In the previous post I talked about Hollywood's odd current string of ranty anti-war movies, which have all been summarily rejected by the larger audience. It occurs to me that finding a large audience for anything these days is increasingly problematic. We have so many more choices now than ever before. I can get to two large multiplexes with 15 screens apiece within 10 minutes of my house. I can see any number of different films, on any number of subjects. There are thousands of other films available on various DVDs at my local library, or the video store, or even from a box at McDonald's. I am part of a market niche that marketers can easily find. And they do.
While that's great, sometimes I wonder if finding a larger, broader audience is something anyone is really trying to do any more. In earlier years, the producers in Hollywood spent more time trying to find stories that would have more universal appeal. The ones that are especially well-done are a huge part of our cultural heritage. I would be willing to bet that nearly everyone who reads this blog has seen the movie that is pictured above. That movie, North by Northwest, is a grand entertainment from 1959. Nearly 50 years on, it still works beautifully. I showed it to my kids last year and they both loved it. While it's one of my all-time favorite movies, it's probably not even the best picture directed by Alfred Hitchcock. But it has all sorts of things that please audiences -- charismatic stars in Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, taut, tense storytelling and some of the most famous set-pieces in movie history. It's just wonderful.
So here's a question for the audience of this blog. Actually, two questions.
1) What movies, meant for a larger audience, do you particularly enjoy? And,
2) Can you think of any movie made in the last decade that will be as beloved in fifty years as North by Northwest is now?
The floor is open.
1 comment:
The mass market movie and the broadcast network are going the way of the dinosaur I imagine. And good riddance I say. Almost every film or television show I've really enjoyed in recent years could not have possibly been made in the mass audience era. I'll take Six Feet Under and Pan's Labyrinth over Gunsmoke and Gone with the Wind any day.
To answer your two questions:
1) What movies, meant for a larger audience, do you particularly enjoy?
It depends where you draw the cutoff between a niche market and mass market. But for the ones clearly aimed at big box office numbers:
The Godfather, Singing in the Rain, Lawrence of Arabia, Sunset Blvd, The Maltese Falcon, King Kong. I better stop there or I'll never finish the comment.
2) Can you think of any movie made in the last decade that will be as beloved in fifty years as North by Northwest is now?
Yes, mostly films made with a younger audience in mind. Kids - bless their conformist, tribal little hearts - still share a kind of common culture that adults increasingly do not. I think the Pixar films and the Lord of the Rings, for example, will hold up over the decades.
Post a Comment