Dear J
Responding to your email about my opinions concerning values in entertainment, i begin with the fundamental benchmark that entertainment( music, films,TV) play a dominant role in teaching the society values, on par or above the influence of parents, siblings,institutions.
One of the landmarks of films produced during the Golden Age was that they taught that having virtues was not easy, but necessary and tough, and often fatal to the hero.
1-COURAGE
In modern films, courage is such an easy commodity, we have no hero currently who lacks courage, all of CHARLIES ANGELS have courage pouring out of every pore, and in Ron Howard’s THE MISSING, even girls who should be in pre school, can track down killer Apaches without any lack of courage,
Courage in films is now cheap, and easy and everyone has it.
In the old days, courage was fatal but necessary.
In HIGH NOON, the hero is racked with cowardice before he rises to the occasion;
in RED RIVER, Montgomery Clift is terrified of John Wayne but saves his men anyway;in HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, the miner tells the people he is a coward, but will hold the coat of the hero; in Z, Yves Montand walks across a deserted square in an act of great courage, and gets murdered for his courage.
One of the reasons 300 succeeded is that it showed courage could be fatal; but if a society is to survive that fatalism is needed.
Courage means you have to give something up for the betterment of society, that is a value i want expressed; current films never show the sacrifice and underlying doubt of courage.
2-Child MOLESTATION
There is a creeping trend in films to UNDERSTAND child molesters, films like HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz , and LITTLE CHILDREN by Todd Field.
and THE HISTORY BOYS, where the old teacher is allowed to grope his young male students.
That is a long way from M, where the criminals hold that meeting to exterminate Peter Lorre’s child killer. In that film, even the worst of the worst understand child molesters are below them. To me that is a value which needs to be maintained.
However, current film makers take the worldview of the OUTSIDER, the predator versus the parent trying to keep their children safe.
3-AMERICAN BEAUTY
This is the epitome of the new value system is this film; the Annette Benning character is working like a dog, in a VERY cruel business( real estate) to save her family, her home, her future while her husband ( the hero) abrogates his patriarchal responsibility to find himself, but while he finds himself he maintains his lifestyle, living in the same house, eating the fancy dinners, all provided by Annette Benning’s hard work.
How can a man who is prepared to send his family down the toilet to find himself, be a hero?
4- RELIGION
This ongoing attack on Christians from SAVED to DOGMA to FAMILY GUY may be an indirect byproduct of the end of the Draft, When everyone in this country had to serve in the Armed Forces, you had very few atheists, because you had very few atheist soldiers( it is tough to deny God when you are being shot at). Even Stalin brought back, to his officially atheist country, religion during World War II.
Intellectuals, who have never faced danger for their country belittle faith, but the vast audience out there still feels under threat and longs for characters with faith. There are films which can be remade ,en toto, with characters of faith, which can give, in a sophisticated manner, the audience what it wants.
5- EVERWOOD
I just read an article in the Los Angeles Times declaring Everwood a “family show”; this was a show in which an adult female baby sitter seduced her 16 year charge, without consequence, i don’t consider that a family show, because again it takes the worldview of the outsider versus the family institution.
6-CAPRA
The current crop of Capra like films fail because they don’t understand Capra. In THE CINDERELLA MAN, the climax of the film was the fight…WRONG…
the climax of the film, if it was a true Capra film, would be the Russell Crowe character going back to the welfare office and repaying his debt to society….instead it was tossed aside. There is nothing more important in a value film, or a Capra film, than the REGAINING of DIGNITY.
7-DOGS
My God this society loves dogs, in fact in the film, MICHAEL the miracle of resurrection is not applied to a sick child nor a murdered victim, but a DOG. In
HIGH SIERRA, Bogart loves his dog, and gets killed for it, in OLD YELLER and HONDO the dogs get killed. Life is tough on Dogs. Like WC Fields said about dog lovers, never trust anyone who loves another species more than its own. Our current film makers love dogs and horses, and aliens and penguins more than man.
8-Redemption
There is no higher quality of individaul than those who have become moral men after a life of corruption,like Rick in CASABLANCA, or the hired killers in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. The audience hungers for some film, any film, in which corrupt men aspire for redemption.
9- MOCKERY
One of the things which is most despairing about the current American culture is the mocking of all virtues. All people who hold values are mocked, all characters who base their life decisions on values are mocked, whether they be Mormons, Christians, Communists, Islamists. People with values need to be taken seriously in our films, everytime i watch Jon Stewart I keep thinking about what he would do with the tidbit that Lincoln dug up his dead son Willie twice, to view his countenance. Can you imagine what the media would have done with that, or Sherman being in an insane asylum, or Lee’s daughters not marrying?
Character must be taken seriously and not mocked.
10-The Decline of the American Male as a Heroic Figure.
In my lifetime, entertainment has defrocked the average American male from heroic status, No American male seems capable of heroism in today entertainment. This was the theme of my episodic series, VENICE BEACH SKETCHES.
To remedy all this galloping diseases of the cultural spirit, I yearn for a return to Classical films, specifically The Classical Western of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Henry Hathaway and John Huston, in which the American character, the flaws in the American character (greed, racism, violence) were examined seriously, not in a mocking nor didactic way.
I attended the Western series at the LACMA, and was stunned by the number of high school students there, drinking it in. The film we saw was THE SEARCHERS, packed house. My date said, can you imagine people in 50 years going to see a revival of any current film which is not a cartoon?
I firmly believe a return to Classical films could be profitable ,salvage the cultural spirit and leave a legacy.
Gerry Maxey
EastEnders: Syed Masood, played by Marc Elliott Photograph: BBC
George Grosz
George Grosz
George Grosz
