Declinism
Francis Ford Coppola says "The cinema as we know it is falling apart."
He thinks the studios are in trouble. He goes on: "Cinema is losing the public’s interest because there is so much it has to compete with to get people’s time.”
Perhaps he's right. But it's funny, I was recently watching a clip from Dick Cavett's old late night show. It's the early 70s, when Coppola is making The Godfather, and Cavett was talking to Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Mel Brooks and Frank Capra (now there's a lineup) and they seemed to be moaning about how things were falling apart.
Of course, that was nothing compared to the late 40s. The Supreme Court broke up the vertical integration of the studios and that was the end of the studio system, and at the same time television was about the cut their profits in half.
Or the Depression, when most of the studios were losing money, and some had to go into receivership.
Maybe Coppola is right this time, but times are always tough in the movie biz.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:30 AM
5 Comments:
Have you ever heard anyone say "this is a great time in the movie biz"?
One of the big theaters here in Denver now shows "classic" movies on teh big screen every Wed. night - for I think abot $4. Of course, they plan on making money on the popcorn sales, but the theaters are pretty empty on your average Wed. night anyway.
I think we will see more and more of this in the coming years. First, many people have DVD collections of facvorite movies (I have quite a few), and with Netflix and the library, a new generation can see a lot of great films for far less than the 9 - $12 a show the first run theaters charge. And for those who crave the big screen experience, these "classic film" theaters, which show things from the 50s tthrough the 90s, meet that requirement.
My point is, TV was never a direct challenge to movies - it really is a different kind of entertainment, less emersive, with commercials and serialized content on a weekly basis. I think the biggest challenge for new films will be old films, especially as technology increasingly brings the big theater experience into our homes.
Anon: "My point is, TV was never a direct challenge to movies..."
Oh, but it was. TV is as direct a challenge as possible--you get visual, aural entertainment for free at home. Why go out for it?
The numbers bear this out. (Check out, for example, http://org.elon.edu/ipe/pautz2.pdf). Starting from the beginning of the talkies, there have been ups and down, but nothing like the decline in average weekly viewership that can be ascribed to television.
There was a massive drop in attendance due to the Depression. (There's still a myth the movies were immune to the Depression). The percent of Americans who attended weekly in 1930 to 1933 dropped from 65% to 40%. (There might have been other factors, like the growing influence of radio, but I don't think there's any doubt the Depression was a main cause.)
The numbers recovered through the 30s, and by WWII, Americans were attending movies around a 60% level. In the years after the war, a decline started, with TV being a major, perhaps the main, factor. Weekly attendance dropped from around 60% in 1946 to close to 25% by 1953. Then there was a further drop so that by 1964, the average weekly attendance was 20%, where it's essentially remained, give or take a point, ever since. (There's another myth, mostly from the right, that there was a massive drop from the early 60s to the late 60s when movies got less family-oriented).
Hollywood has had other problems, such as cost of production. It's had other sources of revenue, such as secondary markets, and TV production itself. But the point is TV did permanent and lasting damage to the regular movie-going audience, and this audience has never returned.
"Hollywood has had other problems, such as cost of production.
The studios' biggest problem is making crappy movies, written by committee. And yes, there are a few gems that do make it to the screen.
The cinema as we know it is always falling apart- that's what makes it alive and vibrant -If it was a stable unmoving structure, it would something like the mass
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