Love this, Ed. If you'll indulge a screenwriter's musing: for me, the only way I’ve ever brushed up against something that felt remotely original was to begin not with genre, but with some quiet personal dread or unanswered question that keeps me awake - something I don't hear others addressing, but suspect many are feeling - and then find a genre to serve as a vehicle for exploring that. Starting with genre, as many do, often leads to generic or derivative work.
Thanks, Alex! I think you’ve just nailed the difference between an auteur and a journeyman. Absolutely nothing wrong with the latter, but you can usually tell pretty quickly whether that personal obsession/preoccupation is there.
Also, “quiet personal dread” is such a strong phrase!
I think you underestimate just how many nostalgic rep-screenings of Sorcerer we can get out the door.
Fr though, this is tremendous, Ed. To your point about asymmetric advantages, I'm curious what, if anything, you foresee as the defining development of the next era that filmmakers could play upon. Personally, I've got my money on mysticism and spiritual awakening.
Thank you! And good question. Mysticism/spiritual awakening is a great shout. The main other that jumps to mind is the point I mentioned in the piece - examining our relationship with technology in a way more sophisticated and mature than “it’s good vs it’s bad” (*David Cronenberg enters the chat*).
Oh, definitely, and I would also say that those two things (our relationship to technology, and mysticism) are or will prove to be symbiotic. I guess what I mean is, what might those examinations be?
If we understand computers, for instance, to be rocks that we just tricked into thinking using electricity, might the advent of AI unwittingly begin to frame technology as the bridge of communication between human beings and the planet we walk upon?
Cronenberg is the one person I would take up smoking for.
Fantastic stuff. We praise New Hollywood in this house, not because of its originality, but because it was a fine time for cinema that reinvigorated older genres. That wasn't just the filmmakers themselves, but the execs, many of whom either had legacy skin in the game (Alan Ladd Jr) or had extensive experience of old Hollywood.
Not only that, many of those filmmakers understood those genres, so they could bring a new take on it that wasn't simple repetition of tropes, because they were the first generation to be steeped in classic movies (usually through television and revival houses). We wouldn't have Dirty Harry or The French Connection without The Big Heat; we wouldn't have Easy Rider without John Ford (or The Wild Angels, for that matter); we wouldn't have Star Wars without Kurosawa, Ford, or Buster Crabbe. We also had (right into the '90s) filmmakers who weren't - as you so succinctly put it - closed loop. They were steeped in high and low culture in a way that meant they used those allusions as creative wins rather than basic signifiers. As Alex says below: they used genre as the vehicle and culture as the texture to express personal things.
I often feel that modern filmmakers tend to be IP polishers rather than actual honest-to-God artists, or at least have been made that way thanks to studios who no longer appear to value creative execs (and let's not forget that the likes of John Calley, Ted Ashley, Laddie, and Robert Evans were instrumental to the success of New Hollywood), and are instead concerned with courting an ever-younger demographic.
I'd love to think there's hope, though. Certainly the movies you've mentioned here are nice reminders, even if they weren't all as great as they could have been (scowling at you, The Substance). So for that alone I thank you.
Yes! And your point about television and revival houses ties into a big point that I couldn't find room for in the essay -- the role that videos, then DVDs, and now streaming play in relation to belatedness. I think the former two contributed fairly heavily to a sense of belatedness, but I'm unsure whether streaming does the same. If streaming leads to analysis paralysis and lowest-common-denominator viewing, then is it actually making the greatness of past generations more obscure, by simple virtue of the fact that people now have more mediocre options to watch instead? 🤷
Thanks for the kind words and the thoughtful comment!
I think you're right - revival houses and television played a huge role in the '70s youth culture, not to mention access to foreign movies, which helped broaden horizons. In the '90s, I'd argue that many of those filmmakers had access to video and cable, as well as a decent theatrical experience, all of which was to some extent curated. Streaming doesn't do that, other than the boutique streamers like Criterion and Mubi. Despite the wealth of available stuff, it's a much bigger task to find the gold.
There's also no such thing as the old "cable movie" - the one you'd discover ten minutes in and end up watching the whole thing (again!), so solid filmmaking technique (which is usually the staple of these movies) isn't ingrained the way it was. I'd argue that we're deep in the content era, where everything is designed to either be consumed and forgotten, or else become part of a brief discourse and then forgotten.
This isn't to say all is lost, of course. There's just more work to be done on highlighting and preserving the work that has obvious lasting merit.
