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Going, going, going... - The Open College of the Arts

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Going, going, going…

It’s a familiar refrain and I make no apology for quoting it, but, “Art for art’s sake, money for God’s sake,” for which we have to thank the 1975 hit by band 10CC and the penmanship of  lyricists Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart comes to mind as we wave farewell to the Oscars.  One only has to look at InsideFilm to see that there is hardly a day in the year when there isn’t a film festival going on somewhere in the world and it begs the question, just what is it about this particular field of visual culture that is so overloaded with such cultural events.  Are they all justified?  Do they represent the true cultural phenomenon of the moving image?  Just how many of them are worth attending and who and how does one get a film into a festival?
At this point I should declare an interest for I am one of the judges at this year’s Myanmar Film Festival being held in Singapore in November.  Surprisingly, or maybe otherwise, it is not listed on the InsideFilm link above which makes me wonder just how many other festivals are not listed…  And this is where the famous lyric enters stage right.  The vast majority of film festivals show films that will never reach a large audience, never be seen by more than a handful of family, friends and colleagues and certainly will never recoup the cost of production.  Yet film festivals are seen by many film makers as a way to endorse their work, to give it and them status, a calling card to a distributor and something to shout modestly about if they come away with a gong.  I have yet to meet a film maker who didn’t show a dewy-eyed determination to get her/his film into a festival, any festival!
If film is a true art form then it is equally true to say that it is also an art form that is driven primarily by money and the profit motive.  Film funding is always about the script and the talent attached.  It is also frequently about repeating formulas that had critical and financial success before – the Hollywood disease – and becoming ever more a British disease too. Am I really expected to pay good money to watch yet another sequel?  The latest from these isles – and a likely  contender for an award at the yet to be confirmed International Festival of Cynical Sequels is the aptly named ‘Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,’ a naked attempt to make a few more quid on the back of the hit from 2012 with much the same cast – The best Exotic Marigold Hotel – which grossed a wallet-filling $135 million and cost a modest $10 million to make.  Not  a bad return, yet, as with the disclaimers in small print at the bottom of newspaper advertisements for financial products, past performance is no indication of future success.  I fear, however, that the great mass of film-goers will flock to see their favourite British character actors, ably assisted by a bit of silver-surfer American eye-candy in the form of Richard Gere.  For a critique I cannot argue with, check out this pieces in the Guardian.
Is it art?  Not in my book.  Will it make money?  You bet.  Is it worth paying good money to see?  Only if you want a dishonest sense of British cultural identity to be reinforced, identify with a utopian vision of ageing as well as the utter predictability of the script and the crinkly cast and like to be reminded of just how lovely we are with foreigners.  Personally, I’d download that old 10CC classic and enjoy a different form of popular culture, which had something to say and that also made money.


Posted by author: Adam

2 thoughts on “Going, going, going…

  • Stanley Donen irascibly sums the Film ‘industry’ quite succinctly early in episode two of Mark Cousin’s ‘The Story Of Film an odyssey’. Why should we expect more? Perhaps the answer lies at the end of the episode when we see Dreyer’s approach to realist cinema.
    Your focus is western cinema – please don’t say the ‘Exotic Marigold…’ Is anything other – though it is an example of what Michael Cain would say is work, ‘you take anything that’s offered’. What about Japan, or the greatest cinema industry of them all in India?

    • Forgive the late response. Sadly The Exotic Marigold was loved by many millions around the world including in India would you believe! You are right about work. Actors are all the first to admit they are tarts, but the business of the film industry is no different in Japan and especially India, which are two countries expert at producing vast quantities of highly unmemorable dross for mass consumption, as much as the finest films we have ever seen. The model of western cinema has been willingly embraced around the world.

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