Post by spiderwort on Nov 9, 2019 14:31:31 GMT
Personally I prefer more or less realistic films although I have to admit that you‘re right about the violence and sexuality. Aren’t they simply mirroring our society that is becoming more and more aggressive and seems to have all lost all its taboos?
Oh, please don't think I mean films that have only happy endings or look at life through rose-colored glasses. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm talking about films that still contain life affirming qualities even when grim and possibly end in death. I think it's the exploitation of the worst in the human condition without the counterbalance of some goodness that upsets me the most. That and too often the failure to convey the absolute reality that there are consequences to actions in every human story.
A film can make me weep at the sadness and heartache in the world and still show me that in spite of that, to whatever small degree manifested, there is goodness, too, goodness that in the end countervails the bad. Without that, a film is meaningless to me, and, I believe, harmful to society. My favorite film, the one that inspired me to become a director, Splendor in the Grass, is one of the saddest films I've ever seen. And yet it still, in its complex way, offers so much that is life-affirming about the human condition. That is the power of its art.
And as for films mirroring our society, as one who's spent a lifetime studying and making films, and who's old enough to have experienced the changes that have been wrought on the screen in the last several decades, I must categorically say that I believe that films (and television) do not mirror society, they direct and define it. The easiest way to understand that concept, I think, is to recognize the power of commercials to lead people to where businesses want them to go. Culture follows the medium, I believe, like form follows function.
That's one of the reasons I've resisted participating over the years in certain kinds of productions. I believe that the people who have the ability to put things on the screen must take responsibility for the power of their influence. I think, in the end, it's that lapse above all else that I regret the most.
And as others have pointed out, it's unquestionably true that there are still films being made that contain the qualities I desire, and I'm grateful for that. I even see a few now and then. But they are far in the minority, it seems to me, in America anyway. (Though it's possible that my judgement is skewed by the fact that I've pretty much stopped looking these days, I'm truly sad to say.)