Love this, Ed. If you'll indulge a screenwriter's musing: for me, the only way I’ve ever brushed up against something that felt remotely original was to begin not with genre, but with some quiet personal dread or unanswered question that keeps me awake - something I don't hear others addressing, but suspect many are feeling - and then find a genre to serve as a vehicle for exploring that. Starting with genre, as many do, often leads to generic or derivative work.
Thanks, Alex! I think you’ve just nailed the difference between an auteur and a journeyman. Absolutely nothing wrong with the latter, but you can usually tell pretty quickly whether that personal obsession/preoccupation is there.
Also, “quiet personal dread” is such a strong phrase!
I think you underestimate just how many nostalgic rep-screenings of Sorcerer we can get out the door.
Fr though, this is tremendous, Ed. To your point about asymmetric advantages, I'm curious what, if anything, you foresee as the defining development of the next era that filmmakers could play upon. Personally, I've got my money on mysticism and spiritual awakening.
Haha! Likewise for Letterboxd subscriptions.
Thank you! And good question. Mysticism/spiritual awakening is a great shout. The main other that jumps to mind is the point I mentioned in the piece - examining our relationship with technology in a way more sophisticated and mature than “it’s good vs it’s bad” (*David Cronenberg enters the chat*).
Oh, definitely, and I would also say that those two things (our relationship to technology, and mysticism) are or will prove to be symbiotic. I guess what I mean is, what might those examinations be?
If we understand computers, for instance, to be rocks that we just tricked into thinking using electricity, might the advent of AI unwittingly begin to frame technology as the bridge of communication between human beings and the planet we walk upon?
Cronenberg is the one person I would take up smoking for.
really great work, Ed. Excited to see what you question and answer next...
Thank you so much for the shoutout! Wasn't aware of the belatedness concept, though I've read a lot of Bordwell.
No problem, thought it was a super interesting piece!
Fantastic stuff. We praise New Hollywood in this house, not because of its originality, but because it was a fine time for cinema that reinvigorated older genres. That wasn't just the filmmakers themselves, but the execs, many of whom either had legacy skin in the game (Alan Ladd Jr) or had extensive experience of old Hollywood.
Not only that, many of those filmmakers understood those genres, so they could bring a new take on it that wasn't simple repetition of tropes, because they were the first generation to be steeped in classic movies (usually through television and revival houses). We wouldn't have Dirty Harry or The French Connection without The Big Heat; we wouldn't have Easy Rider without John Ford (or The Wild Angels, for that matter); we wouldn't have Star Wars without Kurosawa, Ford, or Buster Crabbe. We also had (right into the '90s) filmmakers who weren't - as you so succinctly put it - closed loop. They were steeped in high and low culture in a way that meant they used those allusions as creative wins rather than basic signifiers. As Alex says below: they used genre as the vehicle and culture as the texture to express personal things.
I often feel that modern filmmakers tend to be IP polishers rather than actual honest-to-God artists, or at least have been made that way thanks to studios who no longer appear to value creative execs (and let's not forget that the likes of John Calley, Ted Ashley, Laddie, and Robert Evans were instrumental to the success of New Hollywood), and are instead concerned with courting an ever-younger demographic.
I'd love to think there's hope, though. Certainly the movies you've mentioned here are nice reminders, even if they weren't all as great as they could have been (scowling at you, The Substance). So for that alone I thank you.
Yes! And your point about television and revival houses ties into a big point that I couldn't find room for in the essay -- the role that videos, then DVDs, and now streaming play in relation to belatedness. I think the former two contributed fairly heavily to a sense of belatedness, but I'm unsure whether streaming does the same. If streaming leads to analysis paralysis and lowest-common-denominator viewing, then is it actually making the greatness of past generations more obscure, by simple virtue of the fact that people now have more mediocre options to watch instead? 🤷
Thanks for the kind words and the thoughtful comment!
I think you're right - revival houses and television played a huge role in the '70s youth culture, not to mention access to foreign movies, which helped broaden horizons. In the '90s, I'd argue that many of those filmmakers had access to video and cable, as well as a decent theatrical experience, all of which was to some extent curated. Streaming doesn't do that, other than the boutique streamers like Criterion and Mubi. Despite the wealth of available stuff, it's a much bigger task to find the gold.
There's also no such thing as the old "cable movie" - the one you'd discover ten minutes in and end up watching the whole thing (again!), so solid filmmaking technique (which is usually the staple of these movies) isn't ingrained the way it was. I'd argue that we're deep in the content era, where everything is designed to either be consumed and forgotten, or else become part of a brief discourse and then forgotten.
This isn't to say all is lost, of course. There's just more work to be done on highlighting and preserving the work that has obvious lasting merit.
Thanks for another great read, Ed!