Films and the politics of the American dream

Nowhere since the 3rd Reich has a film industry been so employed in so fruitless a mission.

True, 310 million Americans believe what the Hollywood churn portrays as truth. Which keeps 310 Americans happily consumed by their TVs, happily believing they matter.

Meanwhile, the European film industry portrays things that actually matter. True, these things are completely lost on Americans but, as we all know, Americans are not good at reading subtitles.

 

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Without a few examples to debate, this is a meaningless post. Could Awrly either expand on his thesis or alternatively could he delete this thread?

 

I never thought about watching Louise-Michel before you mentioned it in one of your posts. Thanks.

I had indeed a good time compared to watching, say, Expendables.

 

reminds me of a chris hedges article i saw on alternet the other day, which was a bit grim and judgmental but probably more accurate than i'd like to admit about how we're basically living in an illusion...

http://www.alternet.org/media/14844...and_we_are_going_to_pay_a_nasty_price_for_it/

 

Wasn't there a recent film about the capture of a German WW2 Enigma coding machine-by the Americans?
It was actually captured by Poles operating from a British submarine. Polish cryptographers were also the first to break the Enigma codes and showed the British, at Bletchley Park, how to do it. None of this was shown in the film.
That's just one example of Hollywood rewriting history. I'm sure I could find a few more.

 

Look, I fancy European films over American ones - and, indeed, I believe they are better made, better topics and I think they often portray emotions better.

However, Hollywood is enterily self-financied (or at least privatly financied). A lot of European fillms get financial aid from the governement - actually I think all European films are subsidized. Which probably explains their better quality when compared to American ones, it's quite obvious that a film with, e.g., a lousy script (or in general a bad film) will not be (partially) publicly funded. That last line is important: partially funded by the public.

An add from the European Commission for the European public, another add says that 50% of all European films get some funds (it doesn't say how much).

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RiPXoPhXMs"]European Cinema[/ame]

European cinema, unquestionably is the best in the world! There is simply no competition - how could there be? We also need to be honest here, there is an ongoing process of a large influx of European directors in Hollywood. And another movement of Hollywood-based film studios investing money in European films.

Also, European films aren't so "conservative" as their American counterparts.

The next film on my list is the newly Belgian production "Turquaze" (after the colour "Turqoise" but also a reference to "Turkey-ish" or something, well you will understand when you watch the trailer! Oh the trailer has English-subs)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCBZeJ09l2M&feature=related"]Turqoise - Trailer[/ame]



It isn't a coincidence that all of the major Filmfestivals are located in Europe: Cannes, Venice, Rome and Berlin.

 

European films deal with the human condition, usually with great sensitivity and often enormous humour.

American film-making deals only with making money. It is pure business, and as a business, it finds its consumers largely amongst the intellectually challenged.

It panders to the dreary desires of the masses much in the same way that McDonalds does.

 

At least this one was accurate:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051402/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_V-1

I remember seeing the film as a kid, I then went to the Imperial War Museum to see the actual V-1 that had been smuggled out - made it just that more poignant.

 

Not this movie though , surely:

 

The more I have to watch American TV and cinema, the more I wonder at the apparently imbecilic appetites that engender this garbage.

The tsunamis that swamp Asian countries are benign compared to these waves of cretinism that originate from America.

 

..........

 

Man, I wish America would make more films that 31 little liberals would swoon over and prattle on about for days.

This is something I feel passionately about. It is truly the heart of the matter.

 

Yeah, we all yearn for another 49 sequels of Hotshots.

American dreaminess.

 

My wife is very knowledgeable about film.

Me, I like a wafer-thin plot, shallow characterisations and minimal dialogue. As long as things are getting blown up in rapid succession I'm as happy as a clam.

 

Four Oscars went missing

 

You watch FoxNews too?

 

Ah, the architypical American assault on our senses.

Mumbling fraught admonitions and waving guns about.

Americans act like a cast camel.

 

Not content with swamping the world with rubbish movies, the Americans add to the assault on any intelligence the world has left by making films about how their rubbish movies are made.

They are obviously in fast pursuit of the notion that there is only a small decile of smart people who are mentally not in their gutter.

 

Didn't NZ get any money out of the 3 Lord of the Rings movies filmed mostly in NZ?

 

We did. And now we have the dam.ned hobbits here.

Are you suggesting we contribute to the dumbing down of America?

If so, you are right.

But we would prefer not to have to watch them here.

 

You mean NZ is overrun with hobbits, or are American tourists looking for hobbits?

And America will never give credit to any other nation for helping us to dumb down. We are, as Sean Hannidy says, a country of Exceptionalism. Especially where stupidity is concerned.

 

It seems we are about to be infested by hobbits, thanks to Time-Warner.

But I do not expect that Americans coming here after they watch the movies will have a clue about how to find them.

 

Read some more about Time-Warner and it looks like the NZ representatives are just as corruptible as the US. Willingness to change laws which protect workers as employees and reclassify them as "independent contractors" is a sure sign someone is getting paid off. The rest of NZ industry will more than likely, try to take advantage of this new loop-hole to nullify your unions just like Reagan did to the US.

Sorry to hear about this, its really rather despicable for a movie corporation to infiltrate the government of a country, undermining its own workers protections, just to make a profit.