The Death of Hollywood

There is a pertinent lack of respect for the cultural significance of cinema, deep at the heart of Hollywood itself. Modern day mainstream Hollywood is in disrepair. Never has an age of such hollow filmmaking and artlessness been so prevalent in American film. I’m not talking about high art cinema, Martin Scorsese, The Coen Brothers, David Fincher, Paul Thomas Anderson et al. I’m talking about mainstream, big budget, blockbuster Hollywood. The movie business has always been that: business. But never has the veil been so transparent, there is no longer any remote attempt to disguise such fat cat greed. We now live in the age of the corporation. Big business is now even uglier than it was before, as there is now billions of dollars to be made rather than millions.

The corporate age of cinema is upon us and with it comes a drought of imagination, art, care, and respect for cinema. Hollywood has always been responsible for such greatness, so many beloved and iconic films and franchises belong to those sacred hills, yet in 2014 Hollywood itself seems determined to destroy all that is magnificent and sacred about its own legacy by rebooting, remaking, reimagining every film they have ever released. Talent is not mandatory in Hollywood anymore, nor is passion, creativity or imagination; only the imagination to come up with a way to make a cheap buck. Originality no longer exists in modern Hollywood. Why make a new original film when you can make a sequel or a threequel or a prequel to an already existing classic. And if the sequel falls through why not just reboot it? There is a tacit disrespect for the cultural and aesthetic significance of cinema, deep in the heart of Hollywood.

The reason for this seismic shift is people’s lack of appreciation for the significance of cinema. Films are now so disposable; they come and go without any cultural impact. We live in such an immediate age when all content can be consumed in nanoseconds and there is no respect for the meaning of cinema, culturally. This attitude has extended to Hollywood itself, and the vulgarity of instant gratification and instant profit determines the quality of the product that is turned out year after year. The history of cinema is not merely a collection of movies that people watch for entertainment. It is our cultural modern history. These images of classic movie moments are American iconography. They define an entire age of art in the western world.

Not everyone appreciates cinema on this level and thus lays the problem, but the opening credits of ‘Star Wars’ is not just that, you cannot have the 20^th century without it. You can’t have the 20^th century without ‘The Godfather’ or ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Indiana Jones’ or ‘Jaws’, ‘Pulp Fiction’, ‘Back to the Future’, ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘2001’ or ‘The Graduate’. These aren’t just movies, they are iconography, with such cultural significance it defines us more than people realise. It informs the way we act and speak, our sense of humour, the way we dress, the way we view sex, relationships, family; everything. Art has always informed culture. Now culture unfortunately informs the quality of art.

In 2014, none of that is respected. The one hundred year history of celluloid means nothing in the face of profit. Hollywood would happily decimate its own golden history to make money. Now we live in the age of the reboot. The reboot culture emerged in 2006 after the success of the Bond films. Admittedly the new Bond films are a revelation and some could argue the finest of the franchise. It worked because Bond has always redefined itself generation after generation. Audiences are used to seeing a new Bond every ten years and neither the character or the films are compromised with this transition. Other films have been successful too, Chris Nolan’s ‘Batman’ trilogy are monumental achievements and JJ Abrams ‘Star Trek’ films were incredible. Reboots aren’t always bad. With those examples, they still maintain enormous cultural significance. However, now - given the success of the already mentioned - Hollywood seems intent on rebooting, remaking, reimagining every film it has in its cannon in hope of repeating the same success, yet they never do. It’s because there is magic in the original. Films like 'Back to the Future' were not produced so calculatedly and with such crass expectations of success. They were written and produced with passion and care, and love of the project. There was no other expectation beyond filmmaking.

Most films we acknowledge to be part of a greater franchise, worth billions of dollars, started out with such humble beginnings. The original ‘Terminator’ movie, was a low budget B-Movie, that James Cameron never expected to make money, yet it begat one of the most profitable franchises ever. So of course now, in 2014, they are determined to reboot it. They always say it is so that a new generation can embrace it. Yet if something is timeless, a new generation will embrace it without it being remade. ‘Star Wars’ is timeless, yet ‘Episode VII’ is already lined up for release. “Indiana Jones’ is timeless, yet they are already lining up Bradley Cooper to don the brown fedora. Everything is so corporate. Hollywood is dominated by big corporate business events, where ‘Disney’ and ‘Marvel’ and ‘Sony’ all get together and present their next ten year plan, consisting of yet another string of soulless, artless, hollow, empty blockbusters that come and go, and get forgotten. The marketing campaigns are always more compelling than the movies themselves and everyone talks until the day of release, then one week later the film is forgotten entirely. There is no cultural significance.

Movies can no longer be seen as art. Cinema has always been a marriage between art and commerce, and where that compromise is met determines how it is remembered. That relationship is now far too one sided. The art is all but gone, now there is only commerce. Modern blockbusters will not define our times the way they did in the 70's and 80's. I’m sure there is a correlation between that and digital over film, but that’s another story altogether. Simply there is no care, no love or passion, no respect for the Iconography that defines our age.

You cannot recast Sarah Connor; Linda Hamilton is Sarah Connor. Like it or not, good actress or bad actress, she embodies that role. The image of her holding the shotgun in the steel mill at the end of ‘T2’ is immortal. Its aesthetic image will outlive all modern films. Yet Hollywood, in all their infinite wisdom have recast her, she will now be played by some two-bit nonstar from ‘Game of Thrones’. There is just no point, no possible way any reboot, remake or reimaging can compete or compare to the original of such iconic films. With Horror movies we don’t mind, we are used to it. Remaking classic Horror films has always remained popular, they are always terrible, we know they are terrible, we always prefer the original, yet we go see them anyway for a laugh. But when it comes to the films that define us there has to be more respect. Why not just remake ‘The Beatles’. You can’t. They are immortal. So much a part of the 20^th century, to remove them would unravel our entire history. 

Yet the cogs keep turning and this age of Hollywood filmmaking, so insulting, thrives and continues to make billions and billions of dollars. I wonder how the 21^st century will be defined? It is always the art that defines us: film, music, literature etc. Yet how can that be when there is no art left in the world?