DON'T you sometimes wonder what you're fighting for?
“If we stop breathing, we’ll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.” Some 75 years after the release of Casablanca, Victor Laszlo's response to Rick Blaine's weary question, resonates more than ever.
Casablanca is one of the few movies that is universally acknowledged as a classic, the epitome of all that cinematic storytelling should be. I have been involved in the world of cinema (such as it is in the UK) since that film celebrated its 50th year of release. In that time I have been a critic, deputising for the peerless Mark Kermode on BBC Radio 5 an contributing to other BBC arts programmes. I wrote and re-wrote various screenplays, and even lectured in cinema, specialising in the narrative of Hindi (and then Bollywood) films.
And Casablanca has always featured, a touchstone for inspiration. Although made with low box office expectations despite a stellar cast including Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and the iconic Dooley Wilson as Sam, the film received eight Academy Award nominations at the 1944 Oscars, and went on to win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
I'll always remember one evening in Jutland, Denmark where I had been sent for a few days to lecture and teach screen writing as part of the much lauded “Arista” project –an attempt to make the UK film business more of a business and less of a cottage industry. Those courses were teeming with fascinating and visionary people.
"The professor", our charismatic course leader, was an enigma who and seldom mingled socially with the hoi polloi. I recall one occasion when the day's film-related discussion continued long into the night. The professor sat silently, inscrutably amongst the passionate young writers, dedicated directors, long-suffering producers who mingled with those of us on the “staff”.
Inevitably the conversation came round to our top 10 films, those that we held dear. While some of my top picks are predictable (Godfather II, Godfather I, When Harry Met Sally, Annie Hall, Mother India, Gregory’s Girl, Casablanca, Shawshank, Sholay), we all had those borderline choices that might rouse ridicule, court criticism from our peers. (To this day I contend that Tootsie is the most perfectly constructed romantic comedy.)
There was a pause in proceedings and our esteemed professor pitched up with a rather controversial thought.
“For all its brilliance, you do know that if anyone pitched the idea of Casablanca today, no studio would even consider it." Today, he said, such a film would be considered a commercial risk with no opportunity for a sequel and limited merchandising opportunities.
It took us a moment but the thought did sink in. He was right. Depressingly.
Worldwide, around half-a-million movies are made every year. How many of those are any more than mindless entertainment? Don’t get me wrong, the cinema should be about escape, it should be about our dreams, it should be about submerging ourselves in something that isn’t our humdrum lives. But what does it say about Hollywood that we are now onto Fast And Furious 8, the latest incarnation of a franchise about illegal street racing, crime and machismo. It took a billion quid at the box office. The top 10 films of last year featured eight sequels/prequels and two remakes. And this is a trend that had been increasing annually. Between 2005 and 2010 the number of top-grossing Hollywood films that were sequels, prequels or spin-offs, more than doubled. Of the top 20 films released last year, 13 were not original.
The lack of originality being invested in by the studios is clear. I know that there are plenty of low-budget, independent films that allow the expression of new, exciting, quirky voices but there has to be something of a worry that the film business has become much more about the “business” and much less about the “film”.
While some studio executive somewhere grapples with the garbage that may well become Fast And Furious 9, it’s easy to conclude that a romantic drama set in war-torn North Africa, whose hero chooses to save the world rather than find love, would struggle against car chases, explosions and men with over-developed muscles. And while safe franchises fill the cinemas, these movies are being made by safe directors and safe producers, cast with bankable actors; there’s no appetite for risk.
But I suppose this is called progress. It's what we have come to expect, as time goes by ...
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