time when millions read Faulkner in the Saturday Evening Post. He probably could not even get a book published today and there is no SEP. Mr. Peters, another movie version of the Sophie Scholl story, several years back, called "The White Rose," is in my opinion superior to the more recent one.
I'm a writer who is also an actor. I was in an acting group or troupe in N.Y.C. for 10 years in my spare time...Evenings, afternoons or matinee - mostly on stages, off-off broadway in Manhattan only, and once off-Broadway... Got inducted into an Arts Club as a result, by some who saw and enjoyed apparently-?-my performances and invited me "in" ... The club now occupying Tilden's old mansion in the fashionable and historic Gramercy Park neighborhood. That was fun...& possibly best thing was you got the Key to [Gramercy Park] the neighborhood's private park. Squirrels in there are 'rich'... they jump up or climb up your leg and sit on your knee, awaiting a raw almond. They eat better than most people. I had to name them, I knew them so well. Ol'one-eye...still apparently, even when rich, there are rivalries, and the poor bloke lost an eye. Etc. The Shakesperian actor Edwin Booth's statue is in the park as he was a member of the club next door, the Player's Club. His brother shot Liberty Valence (no, I mean Lincoln)...what was the assassin's first name-?-I forget ________ Booth. His brother was a great actor, Edwin. I never thought I'd also be an actor, I was always a writer in my spare time. I had a girlfriend...blame it on a woman. She wanted us to have more time together, so I was inducted to also attend her acting classes... She thought I'd be good, and you couldn't attend unless you were an Actual student. Turns out I was pretty good. We studied the method style or way of acting, which I think has merit. You imagine something in your own past that evoked an emotion similar to the one you are going for in your script on stage...You recall it (the emotion) - then you sculpt it to fit the text. I loved that. It was like sanctuary on stage because then you didn't even have to 'think' about it on stage once you had it sculpted right...and had rehearsed it over and over again. I felt like I was asleep on stage it was so visceral, and on auto-pilot. Friends would come into the off-off Broadway church basement type places where performances were held, and sit in the first row so they could literally see up your nostrils. And then tell me afterward...we never 'caught' you "acting" once - how do you do it? ... I didn't want to give away the secret I had learned thanks to my girl-friend, so I said 'I guess you just had to be there?!' - They were - so they didn't get it?! METHOD kids...but if you don't know, you don't know. Or as Clyde would point out 'hear hear!' Incarnation...in that sense. I never took anything seriously though...I never "went" for anything more, to my ex-girlfriend's chagrin. It seemed like the Park was my home and the squirrels my family. I may be 'autistic'? Who knows? You learn more from failure than success...but then comes a time, it's time to learn about success as well, if possible. To be or not to be? Most people 'aren't, who are successful.' Few are, and later choose it. That's not easy. All the one's who 'aren't' but are successful would stop you from that if they can. HAHAHAHAHA... funny universe. Ol'one eye, knows. Most don't know... they only re-Act. The play's the thing.
If I may make so bold, Dr. Wilson, the origins of the "materialist and presentistic mind that mostly produces flat and unimaginative people" you decry (and quite correctly) have their origins in technological change.
Up until perhaps 1950, the dominant mode of entertainment for the average person was radio. I am reliably informed that families would gather at night around the radio in the same fashion that they did (up until very recently, but let that go for now) to listen to "Life of Riley" or "The Shadow" or whatever serial was their show of choice. Radio, being a non-visual mode of communication, required an active, more-or-less imaginative mind operating on what it heard to produce mental pictures and interpret what it heard.
With the 1950s came the advent of widespread use of television. Television, being a visual medium, acts on a different set of brain structures than does radio or speech. Available research shows that modern television production techniques act to capture the viewer's attention and focus it on the screen to the exclusion of all else. In neurological terms, television acts to induce production of "alpha waves" in the brain, a hallmark of the passive, low-functioning brain.
