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Pain and celluloid
I hurt. I mean, not hurt like I have a severed limb or anything like that, but enough that I can't get comfortable in this chair to save my soul. My entire dorsal surface - neck, back, and behind - aches. I tend to sit at the computer with my legs out to one side or the other because my legs are so long; unfortunately this requires that I turn my neck slightly while I work, and I can't do that.
My throat is sore, my nose complains when I try to breathe through it, and my eyes are irritated.
All of this happened without warning and I don't know what caused it. Last night, Molly and Marc and I met to see Run Lola Run - yes, again. Before that we had a beer because we ended up seeing a later showing than we'd expected. After the movie, Marc and I walked into Inman Square to eat at the S & S. I am not sure when my throat began to hurt, but it did, and by the time I got home it was horrid. Nothing I put in it soothed it. And I lay awake, trying to get comfortable, feeling my sinuses drain into my throat all night.
I suppose everyone is in bad health every now and then, but generally I prefer for there to be a reason why.
The other day, Toni wrote a rant about screenwriting and What's Wrong With Hollywood. (Toni, are you sure you're not channelling Jette?) Today I read the second part (Rant: the Sequel).
Go read both parts. I'll wait.
Each time I saw Run Lola Run, I left with the same thought: This is not a movie which could have been made in Hollywood.
Marc: Why? Because people won't see it?
Me: Because Hollywood doesn't think people will see it. There's a difference. It's hard to say whether Hollywood is underestimating the tastes of the public or whether the public really does like their films full of baby food.
Marc: I get it.
Me: Movies cost too much money these days for Hollywood to take risks.
Marc: But this film couldn't have cost much -
Me: Oh, no, this film was fairly cheap. Doesn't look it, though, does it? But Hollywood doesn't know how to make cheap films anymore either.
Now, I go see as much garbage as the next person. I like garbage. But I also like to think. And I don't believe Hollywood understands that. Some of you will say that I am overestimating the intelligence of the American public, but I personally believe there is a bigger market for intelligent films in this country than Hollywood knows.
But!
"Bigger market" is relative. A "bigger market" in this case means that I think even the artsiest of art films should be able to make a couple of million dollars in wide release.
Let's have a look at the Box Office column in this week's Entertainment Weekly. According to them, Run Lola Run only has a hundred prints in release across the entire country, yet it's managed to pull in two million in five weeks. Meanwhile the film Lake Placid, which any infant can tell is pure dreck just from the trailer, has made eleven million in one week. What's the variable here? There are two thousand copies of Lake Placid floating around.
Is a couple of million dollars enough? Well, that depends. If you're making Wild Wild West, then a few million isn't going to come anywhere near making back your production costs. But The Blair Witch Project was made for $100,000 ... and the much more polished-looking Run Lola Run, while hard to guess (it was budgeted in deutschmarks, of course), probably didn't cost more than half a million. (It's made the equivalent of twelve million so far in Germany alone.)
I think people not only recognize quality, they'll pay for it.
But you may not be able to teach Hollywood this. The only lessons it's learned so far from the near-cultish success of The Blair Witch Project (it made back its original costs in one theatre on opening weekend) are the wrong ones.
Here are my unpleasant predictions: Look for more of these provocative, say-nothing teaser campaigns in the future ... look for film studios to dramatically increase the amount of promotional spam, via email and web sites ... and, of course, look for The Blair Witch Project 2, coming soon to a multiplex near you.
But don't look for more originality. Originality happens entirely by accident these days.
There's a reason I don't write screenplays. Sometimes, when I dream of being a pro writer, I have this fantasy: My agent approaches me and says that [Big Hollywood Studio] wants to option my book. I tell my agent, "No way in hell." She says, "Think of the money." I say, "Think of the people who'd blame me for the mess they'd make of it."
Of course, that's a completely ridiculous scenario, since my stories are always about character development, first and foremost ... and Hollywood doesn't buy that kind of material. (In fact, I'm not sure that anyone does, anymore. One of my big worries about this novel is that people are going to read it and say, "But nothing happens!")
I sometimes wish that all the good screenwriters would leave the business and start writing novels. Hollywood would learn once and for all that they can't bite the hand that feeds them, and maybe we'd all learn to read again.
Sorry, that was unwarrantedly nasty. Don't mind me, I talk nonsense when I'm in pain.
You're lucky I didn't rant about the Woodstock commotion. That would have been worse.
© Columbine
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