We so easily forget that most of the films regarded as “classic movies” were, by today’s standards, very cheap to make. Certainly they did not boast the bevy of special effects that is now regarded as essential if a film is to have mass appeal. Speaking personally, I find it much more admirable if a director manages to make a great film with a small budget than when he achieves the same with a huge budget. Surely the former is more impressive, more laudable? Is it not a greater display of human ingenuity, talent and skill?
Beautiful article, MW. So true. The bigger the budget the bigger the lie and also, concomitantly, the more cultural sensibility will be vulgarised by flashy cinematic mendacity until it can no longer discern real art at all (and thus feels no need for it). - How long before we see '9/11 - the musical' (probably already been done)!?
You mention 'frugality' and 'simplicity' - what strange revolutionary words they sound like in today's crudely self-referential age, full as it is of gender pseudo-complexity. How would a tediously self-conscious degenerate like Sam Smith thrive on an artistic diet of metaphorical and actual frugality, one wonders? Conversely, real art requires terrifying discipline. You yourself will know just how rigorous are the terms one accepts when one contracts with one's conscience to put pen to paper! But I much appreciate your optimism too when you suggest we could pull this around. Indeed, we could, but it will only be by a kind of secessional movement, artistically speaking. Real artists and real people, i.e., the brave minority of us not fatally afflicted by 'the message', will just have to go our own way and hope eventually to draw an audience by the sheer quality and appeal of our vision. The problem remains, of course, being allowed to do so. Can you imagine Hamlet getting past some 'spotty Herbert' leftist reader in a modern script department? The writer would probably get a knock on the door at midnight. Nietzsche talked about 'endurance' as a test of real character: well, no doubt we must endure this vile cultural descent into madness in order eventually to come out the other side. Lord knows when and where that will be! But the luminous clarity and deep sympathy of voices such as yours will be largely responsible for the survival of all - or at least some - of what we brilliant Europeans hold most dear!
I was on a job site the other day and the older teens and young twenties were talking about their favorite films- mostly super-hero action garbage! But these guys aren't stupid- actually pretty well spoken and informed. Their cultural tastes need a little guidance, as you imply, and we should not "allow them to settle for trash."
Woes, I think a good follow up to this piece (or just a long post in the comment section) would be a list of films that you would recommend to the not-so-stereotypical 18 to 29 crowd, to get them out of the mire.
btw- this piece reminds me of the Rush song, 'Closer to the Heart'.
Yes, this is an especially galling phenomenon - when an intelligent person tells you they are a fan of trash, without any shame or embarrassment or even awareness that they are letting themselves down. Even within my lifetime, cultural hierarchy has dissolved, so that middle-class people openly describe themselves as fans of TV and cinema that once would have been regarded as beneath them, and intelligent people proudly say that they like garbage. It's an amazing - and terrible - change to have witnessed.
Jenny Agutter was quite the beauty - even if at 16 it was probably "problematic" (and yes I hate the bastardisation of that word) for her to have appeared in it, the way she did.
Jun 26, 2023·edited Jun 26, 2023Liked by Millennial Woes
There is an ethnic component, the one that must not be named, to the trajectory Hollywood has taken over recent decades. The creative output of Hollywood is inseparable from the spiritual core and soul of the people who run it. Hollywood has exchanged sex, violence, and Freudian psychology for the Western canon and cannot do otherwise because it has no feeling for anything other than this. To 'fix' this, the ethnic component cannot be ignored.
I've seen very good theatre productions which used cheap, simple sets and "special effects"; there's a strange enchantment to it, you need a second or two to get used to the idea that e.g. a simple kitchen chair is supposed to be a a golden throne (let's say all the other characters sit on footstools) but once you do so, there's a very peculiar charm & even magic to the very cheapness of the set, as if you're then able to witness the magic of the imagination, as it were filling in the blanks.
Good article. To me the most shocking thing about the childish 'cape shit' pumped out today is that women enjoy it. There are far too many young women with youtube channels discussing this crap. And they invariably have large toy collectibles dispersed around them.
Childishness, of course, goes hand-in-hand with childlessness. Perhaps that is the intention.
Compare what was produced for women in the golden age of cinema (by much the same people!) to today's standard fare. We have fallen precipitously.
'Withnail & I' is my absolute favourite film of all time. So much so that despite not being the type to get star-struck around celebrities (and having worked in a Hilton hotel I've encountered many) I was rendered a gibbering mess upon meeting Richard E. Grant, to the point where I accidentally charged his card £27,000 instead of £270. And bless the man for immediately putting me at ease by saying "Well I'm as surprised as you are that it went through at all!" He was the best kind of hotel guest I could have hoped him to be; even if he hadn't found himself holidaying with us "by accident".
Anthony Esolen who writes Word and Song has a great "Film of the Week" section that has helped me appreciate simple classic films. I highly recommend checking it out: https://anthonyesolen.substack.com/s/film-of-the-week
Besides the deliberate use of movies by social engineers, what has hurt the average person's taste in movies is the decline in the reading of novels of depth by the average person.
Beautiful article, MW. So true. The bigger the budget the bigger the lie and also, concomitantly, the more cultural sensibility will be vulgarised by flashy cinematic mendacity until it can no longer discern real art at all (and thus feels no need for it). - How long before we see '9/11 - the musical' (probably already been done)!?
