Tuesday, 18 July 2000

THE BETTER PART OF VALOR: I would love to be able to rip into the MPAA over their lawsuit against Eric Corley, who published a program that was designed to allow people to beat the DVD anti-copying programming, allowing people to transmit and share pristine, high quality movies over the Web or anywhere else that can decode digital images. I cannot. This guy, who has taken on the moniker of the hero/victim of 1984, Emmanuel Goldstein, is, in my opinion, doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. My general sense is that anarchy has a price. Sometimes, that price is paid by the anarchist when he or she is shut down by the "system." But more often in today's society, the price is paid by those who don't choose to put themselves above the "system." Corley/Goldstein told Reuters, "This case is about 'fair use' of information. It's about freedom of speech. It's about the right of a computer user to play with technology in any way they like--without then facing charges." One problem. It's not about the freedom of speech. It's about the right of someone who created something to control their creation in a reasonable way. Just a few years ago, all the screaming was about colorization and how it was destroying the work of film masters. Now, if a filmmaker is not willing to cough up his unused refuse from the cutting room floor, he or she is somehow imposing on the public's rights to have EVERYTHING, all the time. Does this mean that I think that studio controls and the obsession with that control is a joy for all to behold? Of course not. But I feel a Rant & Rave coming on, so I'm going to check out now and move on to the next button.

WHAT LIES IN JUNKETS: The conversations at the junket for What Lies Beneath were special because the junket was loaded with people who don't need to try real hard to tell the truth. I've pulled some quotes for you, so let's start with Robert Zemeckis on the very issue of studio control and the speed of everything these days. The need for speed. What Lies Beneath starts off very slowly. (A good thing.)

Zemeckis said, "The studio complained about that. The studio always complains about that. But I stuck to the idea that you've got to pay for your fun. You've got to pay a little bit. Otherwise, if you rip the guts out of the beginning of the movie just to move it along quickly, you won't be invested in anything. If you build a beautiful bell tower and you have a bad foundation, none of it's gonna work. Maybe in the future, you'll have to make it all work at a breakneck speed. Somebody told me once that at the half-hour break of a sitcom, you get like 27 messages in 4 minutes. That's the world we live in. Look at when they are rolling the credits at the end of the CBS Evening News, look how much layered information comes at you."

On whether audiences are demanding speed--"I think that the one good thing that happens is that at some point when you go to a movie and you feel at some point that somebody is driving the train, that there is a continuity to the story you are being told. When that happens, I no longer sit there and compare that movie to all other movies or all other media. I am then invested in this movie. And I think that's what happens with general audiences as well."

On the marketing campaign--"Wouldn't it be great if people just went to the movies and we didn't have to market them? Wouldn't it be great if we all loved movies so much, we would all go to the movies, we didn't have to know everything about it before we go. But we don't live in that world."

"You have that dilemma of giving people enough information so that they're intrigued to see the movie without giving them all the information. Although, we know from studying the marketing of movies, people really want to know exactly every thing that they are going to see before they go see the movie. It's just one of those things. To me, being a movie lover and film student and a film scholar and a director, I don't. But maybe I feel that way about other things I have no professional interest in, so who knows?"

"The thing I relate it to is McDonald's. The reason McDonald's is a tremendous success is that you don't have any surprises. You know exactly what it is going to taste like. Everybody knows the menu. So it's not like you go to McDonald's and think, 'I wonder what I feel like eating today?' You already know what you want, you know how long it's going to take to get it, you know exactly what it's going to taste like, you know exactly what it's going to cost. That's why they're so successful. That's a comment on society. We want our lives to be, sadly, bland."

"At the end of the day, I think (originality) is appreciated by audiences. That's why the business is a schizophrenic thing. The movie is the movie and the marketing is the marketing. And unfortunately, they collide in those first two weeks and then, if you're lucky, they survive that. Then, I think the audience appreciates the movie on its own terms."

On the secrets of this thriller--"One of the things that we have to be aware of is that we live in a world where there is this necessity for information. All information. To be instantly obtainable and immediate. You have to know everything all the time, right now. Does this mean that movies like this become casualties of that? We'll see. I hope not. Is it that big of a news story or is it something that people can enjoy and have fun?"

"A Ford, A Hot Rod & A Postmark"