I was driving back from town today after picking up a new monitor and on Radio National was a film critic, picking apart some film or another that I didn’t catch the name of.
She had a really, really annoying habit too; as well as an overly grating Umerican accent, she ended every single sentence with the question “right?” (why are so many Radio National commentators and guests American I wonder?)
Anyway, for a good 10 minutes she dissected a portion of this movie that I gathered was about a couple eating at a restaurant in Manhattan. And a whole treatise was given about the symbolism of the meal costing $400, being photographed and put on Instagram.
Apparently, this is a power play of sorts that shows your followers that YOU can afford to do this and supposedly they can’t, and therefore feel subordinate to you and are correspondingly jealous.
I’ll stop there as yes, the rest of the program – well the next 15 minutes I heard – was equally dreary and boring, no, painful.
But I ask, who on earth and why, would a person make a film of this type? What is the purpose? And what a waste of money (in my opinion anyway). Yes, it will have employed a cast and crew, and all those other resources that go into making a full-length feature movie, but would anyone want to see it so that those costs can be recouped, and ideally make the backers a profit?
At least no-one on the radio show said, “this is a film that needed to be made”.
My Dad who died aged 53, which is obviously very young in this day and age, only ever saw 3 films in a theatre in his life during my time so far on this earth. They were The Sound of Music, The Planet of the Apes and Grand Prix, all at an outdoor seating theatre in Derby in the northwest of WA in the early 70s.
When I asked him why one day, he stated that he felt too many films were made that attempted to mimic or show “real life” and he didn’t want to see those as he had lived enough “real life”. (My Dad was an ammo truck driver in WW II, his truck was bombed at Anzio and his partner perished – I assume this is what he meant as he never spoke of it).
No, he wanted to see stuff so that he could escape real life, even if only for a few short hours.
So, what do you think? Is that what should be made, escapism? Or should films also be made that show us how others may live in the real world? Or tell stories that may otherwise go unnoticed and untold?
Let me know in the comments below.