People listening to the radio are (at least theoretically) able to divert their attention to other things going on around them---the speech of others, sounds being produced in the environment, that sort of thing. People engrossed in a television program (or a movie, for that matter) literally cannot.
In the average household, a child is not generally exposed to movies in a theatre until he or she is 7 or 8 at the earliest. They simply cannot sit still for that period of time, for the most part. Children in the modern, degenerated American "home", on the other hand, are exposed to television almost from birth.
Current neurological research informs us that a child's brain development occurs in response to environmental influences. This is why children who are read to often when they are young tend to have better reading scores than children who watch relatively more television---the neurons in their brains develop in different ways. The physiological structure of their brains visibly differ from children whose early years are spent "marinating" in front of a television.
Children raised in the '40s and early '50s, having grown up before television, developed their minds in a way that tended to encourage the growth of brain structure that facilitates imagination and creativity. Children raised after that, on a mental "diet" of visual imagery, tend to be less creative. (This is not to imply that television is the sole culprit in this development---parenting and educational practices also play a sizable part--but it is quite significant.)
I will certainly grant Dr. Wilson his thesis concerning the "materialist and presentistic mind that mostly produces flat and unimaginative people" in 21st-century America. The evidence is simply too overwhelming to doubt. I must respectfully disagree, however, with his statement about movies being the "predominant literary and graphic art form of our time"
that contributes to the growth of that mind.
As before, if anyone believes that I am in error, please do not hesitate to correct me. I do not claim perfection---that is left for Our Lord alone.
I have the honor to remain, as always
Your servant,
Lord Karth
I apologize for that horribly mishandled first line. It should read
"the origins of the 'materialist and presentistic mind that mostly produces flat and unimaginative people' you decry (and quite correctly) lie in technological change."
I ask pardon for the error.
Your (chagrined !) servant,
Lord Karth
As we slide into the Quisling induced chaos of the early 21st Century, is it any wonder that with excellence being demeaned & Political Correctness raised to obscene levels that the only thing that can be published is by the mutants on the 'Left Coast.'
Professor Wilson's thesis that the quality of a nation's actors is linked to the health of the national culture, implies that British culture is in a healthy state. I wonder how many British conservatives would agree with that.
Excellent Article! I do want to make a few comments..
1). I do not know if Burgess Meredith ever actually spent time in Britain/England, but he was actually born in Cleveland Ohio! (Truth In Adveritising, I am also a native Clevelander, and though I've lived in other parts of the country in the past, I'm living "Back Home" for now. Like many people, I like to brag on celebrities from my home town!
2). Bob Hope was, in fact, born in England. He and his family, however, came to live here to Cleveland when he was quite young . He spent much of his childhood and youth here in Cleveland. One of our Major bridges going, westbound out of Downtown Cleveland, over the Cuyahoga River, is the Hope Memorial Bidge, in honor of Bob's Father. The Elder Hope was a noted Stone Mason for many years, here in the Cleveland Area.
3) There was a 3rd star of "Gone With The Wind" that was born in America and she won an Oscar for this movie! This, of course, was Hattie McDaniel, Best Supporting Actress. If my memory serves me right she was a southern belle. I think she was born in Mississippi (The State), or Alabama. Take Care Hillel M. Zelman. 10September2007
It's 'as if' in movie speak the world's (perhaps even the universe [the Promised Universe-?-] or Especially 'america') become a shtetl...don't rock the boat. Spielberg knows what won't rock the boat in movie world, and metaphorically speaking he knows the 'sensibility' too of the old persian king cyrus (i.e. today, oil). Who's advancing the resources for the building of the temple...so we won't rock His boat either... And anything we say or see in 'the MOVIES' - on the big, Silver screen's got to pass muster with the shtetl's mid-wives in this practical regard as well as all of the primitive tribal myths yet at large & inculcated...or havoc, shhhhhhh, could result. NO high-Art - PLEASE (not that it's possible anymore)... but anyway that's disconcerting to say the least; for then how could such astonishing mediocrity by comparison in the wake of art, and the otherwise by comparison current avariciousness of it all in that light be - "chosen"? Isn't our astonishing mediocrity and avariciousness gold-?-we're "chosen", no? Huh-?- Don't rock the boat, please. Steven, knows...don't argue...we're victims. He'll protect the shtetl. Thanks Spiel, for your tolerance of us and your sensitivity... a true son. Whew...wow, the america and maybe the whole world is our shtetl. Who knows-?-maybe even the 'Promised Universe.' ?!!!!! Why not - you SAW it at the Movies... see you there, see you at the movies.
