By Jeff Perren from Shaving Leviathan.
The amount and variety of entertaining films produced by MGM over the decades easily numbers in the thousands.
Everything from musicals with Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor to dramatic films like The Picture of Dorian Gray and Madame Bovary were grist for its mill. It distributed intense westerns like Naked Spur and the Russian melodrama Doctor Zhivago. Then, of course, there were the many Bond films.
Even a non-MGM film like Gone With the Wind — still the largest box-office success of all time — might not have been possible without MGM. Not only did the studio loan Clark Gable for the lead, but producer David O. Selznick learned his trade under the oft-chafing thumb of father-in-law Louis B. Mayer.
It was without question the largest 'star factory' in Hollywood for at least three decades. And that fact points to an important element missing from today's incarnation of film production: the producer.
There are still superb writers (most of whom work for television shows). There are fine actors. There are even a few good directors. But there is no Harry Cohn, Darryl Zanuck, or Samuel Goldwyn anywhere in view. And, before anyone mentions Steven Spielberg or George Lucas (or even the Weinstein Brothers), I'll hasten to borrow a line from one of MGM's greatest films, The Big Country: They're "not fit to shine the Major's boots."
Hollywood won't be even a shadow of its former self until another like them arises. When that may be, or even if it's possible in today's cultural climate, no one can say. That last, after all, is the basic reason the movies are what they are today. And that is perhaps the saddest outcome of all.
20 comments:
Hit Publish too quick. Lest anyone not see it from the difference of style alone, this was posted by Jeff Perren, not Peter Cresswell.
Sorry about that!
"...the movies are what they are today." What are the movies of Hollywood today? Better than nostalgia dictates? More influenced by the state than in earlier times? I've no idea.
The state of the film industry would seem to be a mere perception pinioned on personal taste.
Chris R.
http://www.filmsite.org/aa39.html
Here are the nominees (and winners) of the 1939 Academy Awards.
Picture:
"GONE WITH THE WIND", "Dark Victory", "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", "Love Affair", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", "Ninotchka", "Of Mice and Men", "Stagecoach", "The Wizard of Oz", "Wuthering Heights"
Actor:
ROBERT DONAT in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", Clark Gable in "Gone With The Wind", Laurence Olivier in "Wuthering Heights", Mickey Rooney in "Babes in Arms", James Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"
Actress:
VIVIEN LEIGH in "Gone With The Wind", Bette Davis in "Dark Victory", Irene Dunne in "Love Affair", Greta Garbo in "Ninotchka", Greer Garson in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips"
Supporting Actor:
THOMAS MITCHELL in "Stagecoach", Brian Aherne in "Juarez", Harry Carey in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", Brian Donlevy in "Beau Geste", Claude Rains in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"
Supporting Actress:
HATTIE MCDANIEL in "Gone With The Wind", Olivia de Havilland in "Gone With The Wind", Geraldine Fitzgerald in "Wuthering Heights", Edna May Oliver in "Drums Along the Mohawk", Maria Ouspenskaya in "Love Affair"
Director:
VICTOR FLEMING for "Gone With The Wind", Frank Capra for "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", John Ford for "Stagecoach", Sam Wood for "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", William Wyler for "Wuthering Heights"
Here are the nominees (and winners) of the 2009 Academy Awards.
Picture:
"THE HURT LOCKER", "Avatar," "The Blind Side," "District 9," "An Education,""Inglourious Basterds," "Precious," "A Serious Man," "Up," "Up in the Air"
Actor:
JEFF BRIDGES in "Crazy Heart," George Clooney in "Up in the Air," Colin Firth in "A Single Man," Morgan Freeman in "Invictus," Jeremy Renner in "The Hurt Locker"
Actress:
SANDRA BULLOCK in "The Blind Side," Helen Mirren in "The Last Station," Carey Mulligan in "An Education," Gabourey Sidibe in "Precious," Meryl Streep in "Julie & Julia"
Supporting Actor:
CHRISTOPH WALTZ in "Inglourious Basterds," Matt Damon in "Invictus," Woody Harrelson in "The Messenger," Christopher Plummer in "The Last Station," Stanley Tucci in "The Lovely Bones"
Supporting Actress:
MO'NIQUE in "Precious," Penelope Cruz in "Nine," Vera Farmiga in "Up in the Air," Maggie Gyllenhaal in "Crazy Heart," Anna Kendrick in "Up in the Air"
Director:
KATHRYN BIGELOW for "The Hurt Locker," James Cameron for "Avatar," Lee Daniels for "Precious," Jason Reitman for "Up in the Air," Quentin Tarantino for "Inglourious Basterds"
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If, in your view, there is no significant moral and esthetic difference - if neither set is worse or better than the other - if believing so is written off as mere nostalgia - nothing I could say would cause you to reconsider.
