[Cwgrad-announcements] A great quote, and a fascinating article about American movies and our world

[cwgrad-announcements at lists.ucr.edu]

Courtesy of Robin Russin...


"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on  
broken glass."
– Anton Chekhov



  Why They Hate Our Movies by Howard Suber

In forty years of teaching at the UCLA film school, I've often had  
discussions with filmmakers and critics from other countries about  
the fact that, since the late 1920s, American films have generally  
received 85 to 90 percent of all the revenues from film distribution  
around the world. (What other major American industry has been that  
successful for that long?)

On a teaching trip last month to Europe, I once again heard the  
explanation that people outside the United States so often give for  
this remarkable fact: "You Americans spend so much money on your  
movies that it's impossible for us to compete."

Although few in America dare to speak his name any more, things are  
different in Europe, so I responded to my hostile audience member by  
saying, "That's vulgar Marxism. The capitalists who own the industry  
- about half of whom are not Americans - would gladly pull their  
money out of Hollywood and put it into some other country's films if  
they were as commercially successful. So much money is spent on  
American films because so much money is made on them."

Why do people around the world continue to prefer American films  
after all these years? I don't think it's because our films are  
"better"; I think it's because most American films sell something  
that people want, something they're hungry for, and can never get  
enough of.

What they're selling also explains why today, as always, there are a  
significant number of people who hate our movies. What American  
movies are selling is the Unstated State Religion of America:  
Individualism -- the belief that the most important power in the  
world lies within each person.

In the history of the world, the belief in the centrality of the  
individual is quite new and, as we are learning once again, quite  
tenuous. Orthodox believers of several religions, like orthodox  
Marxists, Nazis, Fascists and others, have told us for a very long  
time that that the most important power lies outside of the  
individual. Their belief systems say we must tune our attitudes,  
actions, and aspirations to the power of God, Jesus, Allah, History,  
The State, The Fuehrer, Il Duce, etc. Although they differ enormously  
from one another, such belief systems agree on one thing: the most  
important power in our lives does not lie within.

Not surprisingly, the orthodox followers of such anti-individualist  
belief systems have seldom produced great drama. This is because  
film, like drama since at least the Elizabethans, depends on  
individual will, action, and responsibility. It is also not  
surprising that the orthodox believers of many religious or quasi- 
religious "isms" have prohibited their followers from seeing popular  
American movies. Because they locate power within the individual,  
American movies offer a competing belief system.

Orthodox followers of religions and ideologies often see the  
individualism that is the bedrock of American popular films as self- 
centered, narcissistic, materialistic, shallow, decadent -- without  
any sense of obligation to Higher Things. Unrestrained individualism  
can indeed be all of these, as real life in America, especially  
lately, so often demonstrates.

But the memorable popular American movies - the ones that millions of  
people responded to when they first came out and continue to respond  
to -- do not encourage the attitudes and actions that the orthodox  
fear. As I demonstrate in my book, The Power of Film  
(thepoweroffilm.com), memorable popular films from America agree with  
most of the values of orthodox religions. They disagree about where  
the most important power lies.

For decades, I have asked a wide variety of audiences to name the  
most memorable dramatic works in history -- those that, if they are  
plays, continue to be produced, or if they are movies, continue to be  
watched by later generations. People most often mention Oedipus Rex,  
Medea, and Antigone, Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, Death of a  
Salesman, Citizen Kane, and The Godfather.

What do these stories have in common? They are all about a single  
individual, around whom all the action, as well as all the other  
characters, revolve. More often than not, the work itself is named  
after this character. This is individualism in action.

I also have asked audiences for several decades to name the memorable  
films that have come out of Italy under Mussolini, Germany under  
Hitler, Russia under Stalin, or China under Mao. I usually receive  
blank stares, and it's not simply that there's nobody in the audience  
with knowledge of these countries' film histories. It's because, with  
a few exceptions, there aren't any. If you deny power to the  
individual, as these dictators did, you make it almost impossible for  
memorable films to emerge.

Societies that deny the power of the individual ironically tend to  
gravitate towards a single all-powerful individual who is allowed to  
hold the power of the nation in his hands. When this happens, there  
is no need to create heroic individuals in fiction because public  
squares, news broadcasts, postage stamps and flags all emblazon the  
image of the same hero on them.

Paradoxically, societies such as our own that trumpet a belief in the  
power of the individual seldom allow any single individual to acquire  
much power in real life. As popular culture in America demonstrates,  
there is an inverse rule that dictates that, the more power someone  
in real life has, the more there seems an urgent necessity to cut him  
or her down to size.

Individualist societies are uncomfortable with heroes in real life,  
and often don't know what to do with them. Perhaps, as a  
compensation, they produce a multitude of heroes in their movies and  
other popular media.

Everyone knows that American Individualism means that each person is  
expected to "look out for #1" -- himself. And yet, no memorable  
popular American film gives us a protagonist who is only concerned  
with himself throughout the film.

At the beginning of Casablanca, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) utters  
that famous line, "I stick my neck out for nobody" but by the end,  
he's given up the only person he's ever truly loved for "The Cause."  
In Gone With the Wind, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), makes it clear  
early in the film that, "I'm the only cause I believe in," but he  
becomes a hero by running the Northern blockade to aid his  
countrymen, and joins the army even though he knows the Confederacy  
is doomed.

Early in It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey (James Stewart) tells  
his father that he wants to get out of the small town he lives in and  
scorns, but then he devotes his whole life to it. Early in On the  
Waterfront, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) says, "Me? I'm with Me" and  
he advises Edie (Eva Marie Saint) that his philosophy is "Do it to  
them before they do it to you." By the end of the film, however, he  
is beaten nearly to death fighting on behalf of his fellow workers.  
Finally, early in The Godfather, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) says of  
the story he has just told his girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton),  
"That's my family, Kay -- it's not me." But Michael then joins his  
family's violent business in order to save his father's life.

The pattern here is clear: characters often begin their story being  
concerned only with themselves; but by the end, they sacrifice  
themselves for their family, community, or cause. This is not that  
different from those with orthodox religious or political faiths, who  
also believe in the importance of sacrifice.

The difference lies in where each thinks the most important power  
lies. When Orthodox Muslims talk about their plans, they usually say,  
Inshallah, just as Orthodox Jews say, "God Willing." For the  
religious, the power to make something happen lies outside individual  
will or control. But where in America's memorable movies, aside from  
Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ - about as orthodox a film as  
has ever been made - does a central character rely on God, Jesus,  
Mohammad, or some other force outside himself?

The sad fact is that, throughout history, and in much of the world  
today - even in so-called advanced societies - people do not feel  
they have power as individuals. It is no wonder, then, that they  
hunger for films that tell them that a single individual can matter,  
can be in control of his or her own destiny.

It is not surprising that those who believe the most important power  
lies in a deity, the state, or some idea should hate American movies.  
They are correct to see in them a competing belief system. What is  
surprising is that so many people who share the belief in the power  
of the individual fail to realize how powerful it is.

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