The collapse of American culture can be considered the moral collapse of the Northeast. If most, if not all, of the mainline protestants up there have given up the faith, then it probably has taken much of the life out of their culture. Wilson's exception would seem to be Italian Catholics who haven't completely been absorbed into American culture, and Southerners who have carved out their own place in our society.
I don't know how long the Italians, the Church or the Southerners can remain separate, though.
The cultural future of the Northeast would be a good topic of another post.
God knows what we need is for the Catholic Church to come back from the dead, it might bring the NE back from the dead. And with it the rest of America.
A particularly brilliant essay on a particularly pertinent topic. Since America is so identified as the pre-eminent force in film, it is worth questioning whether to what extent that pre-eminence reflects real artistic vitality, and to what extent that vitality is homegrown on the one hand versus "plots regularly stolen from French and Japanese films", recycled material, etc.
I would certainly agree with Dr. Wilson's thesis that "increasing cultural flatness and emptiness of mainstream America" is an impediment to the production of works of cinematic genius on the part of said mainstream America.
It is impossible to squeeze blood from a stone -- and impossible to squeeze dramatic stories from a frivolous society in which the greatest tragedy consists of bourgeois-bohemians projecting their superficial angst into the latest fashionable cause of the day.... then finding redemption & hope via a decaf-mocha chai latté or an Amnesty International candle-light vigil.
I.e., it is impossible to squeeze good acting from a culture of ninnies (to use Wilsonian terminology) for whom emotional expression is a meaningless game -- a vapid, shallow, morbidly fashion-conscious charade, utterly lacking in gravitas.
Actors need real people with real substantive personalities to model themselves on. In order to mimic a man, a real man, you have to have encountered a man at some point.
Whereas mainstream Americans are *already* actors -- pretending to have deep sentiments about the various bits of ideological rubbish that pop into their ken.
If, as an actor, you feign people who are already feigning to begin with, the results will be less than satisfying. An actor needs to have encountered some actual, three-dimensional, red-blooded people before he can try to pass himself off as one himself on the screen.
Such people grow fewer and further between -- which of course concerns us for reasons much more pressing than the furtherance of the art of cinema.
The irony is that even as American society squelches the true diversity found in tradition, it grows increasingly attracted to characters who represent these traditions -- even if the characters in question reflect motifs regarded as sinister, as undesireable in the healthy & wholesome Brave New World -- i.e., The Godfather, Tony Soprano, or Southern populist Willie Stark in All The King's Men.
Mainstream liberalism & Yankee culture seek to eradicate such men yet liberals & Yankees themselves cannot help but feel attracted to them -- albeit darkly and guiltily.
I would only add one note -- Hollywood is a centralizing institution, much like Wal-Mart and the US federal government.
As usual, centralization results in a purging of organic creativity.
Ideally we would see some competing locus of activity arise in the future, and establish an identity of its own. A small-but-significant movie industry in Memphis or Louisville or Baton Rouge or someplace, maybe.
The big film at the US box office at present is a remake of the Western, 3:10 To Yuma. It stars Christian Bale (Welsh) and Russell Crowe (Kiwi/Aussie).
” . . . the play’s the thing . . . “ —Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Absolutely!
