Posted on 03/11/2005 11:00:10 AM PST by w6ai5q37b
the market for family films has always been there. whether it was exploited or not was the choice of the film studios. The 1970s were filled with the movies that you mentioned because the filmmakers were finally free from the restrictions of the hays code and decided they would produce movies that pushed the envelope, for the first time, simply because they could. Only a few studios realized that there still was a market in family oriented content, Disney being the major, if not only, one. At the same time they also realized that they needed to produce those other films that appealed to a different audience, and began to invest in other film companies and distribution channels that weren't publicly affiliated with disney, so as to not harm their "family oriented" public persona. Miramax made Disney a ton of money in the mid to late 90s with movies such as the Scream Trilogy.
With even the TV market fragmenting I doubt Hollywood will ever again be the mass medium it was from the 30's to the 50's.
Tell me you guys don't have something wrong with Scarface?
One of the best movies of all time.
A relative made a movie recently. Theme: true crime-horrible bloody first degree murder (bludgeoning people to death). The next one due out will be horror/mystical suspense (trashing Christian faith, losing faith, taking on 'religious phenomena' in order to 'debunk' religion). The family is slightly displeased with me that I'm not totally enthusiastic and supportive of my relative (and these movies are all they can talk about!) I honestly feel sad that my relative wants to make movies with such dark and depressing themes.
Hollywood couldn't figure out an idiom to reflect the changes in the lives of young people. It was a problem as stark as the early talkies not knowing how to do love scenes (which ended John Gilbert's career).
Spielberg found a way to show childhood innocence without being Disney saccharine. His children are well aware of adult sexuality but not partakers. So their entry into it is no rude shock (An earlier generation of American men could not bring themselves to think of grownup Shirley Temple's honey pot so she didn't have an adult career. Men in the 80s had no trouble thinking of Drew Barrymore, Jodie Foster, or Brooke Shields.). In his most extreme pro-child statement "Back to the Future" it is the son who teaches the father how to be a man.
"The Shootist" was a eulogy.
During the 70's nobody was lining up around the block to see "The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again". But the Disney name was so branded as "family market" that they were trapped. Hollywood studios nearly went bankrupt chasing the family market with big budget musical flops.
I read somewhere that when Spielberg and his group previewed E.T. to studio heads and various industry wags they were terrified when it was compared to a Disney film...which at the time was the kiss of death.
Yes. Nobody who was the least bit cool would touch anything Disney with a ten foot pole. It was where careers went to die.
dimension, which is owned by miramax, which is owned by disney.
I concede yours and Sam The Sham's points. good points by both of you.
A final point.
The same thing, the end of the family market, was going on in television and radio, too.
Around 1970 TV discovered demographics. The networks realized that young people and the cultural left despised a sitcom television that in no way reflected the changes in American society. Urban cools did not watch "Gomer Pyle, USMC". CBS made the decision to dump a whole rafter of standards that appealed to older, rural viewers ("The Andy Griffith Show", "Mayberry RFD", "Petticoat Junction", "Green Acres", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "The Red Skelton Show", etc), rued their earlier choice to side with the network censors against "The Smothers Brothers Show", and moved towards the hip sitcoms of the 70's ("All in the Family", "Mary Tyler Moore", "Mash", etc). The cultural middle had collapsed. There was no more "mainstream". If you're not cool, advertisers don't want you and we don't want you. In fact, successful TV shows have been dumped because the demographic was too old for advertiser tastes ("Murder She Wrote", "Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman", "Diagnosis Murder").
And what about radio ? Billboard Top 40 AM stations went out of business. Radio stations segmented into "urban progressive" or "album oriented rock". People who liked disco didn't want to hear "Stairway to Heaven" five times a day.
Well with that "Cartwright Disease", Adam's girlfriend was probably too afraid to get married and Hoss's wife would have died within 45 minutes of the marriage. :)
I don't get it,
However, on The Big Valley, anyone who got romanticaly involved with a Barkley turned out to be a crook.
The movie industry took a huge hit first with the advent of TV, then the demise of the much-maligned Hayes code in 1966, cable in the 1970s, and finally videos in the 1980s. Movie theaters nowadays are largely patronized by young, unmarried people (predominately male) in their teens and 20s, or adults accompanying children. Adults over the age of 30 rarely go the movies -- they wait for the DVD. The DVD release of a movie is normally about 5-6 months after the theatrical release. Most people are willing to wait.
yep. did you do research papers on the movies in grad school and find those statistics, just like I did, too?
Plot summaries don't tell you if a movie is actually any good. You can make a bad movie from any plot. The best film criticism these days is online. Magazines and TV hire critics that are too populist for my taste.
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