Might be fairer if you didn't cherry-pick a particularly good year, and compare it to a particularly dull year.
I stick with my earlier comment that the state of the film industry is/was a matter of personal taste.
By you choosing 1939 as your first target year is interesting: Wasn't that the year the world hit the speed button towards savagery? Also, the films of that year (or indeed any year) stem from literature much of which will have been written over a passage of time. If "Gone With The Wind" had been first screen-written in 2008 and filmed in 2009 would it necessarily be a better film than any of the 2009 finalists? I don't think so. It would turn on the social/commercial reception it received at the box-office. Your argument seems to brazenly turn on an acceptance that being an Oscar nominee is a badge of undeniable quality. My personal perception is that being in the hunt for an Oscar fails to establish that a given film is a great film. I suspect all it establishes is that it was a good investment for its promoters/producers.
Still, Jeff this is a diverting debate. It would be interesting to compare the respective literature bestsellers for the years you cite.
Cheers
Chris R.
Chris R,
Here's a fairer poll, but will only work if you are over 30. I say that because I've met knuckle heads in their 20s who think that Ghostbusters is an old movie and that Saw I thru XIV is the culmination of cinematic art. So if you haven't started using your brain independently yet - this isn't going to work.
Go through the list of DVDs that you own. Supplement that with the ones that you would like to own (Amazon Wish List anyone?)
To avoid the bargain bin bias, select only those that you bought brand new and would not hock off to the 2nd Hand dealer if by some miracle they would offer you 50-100% of the value you paid.
OK.
Now for the survey: Based on theater release date (use a 5-year period starting in 1930 to make sure it isn't arduous) organize and count your movies.
I'm betting that the period between 2000-2005 and 2005-2010 is going to be pretty lean.
That is Jeff's point. That movie making has been getting progressively worse to the point where MGM can't make a film that people will pay to see any more.
Robert/Jeff
I still think this debate turns on personal taste and perception. It is truly impossible to compare, either favourably or unfavourably the social mores of different eras. Anyway what's the point in doing so? It reminds me of the debates as to who was the better boxer Joe Louis vs Muhammad Ali when they competed at different times,in different conditions and of course not against each other.
In the early days of Hollywood many less than commendable films were made, perhaps the difference today is that the cheap "horror/teenage" films are more widely distributed and hence climb the Oscar ladder?
By the way I do not own enough DVDs to test Robert's theory although I am well over thirty.
Chris R.
Chris,
I think the point is this: in 1939 a bucket load full of movies were made that are still widely known and liked today.
I do not think a single movie made today will be widely known (let alone liked) in 70 years.
Music is the same. Can you think of one of today's musicians, of the 90's and 00's breed, that will still get a platinum album in 50 years? We just have a "use and dispose" culture nowadays.
Dolf,
Of course I can't predict what tastes will be preferred 50 odd years hence.I doubt that the makers of films in the 1930s were confident/conceited enough to believe that their films would still be lauded so many years later.
I agree that much of what is regarded as tasteful or worthy today is garbage to me personally. But it isn't necessarily so to my neighbours or heirs. I recently saw some of the early 1970s Monty Python sketches. As a student in 1972 I regarded those very same sketches as side-splittingly hilarious, my response now was muted to the point of cringing.
The point is, tastes change, we change! A few years ago my mother obtained a copy of the Hitchcock classic "Psycho." She told her grandsons what a gripping and terror filled film it was and they all sat down to view it. 45 minutes later the teenage grandsons were belly-aching that it was boring!
It is shifting sands to impose/predict tastes.
Chris R.
And yet gone with the wind still sells. As does the wizard of oz.
Your example of the 70's show making you cringe today proves the point. Today's stuff (and even going back a decade or three) has no longevity. It is not intended to have. It is made to be crap, so we can hype it, sell it and move on to "the next big thing".
Gone are the days of making things of substance.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everything was better then and is crap now, I would actually take a guess at a few names that may endure, but the philosophy changed. Most producers nowadays know their films are dogs, they just hype them hard.
For the record, I actually disagree with the original poster on Spielberg, as series like band of brothers has got to rank as one of the greatest shows ever produced for Television.