Hope you will enjoy the following excerpt from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbK1eCt97ag
Dr. Wilson,
I too have seen the previous movie "die Weisse Rose." Both movies, were, in my experience good;however, the latter one, the newer one, was far me the more interesting because of the dialog between Sophie and Inspector Mohr. The high point of the film was in their discussion about God, when Sophie puts God on the table and Mohr counters that there is no God. In that statement, Mohr uses the German term "real" which means the only existing "reality" is that which the senses can perceive. In her counter to Mohr, Sophie uses the German term "wirklich" which also means "real" but which relates to that reality of which this world, i.e. the "reale Welt" is a mere shadow. Sophie's world of light is, throughout, the movie always peeping through into the darkness of Mohr's world.
I also found that the dialog in the courtroom in which Sophie and the others were being accused of betraying the fighting soldiers on the front could well be playing itself out in a U.S. courtroom in the very near future, as the neo-cons get whipped into a frenzy about the growing resistance to the war.
In the 1980's, I also participated in an interview with the house supervisor (Hausmeister) who is portrayed as having arrested Sophie and her brother. That was one of the most interesting interviews in which I have ever participated.
This is actually a sidebar to your main theme. Thanks, however, for the opportunity to voice the matter. It is a good thread.
"plots regularly stolen from French and Japanese films; endless proliferation of sequels and prequels; Asian martial arts and explosions that are so repetitive and ritualized that they are starting to resemble high-tech kabuki; reliance on video games, comic books, and old TV shows for material; and a general orientation toward adolescent themes."
In part, global market pressures drive Hollywood to the simplistic. Juvenile plots, pretty images, and shoddy writing better translate into lucrative foreign markets. The industry caters not merely to the shallow American teen, but to the consumerist teens of the entire world.
Great journey through the American cinema! Thanks, Dr. Wilson. As for the overwhelming presence of "junkness" in today's Hollywood, I'm in a general agreement with the folks here who blame it on its global reach. There is hardly any big business enterprise (and it would be naive to think of Hollywood in any different terms) that could allow itself to deal with such subtleties as its own nation's culture, local humor, historical controversies... or any similar category that cannot be easily translated to every viewer on Earth, from Osaka to Quebec. So, buildings must explode, beauties must be saved from the evil terrorists, by heroes with the annoying vocabulary ("we're so outta here", "they so gotta die", etc.), if investment is to be worthy. And there's nothing curious or wrong about that. Plus, it is not only, methinks, the decay of American culture, it's just the world we live in. Americans don't care much about Faulkner and other classics of their literature (or the unrecognized contemporaries), but European nations, for example, don't seem to be holding many special cultural ties to their own Dickenses and Hugos either. Worse yet, they seem completely incapable of offering any viable alternative that their own audiences can indentify with. Or, try to imagine the American cinema with the likes of John Waters and Todd Solontz as the mainstream film auteurs. The Euros, esp. the highbrow "auteurs", along with the vain theorists of their unwatchable "greatness", keep blaming "the Hollywood trash" for everything, while Hollywood, at least, doesn't rely on robbing the taxpayers' money in order of funding the "cultural achievements" for the weird film critics and fancy festival jurors. And, frankly, no matter how embarrassingly dumb an avarage Hollywood blockbuster can get, it is still more folksy and, alas, quite more enjoyable than an average "elitist" monstrosity. Hence the Hollywood's global success, whose pattern is being followed by some other (localy dominant) cinemas, esp. in India and the Far East.
And yet, there are many good (sometimes excellent) American films being made . And there are folks, in America, Europe and elsewhere who still consider the craft of movie-making as the genuine art and who respect their audience.
PS
Just a few more small corrections, if I am permitted: Anne Bancroft wasn't Jewish, but Italian. Quite a surprise to me, either, having identified her mostly with her later supporting roles of a Jewish matron (apart from the most memorable one, Mrs. Robinson, of course). Though, the Jewish list doesn't look complete without Edvard G. Robinson and Lauren Bacall.
And Bruce Willis is German-born, not Northeastern.
