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by Mentaculus
Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:40 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Are we entering a new Age of Hollywood film-making?
Replies: 5
Views: 2201

Re: Are we entering a new Age of Hollywood film-making?

This is a great question - I've been feeling this potential trend nagging in the back of my head for a year or more. There is certainly the feeling that Hollywood filmmaking is reaching, or has reached, an threshold of sorts. Part of it, I think and hasn't been mentioned yet, is the exposure of a kind of "new guard" of creators coming both into their own, and into the mainstream (J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson and Colin Trevorrow, Ava DuVernay, David Lowery, Barry Jenkins, James Gunn, Greta Gerwig...). Combined with the overall moving to prestige television/streaming by established filmmakers like Scorsese (The Irishman), Bong Joon-ho (Okja), and Lynch (Twin Peaks: The Return, possibly the best filmed thing of 2017).

PrestoBix wrote: I agree. I think changes in the way people watch movies greatly outweighs thematic elements from a historical perspective.


This is a bit more complicated for me; I believe technology informs thematic preoccupations (the proliferation of television, and increased visibility of foreign cinema product from Europe, in the 1960's leading to the age of cinematic modernism, as an example). Both are relevant to the discussion.

PrestoBix wrote:As for the trend of mid-budget films disappearing, we've also seen a huge growth in independent cinema, but there hasn't been much support to it from theater chains.


I went to a Q&A with David S. Goyer who (rightly, I believe) said that television has fulfilled the overall vacuum left by mid-budget cinema and its associated subgenres (i.e. political thriller, marriage and relationships, mid-range sci-fi and horror), so by this measure of complete admitted opinion, saying this is a Digital Age may be reaching close to the goal. But I also think that, especially in the last year, the "value sensitive" consumerist model of caring about how a product was made, by whom, and for what purpose, is becoming more a part of the conversation about entertainment. (#metoo) How this now interacts with a declining North American presence in cinema profits, alongside an increase in the necessity of foreign markets (will China overtake N.A. in cinema revenue by 2020?) is the real question I think needing educated exploration.

Potential answer?: I see a kind of equivalency being drawn across the board that values non-Hollywood cinema (including non-traditional distribution of product) at the same level as Hollywood cinema and its traditional model of distribution, which is radical if one thinks about it long enough.