It's all about the money

So why is the business of film so important to understanding and appreciating film culture?  I make no apology for returning to this subject and I will do so again when I think there is something interesting to help focus the mind on this question. Last week the BBC broadcast the final episode of a three-part series presented by the critic Mark Kermode on the reality of the economics of the film industry.  His focus is primarily Hollywood, which whether we like it or not, dominates our viewing experience, but includes hugely insightful and interesting interviews with British producers.  All the programmes are available on the BBC iPlayer.
Kermode looks at the three phases of film-making; firstly the development and realisation of ideas, exploring development hell and questions the benefit to the British film industry of tax breaks and subsidies.  The second episode looks at how you raise the money to make your film and the endless battle between art and commerce. Kermode discusses a film I wrote> about recently, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, using it as an example of some of the fundamental differences between the UK and Hollywood film investment business models.  The third episode looks at the dark art of film distribution and how the public plays its own part in building a head of steam to generate bigger box office returns.
I do wonder if what we see in the film industry – an often unholy alliance between money and art is really anything new?  After all, The great Michaelangelo was dependent on the patronage of the Medici family until they ran out of power and influence.  His works were big budget and intended for maximum impact in the holy alliances between artist, patron and invariably the church of the renaissance world.  We often think of the penniless artist dying of consumption in their garrets.  Yet conforming to trends, mixing in the right artistic circles and having the right patrons was key to an artist’s financial security and critical and commercial success. With the invention of printing, books became affordable and with this affordability and accessibility came a global business of publishing and distribution. Composers may have needed their wealthy and blue-blooded patrons.  J.S Bach was born into a hugely successful musical family.  His connections and reputation helped him to find employment  with Prince Leopold of Anhalt-KÖthen and later the Polish king Augustus III, but his most reliable revenue stream was from sales of his sheet music.  Film-makers need to go where the money is if they want to get their films funded just as composers like Bach needed to satisfy those with money and power and equally importantly, the music-loving public.  Composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries needed to sell their music to the general public because entertainment was in the home.  Being able to play a musical instrument and to sing where key social requirements amongst most social groups. so publishing and the distribution of printed sheet music became literally the bread and butter of musical talent.
Throughout the Kermode’s programmes interviewees talk about how box office receipts are not an indicator of artistic merit or cultural value. The big studio brands do produce works of great artistic merit and equally, independents do produce, like the studios, vast quantities of very bad films.  What is certain however is that you cannot make a great film from a lousy script, no matter how talented the director or how big the budget.  What is also true is that a great script is no guarantee of a successful film.  So, how do we judge success when so much of what is considered successful is related to how much money it makes.  Maybe that is where the difference lies between film and other art forms.