I think the US makes a lot of great movies. Both now and yesteryear.
You just gotta sort things out, there's a lot of crap out there.
PPS
As for the Brits in Hollywood: just a few days ago, I've watched an interview with Jeremy Irons, done during his visit to Serbia, couple of years back. Answering the question about British actors-Tinseltown relation, he said that they have quite more "freedom" in chosing their roles in American films, because, being the guests there, they're not limited by "the good guy-obligation", ie they don't have to be loved by the audience, as their American collegues.
Thanks, G.S. You made my point better than I did.
Great topic and discussion. A few of us were discussing this morning how much better Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns" were than the "real thing." His pacing, allowing a scene to develop slowly and tension to build, was perfect.
Along that line, Stanley Kubrcik went to Ireland and England and made his most visually stunning piece with *Barry Lyndon* -- not only beautiful to look at, but moving at an easy, 18th century pace.
By contrast, the recent British film *V for Vendetta* was unwatchable (to me) because of its rapid-fire, quick-cut editing...owing, perhaps, too much to American/MTV Generation influence.
I once saw an interview with Alan Rickman in which he was asked, by the female interviewer, "Why are there so many British actors in American film?" His answer was hilarious and perfect: "Because we can act, sweetheart."
Could it be that good American actors are out there, but are not being given opportunities, because of Hollywood's preference for good looks over acting ability (at least when it comes to leading men).? American movie-stars seem to be more famous for their good looks than for anything else. I don't think that that's the case with male Britishstars, who seem to excel in the more villainous roles.
Perhaps Hollywood's priorities are wrong.
It's all cheesy Jew culture now and for evermore!!!
My two pennies:
I am surprised to see several Serbian names as commentators on this topic with no Serbian actors or directors (there were a few worth mentioning: Karl Malden and Peter Bogdanovich, not quite enough to make a list but they do exist. As far as the entire presentation by Dr. Wilson, it’s of course, accurate for the most part. I did find one element missing: the introduction or the foreword. In my view there are only three distinct periods in film/theater:
I – Hellenic theater (thea-thron – seeing place in Greek) where if you only follow Aristotle’s Poetics your work is guaranteed a modicum of success – but the Romans came, conquered and spoiled it – theater (the seeing place) was renamed and prostituted into “auditorium” (the hearing place) hence the first in an endless downward spiral in dramatic arts (film and theater included).
II – Christopher Marlowe, Edmond Rostand and of course William Shakespeare a valiant effort from 1690 to 1710, but a short lived one. We know of writers but hardly any actors (Ben Johnson excluded)
III – Modern Era: Berthold Brecht and Anton Pavlovich Chekoff come real close but no cigar only because the two American Southerners: Eugene O’Neal, Tennessee Williams in our time (20th Century) and their unparalleled work.
The overall mindlessness of the audiences always brought more profit for Barnum & Baily than Streetcar named Desire, more profit for the Super bowl than any Shakespeare production ever. In closing I have a very strong preference for Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Dobrica Cosic, Milorad Pavic, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and many other modern writers but they are not nearly film-worthy or stage-worthy as O’Neal/Williams tandem.
Alas, for better or worse, Eugene O'Neill did not have a Southern bone in his body.
I have done a great injustice to yet one more Midwesterner Orson Welles, Kenosha Wisconsin, which now makes three All-American lead within visual arts of film and/or theater.
I just managed reposition New York City the heart of the Yankeeland, south of the Mason Dixon line. My bad. I surely hope that his smell and feel of the South were that seductive to other readers as they were to me (but I always have that escape of being foreign born).
If leisure is an important part of a healthy life, then all movies do not need a great moral point. Nothing wrong with pure entertainment. A few good ol' popcorn movies are not a problem. America does mindless entertainment better than anyone. The problem is that so much of the mindless entertainment is base or appeals to our prurient interests (not just sex). Not wholesome and family friendly.