Dolf
No I don't necessarily accept that you've proved the point you say you have.
We simply cannot foretell what films etc younger people of today will allow to endure past the first stage of the life of such.
There are many films, pieces of music etc from the 1960s and 1970s that have stood the test of time for those who first enjoyed them. The continuing existence of Golden Oldies radio bears witness to this alongwith the life and times of Jagger and Richards. It does not mean that these now antiquated diversions are better made/performed than similar popular culture being made today.
It is foolhardy to attempt to predict durability simply based on personal perceptions and taste.I do not accept that the producers of the 1939 array of films felt they possessed a direct line to an ongoing volksgeist of appreciation anymore than the creators of today. Maybe the answer is that things taken out of temporal context can never be comprehensively and accurately compared? I don't know.
Chris R
Chris,
I don't think I've been clear.
I am in no way trying to predict what will stand the test of time.
Neither am I stating that Mr Mayer or the Warner Brothers could or even tried.
In my mind, the intention of producers of music and film has changed.Previously we had more film producers attempting to make a picture of substance. Something with enduring characters and themes that are common across generations.
That these movies are still popular pays testament to the fact that they succeeded in this aim.
The fact that today's movies are so very forgettable is testament to the fact that this was the intention with which they were made: A quick buck, off a gullible "Consumer".
Note not all movies of the '30 were great, and not all movies today are terrible. The average may even have remained the same, but we do not have the individual heights today (ie. no Gone with the wind in the last 2 decades)
To tie in to a comment you made earlier: yes 2010 was a dull year to compare to 1939, but what year in the last 20 would you pick in it's place?
Dolf,
By his own statement, Chris really could not pick any year because he does not believe there is such a thing as objectively worse or better in films (and I suspect his view extends to all art, and perhaps all values as such).
Since it's not an issue I want to debate at length just now, I'll make only this brief statement about that.
Subjectivism in aesthetics - as in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics - is an inherently self-contradictory position.
It violates the most basic principle of reasoning, which requires acceptance of what Rand called the Primacy of Existence.
The only place matters of taste is valid as a position is in literal matters of taste, i.e. such as a preference for chocolate over vanilla ice cream.
Anything involving values is necessarily subject to evaluation by objective standards - even if we didn't yet know what they were - if one's position is to be rationallly defensible.
I won't attempt here to argue for that position. I just lay it out as my position and reiterate that until the subjectivist is willing to accept this view, i.e. to abandon subjectivism, no progress in the debate is possible.
Why?
Because, while it's rational to argue about whether or not a particular instance is worth praise or criticism, and in what respect, to put everything down to ineradicable differences of opinion is to abandon reason in esthetics. That is no more defensible a position than it is in politics or life in general.
MGM and other studios are potentially good investments for the contrarian with a significant amount of cash and a high risk tolerance. I have a deal contact if any readers are interested.
Studios are in trouble for many reasons - piracy, dvd's, unions, ridiculous fees for "A" listers and so on. The industry can not be compared to the glory days of 1930's - it is entirely different.
Sleeper money makers still abound - and sadly they are often silly comedies that appeal to young men.
P.S. Because it would be easy to misunderstand or object to one portion of my comment, I'm adding this:
Objectivity does not require us all to like exactly the same things, and to the same degree.
Also, it's certainly possible, even common, for there to exist many different concretes (and different types of concrete) to be simulataneously objectively good, and better or worse for a particular individual. (Think of a particular drug as an analogy. There are many different ones that are good or bad, and one particular one may be good for one individual and bad for another. It's nevertheless true that arsenic is bad for just about everybody.)
I hope this addendum helps more than it confuses, but it's a complicated subject so I can't do any better than this in the time available.
Dolf, Jeff et al,
I have not intentionally disagreed with anyone on this thread but comments as (Dolf's) "..movies today are forgettable." Forgettable for whom? Forgettable over what span of time? This is a subjective stance is it not?
I accept that the only objective measure of aesthetic worth may be public/widespread acclaim but how does that equate to any notion of worthiness. I state that it does not.
The initial post made the claim that in an unidentifiable manner the (Oscar) films of 1939 are better than those of today, without establishing any emperical proof that they are. If I were a techno-wiz I may correctly assert that camera function in the movies of today is more proficient than 70 years ago, therefore a newer film has more quality than a vintage film.
I confess that my initial response was to bat away what I read as an untestable haughty assertion relating to the personally perceived attributes of 1939 Oscar nominees. I do not have a year in mind when I have ever pondered the quality of films up for Oscar honours ahead of any other year. How Jeff can interpret my stance as subjective truly evades me.
