Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Conspire to Limit What Films We Can See [Hardcover]

Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic with the Chicago Reader, is on the left politically as one can easily see from his latest book, "Movie Wars." His central position is that while we have a free press in the United States, the capacity to go to virtual or actual book stores and find just about anything we want to read (particularly in the giants like Barnes & Noble and Amazon), we do not enjoy such freedom in choosing our movies. Rosenbaum expresses a belief in the wisdom of ordinary moviegoers who might like to take in screenings of important films but who, thanks to the power of the so-called movie industrial complex, are often unable to do so. In other words, the big studios and the large newspapers, TV and radio stations scheme with one another to push certain movies our way and to discourage our viewing of others they do not wish to market.

Of all the evidence he supplies, what got me (as a film critic) thinking most is Rosenbaum's contention that the media and the big studios in effect bribe supposedly impartial critics to push certain films. Since recognized movie critics, particularly in areas of the country like New York and L.A., are given free access to hundreds of movies each year, some might be tempted to cooperate with the studios and write fluff pieces out of gratitude for the invitations. I like to think that we're invited merely with the hope that we'll spread good news about the films: that negative commentary may not be welcome but that the companies recognize that those of us who praise almost everything will lose credibility with our readers--and then what good will we be when we honesty laud a good movie? However, there is one group that Rosenbaum accuses of succumbing to outright bribery: the critics who are feted by the studios with fancy junkets. According to the author, certain select reviewers are invited to fly to L.A. or New York or even Hawaii and Paris to screen films and review the talent on site. The implication is that if these writers do not knock out what the studios would like the readers to see, they are not invited back. Now, if you were given free air tickets, put up in a first-class hotel for two nights, and given cash for daily expenses while reviewing and

interviewing, would you be tempted to be overly generous? Rosenbaum thinks so. This is one way that the big companies in effect control the output of the writers.

And what about those blurbs that you see in the newspaper ads for the movies? Some of them are not even extracts from long reviews but are supplied by professional blurb writers--with the film companies actually "suggesting" what the blurber should write.

In yet another indictment of the ways that studios

manipulate our freedom to select movies, Rosenbaum suggests that critics are persuaded not to bother reviewing movies whose advertising budgets are marginal. Important films that the public may indeed be tempted to see are not talked up by either the advertisers or the reviewers, and in fact the author was forced on a Chicago show called Chicago Tonight to speak almost exclusively about big studio releases. Rosenbaum also believes that some reviewers do not care for what they're doing and write not from their own hearts but from what they think the readers want to hear. In doing so, they are merely ratifying preconceptions set up by ads and promo campaigns. These critics assume that audiences, unlike sophisticated critics, are not tolerant of films that demand thought and patience, and what's more the critics believe that their editors are of the same view. Again: the independent film, which may move more slowly than the typical biggie, will not be reviewed by most media and will not be advertised by releasing companies.

As for foreign films? Same deal. I've heard said that only one percent of movie goers attend foreign language films at all. Why? Presumably the studios and editors believe there's no way that the ordinary people on the street will want to read the subtitles or would be interested in seeing the output of the non-English-speaking world. Whose fault is that? Rosenbaum is more of a democrat than I. My own view is

that you can advertise the latest from Theodor Angelopoulos or Krzysztof Znussi all you want--you won't find lines outside the theaters.

A short review can barely skim the surface of this author's accusations. He takes on Miramax, for example, for deliberately limiting production of potential competitors by buying up the rights and then shelving the films simply to keep them away from contesting their own releases. "Movie Wars" is to the current film industry as "The Jungle" was to the meatpacking industry--an important work charging big media and studio corporations with censorship to get us to patronize only those movies they want us to see.

The problem, says Rosenbaum, is not that there are not good movies being made anymore. The problem is that most of them are foreign movies and both Hollywood and the media take an obtuse and philistine approach towards them. One could simply look to the Village Voice Critics List and one would see such films as Beau Travail, The House of Mirth, Yi Yi, The Wind Will Carry Us, L'Humanite, and Time Regained all in the top 10, but they would be virtually unknown to the rest of continent. Rosenbaum is particularly fond of the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami and the Portuguese Manuel De Oliviera. But these and many other directors that Rosenbaum mentions do not get the attention they deserve. Miramax concentrates on "feel-good" foreign films, such as Life is Beautiful or Chocolat. Rosenbaum's description of Miramax's version of The Wings of the Dove, as middlebrow soft-core porn that traduces its source, emphasizes the problem. Miramax picks up the distributing rights to more challenging fare, not to show them, but to prevent other companies from seeing them. Rosenbaum is particularly cutting about how Mirimax executives monopolize media discussion at Cannes by putting down other movies and appealing to xenophobic and philistine instincts of American reporters. Critics are often obtuse about films. (Rosenbaum is particularly cutting about the cheap Francophobia of such well respected writers as David Denby and James Wolcott). This unpleasant isolationism is all the more dangerous because the American industry has such an enormous influence on the rest of the world's movies.

Rosenbaum emphasizes the self-serving illusions of Hollywood hacks who say they only make what the public wants. After all, they claim, people won't watch movies with subtitles or in black and white. As Rosenbaum points out, audiences had no trouble watching subtitles in Dances with Wolves, and watching black and white subtitles in Schindler's List. The basic problem is that the movie testing machine is designed in such a way as to give the audience limited choices and to verify the prejudices of studio heads. The book is not perfect. One may feel that if one needed to defend a Hollywood picture you could have a better choice than Small Soldiers. Likewise, one may wonder whether Paul Verhoaven is a brilliant satirist or just deeply cynical. And if you think that Casablanca, or Quientin Tarantino are better than Rosenbaum suggests, you will not find much counter-argument here. But if you have never heard of Robert Bresson, you must read this book.