But there are some occasional good American movies. American movies are more often "well done" than making a significant moral point. I think we should have a thread of recommendations of some good recent movies.
Dr. Pavlovich, you're absolutely right in regard to Karl Malden. I was going to mention him, not only as our fellow Serbian
(Chech mother), but as one the greatest living American actors as well. Than again, my previous comment seemed a bit too long already, plus I've been in quite a haste this afternoon, so I passed (expecting that someone will eventually mention him). Although, on Dr. Wilson's list, Malden would be among the Northeasterners (in case that his native state, Indiana, belongs there). If you allow me, I'll try to fix my clumsiness by telling you about one of the most heartwarming TV-moments I've ever seen. Some five years ago, I had seen a television documentary dedicated to Karl Malden. One segment included the party organized in his honor (90th birthday) at Dan Tana's in LA (Tana is also Serbian, as you know). Of course, I've been trying my best to recognize the faces of his elderly friends there, the actors and actresses from the greatest decades of American cinema. Then, for a few minutes,I've remained completely stunned by the scene of Malden and Brad Dexter (here's another name for the "Serbian list") who, accompanied by Tana, have sung Tamo Daleko, along with a couple more Serbian tunes, some of whom even pre-WW1 (which I've learned from my late grandfather, who considered them "the oldies").
.
Quite a treat, that birthday scene, if you're a Serbian aficionado of 1950's Hollywood
As for Bogdanovich, if the topic was director-based, I would have mentioned him undoubtedly. Especially because I've always thought of him (along with Michael Cimino) as probably the most "American" director in his entire generation. Too bad that both of them have been hampered in reaching the full grasp of their enormous directing talents. Though, Bogdanovich deserves to be recognized as an actor as well (from The Sopranos to the numerous cameos in recent years).
Dr. Phillips, that is an excellent recommendation, except with everything on video and disc now there is no need to limit it to new films. A continuing commentary on good old films that are family suitable would be very valuable. In fact, I proposed it years ago, without arousing any interest.
Matt Damon is from Massachusetts not California; but in addition to Clint Eastwood (an SCV member) Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, and Kevin Costner are Californian natives.
Sorry for nitpicking; the above was just errata -- or maybe erratic trviia?
"Thanks, G.S. You made my point better than I did." - C.W.
G.S. has that facility. What does "G.S."stand for?
As for Eugene O'Neil ... He's like trapped in the maze of being puritan without really realizing it-?- ? What would you say-?-C.W. or better yet G.S. - since E.O. ain't Southern... even in his titles "Looooooooooooong Day's Journey Into (yipee!!!) Night" ... Night At Last, At Loooooong Last" I don't know. And then something ___________ Becomes Electra ? Any O'Neil buffs out there - in movie land, want to comment???? I don't know.
Boy puritan irish blue and pink when at odds can really go for the jugular ... some pretty mean dialogue... (pass the bourbon, please?) -sorry, I got the blue booties.
A good director in case I didn't want to read it... or couldn't figure it out - which if I read it, I would figure it out of course... but to give you an 'idea' ... even if the Test [case] was not to read it... just let the director tell me of the emotion in the text 'we're' going for... Then here's what Method actors do - "oh gosh there was that time when my crazy stepfather [literally] wanted to, and almost did burn me alive. And then on your own you start hitting the pillow [alone] to revist by getting to the accurate 'feeling' or emotion at that time in the distant past...and you're hitting the pillow and yelling in ANGER 'I hate You, I hate You !!!!!' because the anger precedes the Hurt which is below or beneath it. Then you get to the feeling the primal visceral fear of NOOOOOOOOOOO I.E. No!!!!!!!!!! And when you say it and start to cry it comes up from the belly up through consciousness as it would have authentically have been expressed had you been able to when you were the little child...scared s/whitless. And so only at that time were frozen in stunned or petrified silence.