You mention 'frugality' and 'simplicity' - what strange revolutionary words they sound like in today's crudely self-referential age, full as it is of gender pseudo-complexity. How would a tediously self-conscious degenerate like Sam Smith thrive on an artistic diet of metaphorical and actual frugality, one wonders? Conversely, real art requires terrifying discipline. You yourself will know just how rigorous are the terms one accepts when one contracts with one's conscience to put pen to paper! But I much appreciate your optimism too when you suggest we could pull this around. Indeed, we could, but it will only be by a kind of secessional movement, artistically speaking. Real artists and real people, i.e., the brave minority of us not fatally afflicted by 'the message', will just have to go our own way and hope eventually to draw an audience by the sheer quality and appeal of our vision. The problem remains, of course, being allowed to do so. Can you imagine Hamlet getting past some 'spotty Herbert' leftist reader in a modern script department? The writer would probably get a knock on the door at midnight. Nietzsche talked about 'endurance' as a test of real character: well, no doubt we must endure this vile cultural descent into madness in order eventually to come out the other side. Lord knows when and where that will be! But the luminous clarity and deep sympathy of voices such as yours will be largely responsible for the survival of all - or at least some - of what we brilliant Europeans hold most dear!
This is unlikely to happen anytime soon, as the entire entertainment industry is populated by people whose sole interest is not simply money.
It's demoralization.
Remember that TV and film always were, and always have been, propaganda. There may be a few gems that aren't, but they are few and far between.
They don't HAVE to be, of course, but the American and British film industry is as much propaganda as Goebbels's films ever were.
Yes and they're worse than Goebbels propaganda at least his were intended to inform and uplift his people.
I was on a job site the other day and the older teens and young twenties were talking about their favorite films- mostly super-hero action garbage! But these guys aren't stupid- actually pretty well spoken and informed. Their cultural tastes need a little guidance, as you imply, and we should not "allow them to settle for trash."
Woes, I think a good follow up to this piece (or just a long post in the comment section) would be a list of films that you would recommend to the not-so-stereotypical 18 to 29 crowd, to get them out of the mire.
btw- this piece reminds me of the Rush song, 'Closer to the Heart'.
Yes, this is an especially galling phenomenon - when an intelligent person tells you they are a fan of trash, without any shame or embarrassment or even awareness that they are letting themselves down. Even within my lifetime, cultural hierarchy has dissolved, so that middle-class people openly describe themselves as fans of TV and cinema that once would have been regarded as beneath them, and intelligent people proudly say that they like garbage. It's an amazing - and terrible - change to have witnessed.
Yeah, most modern movies suck.
I recently saw a rare exception to that. Believe it or not, I thought that “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” was a very well done children’s movie.
If I had kids, that movie would be on the list of child-friendly movies with a good message that I’d let them watch.
When the film creators can do a lot with a small budget it is all the more impressive.
I am old now, but a film that made a deep impression on me was Walkabout (1971) made for $1 million Australian dollars.
Jenny Agutter was quite the beauty - even if at 16 it was probably "problematic" (and yes I hate the bastardisation of that word) for her to have appeared in it, the way she did.
There is an ethnic component, the one that must not be named, to the trajectory Hollywood has taken over recent decades. The creative output of Hollywood is inseparable from the spiritual core and soul of the people who run it. Hollywood has exchanged sex, violence, and Freudian psychology for the Western canon and cannot do otherwise because it has no feeling for anything other than this. To 'fix' this, the ethnic component cannot be ignored.
I've seen very good theatre productions which used cheap, simple sets and "special effects"; there's a strange enchantment to it, you need a second or two to get used to the idea that e.g. a simple kitchen chair is supposed to be a a golden throne (let's say all the other characters sit on footstools) but once you do so, there's a very peculiar charm & even magic to the very cheapness of the set, as if you're then able to witness the magic of the imagination, as it were filling in the blanks.
Good article. To me the most shocking thing about the childish 'cape shit' pumped out today is that women enjoy it. There are far too many young women with youtube channels discussing this crap. And they invariably have large toy collectibles dispersed around them.
Childishness, of course, goes hand-in-hand with childlessness. Perhaps that is the intention.
Compare what was produced for women in the golden age of cinema (by much the same people!) to today's standard fare. We have fallen precipitously.
'Withnail & I' is my absolute favourite film of all time. So much so that despite not being the type to get star-struck around celebrities (and having worked in a Hilton hotel I've encountered many) I was rendered a gibbering mess upon meeting Richard E. Grant, to the point where I accidentally charged his card £27,000 instead of £270. And bless the man for immediately putting me at ease by saying "Well I'm as surprised as you are that it went through at all!" He was the best kind of hotel guest I could have hoped him to be; even if he hadn't found himself holidaying with us "by accident".
Ha, that doesn't surprise me. He has always struck me as a genuinely nice guy.
So why are there no modern indie producers making films comparable to the classics? Or are there and no one is paying attention?
Anthony Esolen who writes Word and Song has a great "Film of the Week" section that has helped me appreciate simple classic films. I highly recommend checking it out: https://anthonyesolen.substack.com/s/film-of-the-week
Besides the deliberate use of movies by social engineers, what has hurt the average person's taste in movies is the decline in the reading of novels of depth by the average person.