Chris R.
Chris
Are you usually this dense or is it you don't want to admit to understanding what Jeff has been telling you about? For goodness sake, stop pretending.
It's time for you to go away and have a quiet think about what you've been taught.
LGM
The reason movies are easily forgettable today is because there are 2 many varieties or stories and plots available today than say, 1930s. It is irrelevant to compare today to the 1930s. It is a sign of wealth that there are too many things to choose from today. Back then in the 1930s there were only perhaps 2 or 3 movies made in a year. Today, you have tons and the nature of the markets say that not every one of them will become a winner/box-office, that's reality, regardless of how many millions poured into the marketing of those high budget movies. Only a few will make it to the top, the rest will linger at the bottom. It is similar to music of today. Artists come and go. They’re top of the charts today and we forget them tomorrow. Back then, people hooked into Bing Crosby’s music for life and tend not to buy anything else. Modern gadgets come and go, i.e., we forget them since the new fad arrives. Back in the 1930s, where things were scarce, one could buy a product and vividly remembered his/her experience of using that product till their old age. Examples, you often hear old people today talking about their experience of first using a washing machine back in those days. It is still vivid in their minds today, while we tend to brush off such conversations with those oldies, since to us, they're talking about technology that's not even registered in our radars because they were primitive, judging by what we have today. WHY? Because we have too many bloody superior washing machine products available today that one hardly comes out on top of the other competing brands.
Stop comparing a horse carriage yesterday and a modern car of today with sophisticated technologies. They're different; there is no similarity at all. They can't be benchmarked against each other as they're from different era.
I forgot to mention in my last post that I agree with Chris in his argument.
Like I said, I don't choose to take the time just now to debate this subject at length. It's true, I haven't attempted to prove my position. But I can't resist responding to this: "How Jeff can interpret my stance as subjective truly evades me."
Uh, it's in practically every (if not every) post you've made on this thread, including the one from which I drew this ending quote. You've persistently said things like, "I still think this debate turns on personal taste and perception." Putting evaluation down to "perception" is a classic subjectivist position.
Now, perhaps I'm misreading you and you are claiming that I am being subjective, and not that esthetic choices are inherently so. But, then what to make of things like: "It is truly impossible to compare, either favourably or unfavourably the social mores of different eras." and "I accept that the only objective measure of aesthetic worth may be public/widespread acclaim but how does that equate to any notion of worthiness[?] I state that it does not."
Indeed it does not. The collectivist version of subjectivism is no less subjectivist, and should not be equated with objectivity. But "worthiness" and "aesthetic worth" is, in the context of a discussion of aesthetics, a distinction without a difference.
Incidentally, I was not the one who said – nor did what I write imply – that old movies are good because people still like them. That would be an ad populum fallacy. If they're good, good people will like them 70 years later, but the converse isn't necessarily true.
Finally, nothing should be read into my choosing Oscar nominees (nor, those from 1939 in particular). It was just an example for easy comparison containing films I thought most might have seen, or at least heard of.
I could have just as well chosen almost any set of five from any year prior to about 1965 and compared them to almost any other from about 1970 on. The period in between is transitional, and the phenomenon is not an exceptionless straight line of "glorious" to "horrible," anyway. No single film will show the pattern, but the pattern is there.
(Just as importantly, we quickly left the issue of whether old films were better or worse and rapidly veered into that of "is there any such thing as better or worse when it comes to art.")
It's also there – as has been pointed out – in music. And in fiction, the theater, painting, sculpture, and all the other arts. But I'm not going to take the effort here to cite example after example and analyze at length why the example is germane and what it shows.
And what does that pattern show, roughly speaking? It's this: the view of Man and Life depicted by modern art (films in particular, TV having more exceptions than the rest) is utterly degraded, utterly vulgar, utterly cynical, anti-hero, and (with few exceptions) anti-romantic. Therefore, I submit, objectively worse. (That's apart from issues of witless writing, vapid stars, lack of artistic direction, and all the rest.)
But, again, I'm not attempting here to prove that point now, only state it. If you want to conclude, therefore, that I am being subjective, so be it.
P.S. FF "Back then in the 1930s there were only perhaps 2 or 3 movies made in a year." I'm not sure where you got your stats. If my memory serves, and it usually does in this area, each major studio then distributed about one film per week. Is this a typo on your part? More importantly, you analogy is not apt. A film is not like a washing machine.
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