So then after that expression and experience of it as the adult you KNOW the emotion, you've finally had it now as an adult and you know its sound, which until it was had by you as an adult was only yet SILENT. So now you have-it. But to express it again which you now can 'authentically' its sound and feel and all - it's too much for the text in the play, so you have to sculpt it, to fit.
But THEN when you do the line with the authentic albeit sculpted Emotion and say something like 'oh that this too too solid flesh would melt...' there's not only the brilliance of the line or text itself - but ALSO within in it the authentic SOUND of the actual [albeit sculpted] emotion. And so then instead of dry, or wooden-sounding, Shakespeare's Text sounds LIKE he imagined it...rather than as you usually hear it in plays...like some talking head or news reader on t.v.
Picture for example a david letterman 'oh that this too too solid flesh would melt --- right paul?' Or any typical-shakespearean performer, as david's straight man. ?! As how it doesn't get done very well.
Method acting is very good if you have the balls and the intestinal fortitude to go inside yourself for authentic emotions from the past. Often yet therein just frozen, like icecubes in the freezer...waiting to be put in a drink, stirred and thawed.
Then head for therapy... primal therapy... some things you just can't work out with a pencil...
Said the constipated mathematician.
HAHAHAHA - funny universe.
right paul...the musician...who sucked on Jeopardy... paul what the hell do you know? embarrassing. paul, how's that emotion feel - and is there a hook-up back into the mists of the past-?-for You, personally. What the hell does he know in his 'rich' mediocrity? I don't know. i can only guess - el nada. ? him and david. hi david.
________
________________________________
Dr. Phillips, I generally agree with the observation on controversies about the pure entertainment vs. moral point. On the other hand, there have been (and still are) the bulk of great films dealing with the moral issues (even from the more conservative perspective, some of them), which could hardly be desribed as "family-friendly". Ie, you probably wouldn't let, for example, a 7 years old, to sit through the whole "The Deer Hunter", including those - at least the most drastic ones - Vietnam scenes (not to mention, say, Kubrick's or Coppola's takes on that theme). And the same goes for almost every classic made in the last five decades, American or European (or any other, based on those few Japanese films I've seen). It's kinda like the literature, at least the good one: but, coming to a certain age, one would hardly mistake Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky with some pointless blood-and-gore nonsense, or (in ol' Fyodor's case) a drunken, coked-up debauch in Vegas from the mid-1970's.
Moreover, the television, esp. in recent years, seems to be furiously taking over the torch of brutalizing the masses with pointless violence/nasty sexual pathologies/sheer sickness. The TV-series' budgets and profits grow bigger, and ever more "filmic" (and I'm not alone here: George Lucas, in a recent interview, predicted that the TV will outgrow the film industry eventually). The role of "the window to the world" was taken by the Internet, and the TV is left with little choice, but to get our attention by scandalizing us 24/7. Hence all the reality-idiocies, TV-series with blood-and-gore/soft porn scenery. The good news (if Lucas is right) is that the cinema, unable of keeping pace, is to become a sort of the forgotten art, like a caligraphy or something. Which had already happen to a certain degree. There is plenty of great movies (many of them American) which go unacknowledged, practically obscure. So they can be enjoyed without pressure of being advertized to death.
Boyan, since you mentioned Japanese films and Shakespeare in the above post, may I offer a suggestion to see the Akira Kurosawa's Macbeth (The throne of blood) and King Lear (Ran). They are outstanding achievements in cinematography set in 16 or 17th Century Japan - I was surprised with the degree of originality from a well known source. This is not to belittle Yojimbo, 7 Samurai, Rashomon, Tora Tora Tora and other Kurosawa accomplishments. What strikes me as odd or dramatically impenetrable is that nobody outside of the United States staged (or filmed) Mourning becomes Elektra, Rose Tattoo, Streetcar named Desire or any of the Williams/O'Niell tandem. As much as I love theater (and good literature that it came from - in most cases) I have yet to develop my understanding for the absurd (as in: Ionesco, Pinter, Beckett, etc.), but I do get a giggle here and there if I sit through the whole thing (impossible for me to sit through 15 minutes of: Miss Saigon, Les Mis. Cats, etc. etc.)
