Big stars have more power in the film world than ever. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has to do with the changing ways that films are financed. Overseas money is more important now and foreign backers are even more star conscious than Americans. Or maybe it has to do with a cultural shift. Whatever the reason, you have to please the big stars to get a film made now and the way to please big stars is to write the kind of script they like to play.What do stars like? Stories that are about them! The plot's irrelevant. What matters is the character dynamics. So what if the city's going to blow up if somebody doesn't find the nuclear bomb? Who cares? What the star cares about is that their character comes off as strong and appealing, with a wide emotional range for reviewers to comment on.
The kind of scripts that stars like determine the kinds of films that get made. For comparison, here's (below) a picture gallery of films made in the era when studio bosses picked the scripts:
These are my kind of films, real stick-to-your-ribs stuff. And here's (below) an example of the kind of scripts favored by studio bosses:
The studio chiefs had pretty good taste! I love the lines, "I'm gonna kill you right now, Lone Ranger!" / "Oh, no you ain't, Cal steward."
Well, that was then and this is now. Here's (below) a gallery of pictures from the star power era:
See the difference? Stars like those intimate, psychological, Stanislavskian scenes. When they pick the scripts the film is always about emotional confrontation. In the old days when two characters had a disagreement one hit the other guy, and the guy fell down dead. Nowadays it's more nuanced. Here's (below) an example of the kind of script actors like:
Stars are running the show now so you better get to like nose-to-nose psychological confrontation. You're going to be seeing a lot of it!
Sally Field is to blame for most of this star-driven Oscar bait crap. Then she went too far and ended up with no movie career and is now making bone density drug commercials. Maybe the Hudson Brothers can bring her along on their next comeback.
ReplyDeleteEddie, You're right, this is one of the ways movies have changed. But don't you think part of the reason for the change has to be changing tastes and preferences in audiences? Those actors don't have the power to force audiences to watch things they don't like, after all.
ReplyDeleteI like the Stanislavkian scenes but I also want to see more movies where cowboys use tommy guns on cattle rustlers!
ReplyDeleteOh, why must we choose between them?
There are some movies out there that do things alright... I dug Tideland, by Terry Gilliam. It seemed to have little to do with the stars that were in it. It is still true, however, that the bulk of the film industry caters not to the story, but the star. Sad.
ReplyDeletethere are worse examples of star-driven stuff than those liv ullman pictures. that kinda "conflict" stuff can be good, though - ingmar bergman stuff, is what i'm thinking of.
ReplyDeleteand wasn't it bette davis who said: nowadays anyone can be star, in my day you had earn it.
I don't think it's the stars who are choosing the scripts. It's the directors who ultimately decide what gets made, what stars are wooed for the lead roles, etc. The stars can turn down the roles, but the director has ultimate control over which stars even get solicited (with the exception of studio-driven junk like Eddie Murphy fat suit movies or Scary Movie sequels).
ReplyDeleteSome Oscar bait is probably planned as a "Brad Pitt picture," but I think that stuff is still picked by the studio, and then they bug the stars about it and try to get a director with a name to direct it.
An uglier fact is that in recent years major stars have been given HUGE salaries and even cuts of the boxoffice take for voicing CGI animated feature characters. So far, with the arguable exception of "Bee Movie" people aren't filling theatres just because a star is lending his or her voice to some cartoon character.
ReplyDeleteYou're comparing programmer or at least action films with--Ingmar Bergman or Cassavetes? Apples and kumquats!
ReplyDeleteCan you name a recent hit--say, the last 10 years--that's heavy-duty introspective closeup-filled character study at the expense of plot?
Last time I checked the vast majority of major films are action oriented(and usually not very good, but anyway).
The "big stars" have always had to be pleased--it's just that in the days of the studio system they had much less say--they were under contract.
And anyway, any actor who's a star would be nuts if they didn't worry about the type of vehicle they're going to be featured in(that's often how they got to be stars--through their unique personalities being allowed to flourish). I don't see a problem with that. I don't go to see a film just for the "plot", or one guy punching another one. I go to see a particular guy, say, Burt Lancaster, punching another one with his own unique elan.
My point is that studio bosses still pick scripts--and they still need stars to sell the tickets, as before. All movies are now A movies--"B"s are too expensive to greenlight(they only got made before at all because the studios also owned the theaters and could block book their field team, lower budget, non-star films in tandem with bigger a-list ones).
William Goldman said all this stuff 20 years ago...and it's more true now: stars do get films made, but the literacy and elegance of a screen story today is all too rare--probably a reflection of the players in the industry, most of whom aren't unintelligent, but they aren't sensitive storytelling afficionados, either. What a shame.
I've gotta ask where that image of the cops came from. They are making some hilarious faces and the composition just looks funny too.
ReplyDeletemtk- The cops in the photo are Mack Sennett's famous Keystone Cops, and the fat one on the end is Roscoe "Fatty" Arkbuckle- a character actor that became a major silent comedy star before having his career ruined by a rape scandal involving a woman at one of his Hollywood Parties held at his mansion.
ReplyDeleteThe Keystone Cops were popular with audiences because of its broad slapstick comedy, but the gags and the actors were interchangable and the storylines were usually little more than one silly situation after another.
Comics like Chaplin and Keaton moved away from this 'generic' type of comedy and developed screen characters that were the central point of the story and the gags were tailored to fit their personalities. So instead of a bunch of anonymous clowns doing the exact same pratfalls, they developed individual comedy stars that would carry an entire film. In this instance, I'm completely in favor of star-driven vehicles. A comedy star's presence in a film is the driving force of a golden age comedy. Is plot really important to a Three Stooges film? Or a W.C.Fields comedy? These guys were great performers on their own, the movies just existed to get them on screen. the problem with today's comedies is that they have too much plot.
You make it sound like Hollywood has been taken over by my mom!
ReplyDeleteA star is the one element of a movie deal that's irreplaceable. You can use whatever crew is available. There's a wide choice of directors, writers, cinematographers, etc. & it doesn't matter so much who because, generally, they don't sell tickets. Stars draw investors to a film, too. If a certain star is in a movie, you know they spent some money on all the other stuff & you'll get your $8 worth.
Ive never understood how the actors have gotten so much power and money.Think of all the people who can act, its not exactly a rare talent.Most of the budget of movies these days goes to paying the actors salaries,tens of millions of dollars which is the stupidest thing ever.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! And that Keystone Cops picture is fantastic.
ReplyDeleteWasn't it the gang of four (D.W. Griffiths, Pickford, Fairbanks & Chaplin) who started the insurrection?
ReplyDelete