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

Rating:
Summary: Best of the year
Review: "MOVIE WARS: How Hollywood and the Media Conspire to Limit What Films We Can See," by Jonathan Rosenbaum: Chicago, a capella, 2000. Review by Harvey Karten [e-mail].

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.

Rating:
Summary: Must reading for film lovers
Review: For anyone who cares about film as an art form (even if that seems like a quaint concept these days), Jonathan Rosenbaum's MOVIE WARS is must reading. Rosenbaum incisively and wittily dissects the way that the large body of filmgoers have become little more than puppets of studio marketing departments, manipulated, pandered to, treated with contempt and condescension, and ultimately given fewer and fewer real choices about which movies to watch. This is a disturbing and darkly humorous book that says a great deal about our materialistic society. It should serve as a cautionary tale as we ponder the future of culture in this new millennium. Will films survive as an art form? Read Rosenbaum and think seriously about the question.

Rating:
Summary: There is more to good movies than Miramax.
Review: For years now there have been two kinds of movie critics: those who like the movies that win the Academy Award for best picture and those who are actually worth reading. Rosenbaum as a critic clearly falls into the second category and his book is invaluable for the perspective it presents on modern cinema. Hollywood has become increasingly depressing over the past two decades. The autopsies of Pauline Kael in 1980 and Mark Crispin Miller in 1990 have been vindicated in spades. The Academy Awards, instead of honoring the usual middlebrow works such as Amadeus, goes for such lowbrow historical works as Braveheart and Titanic. To the isolated critic, the appearance of such films as Fargo and such companies as Miramax appears as an oasis. The value of Rosenbaum's book is that it shows that this is a mirage.

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.

Rating:
Summary: Paranoia or Reality?
Review: I share Rosenbaum's sorrow over the choice of movies being presented to the public and the lack of publicity being given to such films as Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man which I just happenned to stumble upon while browsing through Blockbuster Video and thought I'd give it a try. Otherwise I would have never known about it. Like Rosenbaum, I bemoan this fact. But I question his contention that we frequently don't hear about great films because Hollywood and it's supposed lackies in the media hide them from us. He never does say exactly why. He just alludes that if Hollywood and the media were as generous in promoting such great films as Dead Man, they would be as much of a blockbuster smash as George Lucas' putrid creation called the Phantom Menace. Maybe so, maybe no. I doubt we'll ever know. But I highly recommend this book in spite of it's unanswered questions for the simple reason that it does confront a very real problem in American cinema, that being that we are being forcefed crap while we can only imagine what masterpieces we're being denied because Hollywood is, apparently, afraid to take a chance on them.

Rating:
Summary: Thank God for Jonathan Rosenbaum
Review: I'm going to be short because others have done him justice already. At last someone has put together a thorough, cogent, and richly illustrated argument explaining why Hollywood studios have been so bad for the movies in recent years.

One of Rosenbaum's main themes is that Hollywood isn't even "giving the people what they want." The hare-brained garbage the big studios regularly produce is the product of a completely self-contained, self-referential industry that is driven by marketing ("push" in business terminology) far more than it is driven by customer demand (i.e., "pull."). One of my favorite examples is Rosenbaum's discussion of the extraordinary success of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, a massive box office success that many, if not most, people thought was just extraordinarily bad. Rosenbaum goes into great detail about how marketing deals ensured the extraordinary financial success and long movie house runs of this almost complete loser.

In a wonderfully ironic support of Rosenbaum's thesis, try typing "movie wars" into [a bookeseller's] search engine. At least when I tried it (10/20/02), the first roughly 50 books the search engine returns are collateral materials for Star Wars, none of whose titles contain the phrase "movie wars." Hollywood marketing strikes again as thoughtful criticism is, as usual, pushed into obscurity.

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling, Invigorating Polemic
Review: If you've ever wondered why terrible movies are being shown on thousands of screens while Abbas Kiarostami's latest gem is barely seen, or thought that the latest Mirimax pablum is getting inexplicably positive reviews, or simply wondered whether or not movies were getting worse and worse (they're not--it's just that the good ones are harder and harder to see), this book is for you.

Rosenbaum magnificently skewers studio conglomorates and overrated critics in equal measure--David Denby in particular is taken out to the woodshed--and passionately defends the oeuvres of everyone from Robert Bresson to Joe Dante.

Although Rosenbaum may seem to be tilting at windmills at times, the final chapter--about what can actually be done to correct the situation--is daringly optimistic, a nice change from most polemics. If you care about movies, read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Is the cinema really dead, or are modern films better?
Review: Is the cinema really dead, or are modern films better than before? Movie Wars examines how movies ar promoted, packaged and distributed, and how potential movie viewers are treated with contempt. Industry secrets - such as how movie distributors stifle movies and competition - are revealed in the course of an intensely critical examination of the methods and ethics of the movie industry.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the only film critic that matters
Review: Movie Wars is a powerful and lucid corrective to the intellectual laziness that distinguishes 90% of film commentary in North America. As the chief film review of Chicago Reader, Rosenbaum is one of the few sources of lengthy, intelligible prose (as opposed to the tenure seeking obscurantism that distinguishes so much of contemporary film studies) about world cinema. What I like about Rosenbaum's writing is that he makes you want to seek out films that may eventually surface on video and DVD if you live outside the Festival-Cinematheque circuit because he communicates the beauty, intelligence, integrity and mystery of these films through his writing (keep a notepad handy when reading this book to jot down titles). Rosenbaum is never an art-house snob in his approach. His appreciation of Joe Dante's Small Soldiers in this book reveals that Rosenbaum is happy to pay credit to a genre-busting auteur when the work merits it. Movie Wars deftly analyses the collusion between studios and mainstream critics to limit viewer choices. It is a polemic informed by a profound knowledge of film history and a keen sense of what film (US, European, Third World, etc.) can be when audiences aren't underestimated. Above all, this is a book for film lovers who haven't let their cinephilia blind them to the fact that the best films always connect with the world beyond the screen.

Rating:
Summary: The agony of a real movie critic
Review: Movies are made for people who don't watch a lot of movies. Jonathan Rosenbaum's book is his frustration over two things; the lack of foreign films in the United States and the anti-intellectualism of this culture. He is a critic for the Chicago Reader who writes the longest, most complicated reviews for movies that you'll ever see. This is both a positive and a negative style. Positive in a sense it shows he cares for films and works hard to find the overall truth in them. Negative in a sense that very few people would care for what he has to say. Movies, for the most part, are an escape for most people. A chance to forget about life for a little while. That is why awful action movies are constantly on top of the box office. Films are an artform, but for the most part, they are an industry, a business. Mr. Rosenbaum feels there is a lack of foreign films in the United States. This is very true, but it is a problem a very small minority care about. Exposing the American public to more foreign movies might be good, but who will ulitmately watch them and take them seriously? Another segment of the book deals with his attack on the AFI and their '100 Greatest Movies'. This "chapter" can also be found on his website. Once again, only a real movie critic could argue with such a list. How many people have enough time on their hands to evaluate a 2 dozen or even a dozen movies, let alone 100!! He makes his own seperate lists of '100 Greatest'. The big problem with this list is that most people have never even heard of most of these titles. And I'll guarantee most people will have a hard time finding them. Mr. Rosenbaum has made some strong points, and this is a very enjoyable book that won't take long to read. But ultimately, Mr. Rosenbaum is shaking his fists into the wind. The problem he is concerned with is a luxury problem. Most people don't have that luxury to begin with.