Thank you all for your interesting comments.
With Hollywood films being so heavily influenced by the PC police and the historical myth police, it took a foreign national, Ang Lee, to make "Ride With the Devil". That movie was from the novel, "Woe to Live On" and is one of the few movies made here in the US which presents a sympathetic view of Southerners fighting in Lincoln's war.
The film is set in Missouri and Kansas among Missouri bushwhackers and stars Tobey Maguire, Jeffery Wright, and Skeets Ulrich. Wright plays Daniel Holt, a freed slave who rides with the bushwhackers. Wright's performance is central to the success of the story and is Wright's best work so far, IMO.
I can't imagine any Hollywood producer daring to present that novel without changing the story into something unrecognizable. I'm very grateful to Ang Lee for that film.
To follow up on #45: Whatever the provenance of her actors, America continues to make the world's best-or at least best-liked- movies (I read that "Bourne Ultimatum" was the top grosser in Mexico and Germany last week) because it remains the freest country on earth. Creativity and freedom go together, an idea that countries like my own Canada just can't wrap their cinemascopes around. But, as good as they are , our author is correct in the observation that they are on a slide toward moral and artistic degradation. The main reason for this is the loss of freedom for directors and writers in the wake of the Politically Correct makeover of Hollywood. Consider Eastwood, an able enough filmmaker who burdens every film he makes with an insufferable "message," almost invariably draining the dramatic momentum away in the process. Action films like the Bourne series remain, ironically enough, our last bastion of aesthetic and dramatic expression, because they are really what our scholars call revenge plays. Here alone, it seems, out of view of the academics and script committees, the laws of natural justice are free to play out with the same powerful inevitability found in Webster or Shakespeare or Aeschylus.
Dr. Pavlovich, I must admit that my grasp of Kurosawa's work
has been hopelessly outdated and abandoned for several years. The truth is, actually, that I have hardly seen more than a couple of his films since my childhood; you know that the national television here had kept a good tradition of regular broadcasting the classics, for a very long time (which usually included those great studio overviews and discussions by the senior critics and theorists). Anyway, hence my access to the most of the "golden oldies", before getting old enough to hang out at the arthouse cinemas, and make my personal video and DVD collections).
As for the Japanese cinema, I've been much more up-to-date with relatively recent stuff, Immamura and Kitano mostly, plus a couple of those hip horror flicks, post-2000...
But, refreshing my Kurosawa and Mizoguchi list, remains a must-do. Thanks for the reccomendations, I dimly remember The Throne Of Blood, plus, a friend has mentioned it recently, as an example of a good use of literature in cinema.
As for the lack of non-American films based on Williams and O' Neill... quite a strange thing, I agree. Although, one would hardly dare to do anything with, say, The Streetcar, after Kazan.
PS Never developed an understanding and interest for the absurd, either. I guess that the XXth century theatre (the most of it, anyway) is just not my cup of tea.
PPS
Mr. Tryon, I wouldn 't be that hard on Canada. Atom Egoyan, for example. Making both The Sweet Hereafter and Felicia's Journey took just about enough creativity and freedom. Esp. The Sweet Hereafter, one of the greatest films made in 1990's (in my humble opinion). Plus, based on an American novel, which Hollywood would have inevitably turned into some court drama with the happy-ending.
That Egoyan fellow does seem a bit too dark and gloomy at times , but he knows how to make a memorable film, no doubt.
Nice post, bookmark it
Comparing the most respected director of today, Steven Spielberg, with masters like John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra pretty much explains why the movie industry is in such a desultory artistic state. Movies like Spiderman do best these days because they are driven by the patronage of people with childlike minds. Maybe movies like Spiderman and Scooby-Doo are what a nation with so many adolescent adults deserves.