Last edited by SealLion; 23.12.11 at 04:37.
"God, from the mount Sinai
whose grey top shall tremble,
He descending, will Himself,
in thunder, lightning, and loud trumpet’s sound,
ordain them laws".
John Milton (1608-1674) in Paradise Lost
Ripley'sSealLion's Believe it or Not! ~ NASCAR car crashes and Windows have just one thing in common.
Oh, oh. Better use LINUX.
i'm pretty sure these observations can definitely apply to british cinema or just about any other as well, the differences being in their level of implementation, obviousness & global presence - as it is the case for movies, among others, the usa entertainment machinery is simply the 'usual suspect', sometimes the leading force and/or a reflection of global tendencies in a world hell-bent on global harmonization (which means they all tend to converge to a similar position, hence the generalization)
There is one thing that I was thinking about before and I hesitated to mention it due to it's non-relevance to the topic but I think that I'll mention it here anyways and that is that film can have the tendency to influence human social behaviors and awareness. Think "Hotel Rwanda" (genocide) or even "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (mental institutions), Film production can play a positive role in making the viewer aware of his/her environment. This awareness does depend however on the quality of the film too, of course and that is where good script-writing skills come into play. I'll further my example to make the point Take the issue of health again. Health issues can be portrayed and humanized in a movie which leaves the viewers with a greater and richer understanding of what it must be like for a person with some kind of condition and the people who take care of them. Movies like "A Beautiful Mind" (schizophrenia) are another example. And to cite one of the examples that I gave above, "Hotel Rwanda" gave organizations that addressed that crisis in Darfur actively promoted the viewing of that film precisely to get people involved in confronting that genocidal event. And of course a film's real power and strength to affect social change is precisely determined by the marketing it gets.
There is an irony in all of this too. When film production studios and their marketers, regardless of their location, get hold of it minimize the controversial or issue-based aspects of that film just to make it more palatable to a broader audience.
PIty that.
So what happens then of course is that the film is watered down to make the appeal of the film to the same people who would be most likely to take the issue and run with it if they had been mobilized as part of the marketing strategy.
"God, from the mount Sinai
whose grey top shall tremble,
He descending, will Himself,
in thunder, lightning, and loud trumpet’s sound,
ordain them laws".
John Milton (1608-1674) in Paradise Lost
Ripley'sSealLion's Believe it or Not! ~ NASCAR car crashes and Windows have just one thing in common.
Oh, oh. Better use LINUX.
@SealLion:
aside from the fact that every-thing one experiences influences one's behavior/awareness (which ofc automatically includes movies), the movies reach a wide audience which makes them suitable as message-carrying vessels, something abundantly used & abused by the entertainment industryfilm can have the tendency to influence human social behaviors and awareness.
the most suitable role of movies is to remain prevalently simply entertainment/fiction, something fun/interesting to watch - for raising awareness there are news(papers), documentaries, talk-shows, lectures, books, websites, educational institutions, etc. which can (or at least should strive to) more effectively, relevantly & seriously deal with the subject matter...but thats all just pointless wishful thinking as the reality proves otherwise in way too many cases
the 'hotel rwanda' story was not truthful (they glorified one side and some time later it turned out that side did their own genocide & more = epic fail), the other movie had nicholson 'running wild' around the institution, bending & breaking their rules every step of the way - what awareness would be gained from these i wonder...Think "Hotel Rwanda" (genocide) or even "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (mental institutions)
Bookmarks