WHY IT MATTERS

I do not often write about the  business of the business of making shows. I prefer the end result: the opening night on Broadway, the streaming of new and old television series, the Academy screenings of the work of the best filmmakers of Hollywood and the world. It is fun for me… writing about those things, sitting back, and picking nits as to just how much more wonderful something might have been… if only.

I journeyed a bit out of that comfort zone with my last article and there are readers of mine, members of either the Writers Guild of America or the Screen Actors Guild, who took umbrage with          what they viewed as me siding with their opposition, i.e., the motion picture and network studio heads against whom they are striking.

Fact is, I am an erstwhile member of both of those striking unions but membership aside, my views are complicated by my own experience with the so called “industry.”

The business is tough, and it can be arbitrary. Today, every movie executive knows that if they says “no” to every pitch they get for a motion picture, that they will be right 90% of the time. Every one of them knows that they will rarely get into trouble for turning something down but can easily lose a job by saying “yes” to the wrong performer or project.

And yet…

Pictures do get made. Bad as the Hollywood system can be, it beats any alternative I know about. I have tried breaking away, to attempt making that once in a lifetime hit as an independent filmmaker. Painful.

Out there, in LA-LA Land, there are folks a filmmaker can talk to who have some sense of what it is that the artist is trying to accomplish. People who speak the language, and whose mandate it is to finance at least a limited number of film and television projects.

There are abuses, there is unfairness, and there is (to put it mildly) inappropriate behavior, but bad as those things (and more) may be, no network or studio executive ever imposed on me the harsh restrictions I inflicted on myself as an independent producer. They never had me go out in the field on location with inferior equipment, or insufficient photographic stock. They never sent me into a town without advance preparation… or follow‑through… or back‑up. These were things that, due to the lack of proper capitalization, I foisted on myself.

It is so difficult to succeed. So near the impossible to make a profit. It is a wonder anyone makes movies. But they do. The entire process gives me a profound sense of gratitude for the people who actually do put up money for the arts.

I will concede that some of that was bound to come through in my piece about the on-going labor strike in Hollywood. Still, it doesn’t alter the fact that the potentially lethal combination of the COVID pandemic, along with the synergy of streaming, coupled with the advent of innovative technologies, has created a landscape that is unfavorable to reasonable discussions or conclusions about the future of labor and management in show business.

There is a real question whether this grand tradition of making movies, as we have come to know it, will continue in America.

Why does it matter? If what has gone before could be termed “the American Century,” then in no small way it is due to the entertainment industry. Berlin and Paris were once the center of the cinematic arts, but since the advent of World War I… and the subsequent need in Europe to use nitrate for explosives rather than film stock for motion pictures… the film capital has been my old hometown… Hollywood, California.

And it was not so long ago that French was the language of diplomacy and the means for international communication. Today it is English. Trust me, that is not thanks to Boris Johnson, or any American President or politician. It is Hollywood that has spread the English language and the American Dream all over the globe.

America may no longer make the best automobiles, steel, or even computers, but for over one hundred years it has manufactured the best filmed entertainment in the world. That is not a birthright; only Europe’s past mistakes made it possible in the first place.

It is in all of our interests to not underestimate the value of exporting the American Dream. I fear we are in the process of doing just that. I think it still matters, and that is why I write about it.

 

Barney Rosenzweig