Fri, Jun 03, 2005 page17

• Spring slump at the cinema no accident

  With all the Oscar contenders piled up late in the year, Hollywood fills the slow months with films destined for late-night cable

  • By A. O. Scott / NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  A little more than two weeks ago, when much of the US movie-critic population was in Cannes pushing and shoving our way into four or five movies a day, the news arrived from back home that the general public did not appear to share our zeal. For the third spring in a row, the box-office grosses and the number of tickets sold for first-run theatrical releases had fallen, data that provoked concern and speculation in Hollywood and in the industry trade papers. What could be keeping people away from the movies? Bad weather? Economic uncertainty? The high price of gasoline? The angry and polarized political climate?

  Those are interesting theories, but there may be a simpler explanation: The movies that the major studios and their subsidiaries have released this year have just not been very good. And their mediocrity appears to be less a matter of accident than of design. Looking back at the last 20 weeks, you can find some serviceable examples of familiar genres -- tame romantic comedy (Hitch), uplifting sports melodrama (Coach Carter), all-ages action adventure (Sahara), star-driven political thriller (The Interpreter) -- all of which have earned decent returns, and even some admiring reviews. But none of them have inspired much excitement or argument, and missing any (or all) of them would not feel like a great loss. They will each show up eventually on basic cable some night when you have nothing else to do, or on the transcontinental flight when your iPod battery is dead and you've forgotten to pick up the latest issue of Vanity Fair. You'll watch with a shrug and maybe a smile, in all likelihood rendering a judgment consistent with the ambitions of the picture in question: not bad.

  From where I sit, not bad is very bad indeed. The commitment to meticulously engineered mediocrity suggests that the US movie industry, in its timid, defensive attempts not to alienate the audience, is doing just that.

  

  Taiwanese actors Chang Chen, right, and Shu Qi, center, pose beside Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien in Cannes during a photo call for their movie Three Times, which has impressed critics but is still waiting to be picked up for distribution in North America.

  PHOTO: EPA

  I am aware that the springtime malaise is, to some extent, a seasonal complaint, one to which critics are especially susceptible. In May it's always the death of cinema, and by December the golden age is upon us once again. What else is new? Distributors save their good stuff for the last quarter of the year, in the hopes of harvesting awards and nominations. In the summer, they roll out their blockbusters, leaving the months from January to May for clearance sales and placeholders -- movies that need be good enough only to satisfy someone's desire to get out of the house. If you want something more, the previous autumn's crop of Oscar contenders and 10-best-list laureates is newly available on DVD. Many of those high-quality theatrical releases crowding the calendar between Labor Day and New Year's Eve are, from an economic standpoint, dry runs for the home-video market. The accolades and prizes look good on the DVD box, especially in April, when the discriminating film lover, uninspired by the multiplex marquee, decides to catch up with the pictures everyone seemed to be talking about a few months before.

  So the public, glutted with savories for three months, must make do with leftovers for the other nine. This is not a healthy diet, and it has some unfortunate side effects -- good winter movies that meet with spiteful backlashes or critical neglect; weak spring offerings whose mere willingness to deal with serious subjects or grown-up behavior makes them look better than they are. (This spring Crash and The Upside of Anger are the examples that come most readily to mind.)

  Every writer who complains about the quality of movies in general risks being accused of snobbery. Unlike critics, who often seem to be happiest when they are most disappointed and vice versa, most people just go to the movies to have a good time. But that is exactly my point: What we want from movies is not just distraction, diversion or passing amusement. We want satisfaction.

  And this comes in many different forms. Most accounts of the box-office dip note that the numbers in recent years have been skewed upward by a few anomalous blockbusters. Last year the crowds flocking to The Passion of the Christ made the season appear hotter than it was, and in 2005 Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith will probably have a similar effect on the numbers for the first half of the year. Whatever else they may have in common, these are both movies that audiences cared enough about to want to see in theaters, sometimes more than once. They are also, not incidentally, independent films, made under the auspices of their directors' production companies (Mel Gibson's Icon and George Lucas' Lucasfilm) without studio oversight or interference.

  Which brings me back, somewhat circuitously, to Cannes, where cinema is understood to be the director's art, and where the disconnection between global film culture and the American audience can seem especially stark. Despite some loud grumbling (including some from Emir Kusturica, president of the competition jury, who complained afterward about the poor quality of the selections), Cannes was full of movies that were challenging, interesting and in various ways satisfying. It was therefore troubling to read, at the end of the festival, an article in the Hollywood Reporter in which several executives complained about how few of the films were worth buying for American distribution. Part of the fault, it seemed, lay with audiences who shy away from anything they think will be difficult or disturbing. The article probably made me madder than it should have because it represented longstanding conventional wisdom about the commercial viability of the kind of movie that is a staple of the international festival circuit and an exotic specialty on American screens.

  But some of us persist in hoping that the conventional wisdom will be refuted. Each of us came home from Cannes with a list of movies that fueled our solitary rapture, our angry debates, our sleepless nights: Michael Haneke's Cache; Hou Hsiao-hsien's (侯孝賢) Three Times, Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven. As of this writing, two of those -- the Reygadas and the Haneke -- have been picked up for North American distribution. With any luck, they will be arriving at US theaters sometime before next spring.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Chinese influencer’s residency revoked

  • 2

    Use of mobile devices to be forbidden in schools

  • 3

    SPEAK UP: Kylie Minogue & Kenshi Yonezu to rock Taiwan (2/2) 凱莉米諾、米津玄師襲台（下）

  • 4

    Immigration agency to revoke residence permit of Chinese influencer

  • 5

    US bill to address Taiwan with real name introduced