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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (20985)	8/8/2001 8:09:24 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

The envelope is pushed big time by lots of these moveies. Of course the envelope is being pushed. The question is to what end. I think that you are right in that a few decades ago, when movies cost less and people were more idealistic, movies were made to push the social envelope, things like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. I don't think that's the case any more, at least with the kind of stuff we're talking about. They're trying to attract the mass market with gorier, sexier, slicker, faster stuff, not advance a social cause of sex and violence. Karen

To: The Philosopher who wrote (20985)	8/8/2001 9:49:38 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Every professional artist (not the weekend painter) is in it for the commercial aspects. If a painter's first 3 paintings don't sell, that painter can still paint. A director whose first 3 movies don't make money is not likely to be directing any more movies. As to the theory that one is restrained from pushing the envelope by corporate interests and budgets, well, I look at some of the stuff that comes out from the movie distributors and I think they pretty well disprove that. The envelope is pushed big time by lots of these moveies. Possibly I should be clearer. I am not saying that these constraints are absolute or universal, or that nothing manages to slip through. I'm saying that these constraints do determine the general trends and directions within the industry. People push the envelope all the time. The vast majority of the envelope-pushing that actually reaches the market takes directions that have been demonstrated to be commercially viable. The reasons for that are pretty obvious. It's not that people are not trying to push the envelope in other directions. They are, but they succeed at a much lower rate, because they have a much harder time getting financing for their projects. Remember that at any given moment, there are tens of thousands of film projects looking for money. Most of them - including some very good ones - never find it. The original question, remember, was whether the industry's focus on sex and violence was market driven, or whether it was part of some agenda outside the market. I would not say that every individual in the business is purely market-driven. But the business, across the board, is, and they are giving us sex and violence because that is what people pay to see. The same argument could be made about architecture, in spades; bigger budgets, much longer lasting, longer time frames, big corporate interests. But some architects push the envelope, too, in pretty major ways. When was the last time you bought a ticket to look at a building? Once a building is up, critics may discuss it, but most people walk on by. When a movie hits the theaters, the market votes with its money, and there is no way to avoid or deny their message.