The End of a Legend
It’s a common belief that Americans are only interested in themselves. That old Europe is a dark forest to them, and beyond that lies nothing but wild Asia.
It’s also commonly believed that “Oscars” are the golden ticket to distribution. This is a myth: some Oscar favorites might flicker on a couple of screens and even garner some press, but that hardly constitutes a wide release.
The notion of incurious Americans conveniently explained our failures on foreign screens – it was their fault, not ours.
The success of the Taiwanese film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” casts doubt on this thesis as well: Taiwan has certainly never been of interest to America. It probably doesn’t even know where the country is located, yet it flocked to cinemas in droves. Comforting legends about the film’s Hollywood origins are just cinematic alchemy: it’s no more American than “Moloch” is German. Even less so: in “Moloch” they speak German, while in “Crouching Tiger” they speak Mandarin, and poor Americans have to learn to read subtitles.
And then there was the grand success of the Italian tragicomedy “Life is Beautiful.” Although the typical American knows pizza better than Italian movie stars. Both cases confirm that incidental circumstances, such as the enlightenment of political horizons or prospects for Russian oil, cannot bring the viewer to the cinema. Only the films themselves can. That is, the complex of ideas, worldviews, images, and talents that are pleasant to engage with.
The Treacherous Traitor
The word “pleasant,” despite its aesthetic frivolity, is key here. You instinctively move away from an unpleasant person. And from a film made by one, too. I emphasize: I am only interested in this aspect right now. Not the multiplicity of cinema’s tasks as an art form. Not the development of cinematic language and other important arthouse subtleties. I am interested in the nature of cinema as a way for people and cultures to communicate. And why this channel is chronically clogged with film that is not in demand, not only in the distant USA, but also in nearby Europe. And even at home in Russia.
The favorite thesis of certain masters about their indifference to the viewer is a disingenuous figure of speech: it’s a strange master who doesn’t need me, but only needs my money so that he can make another film for his inner circle. But cinema is not a notebook where you can write a poem “for the drawer.” Cinema is an industry, and there is no industry without a consumer. Even a director indifferent to the viewer requires considerable money for self-expression. The money is given either by the viewer (which is normal) or by the taxpayer (which is not normal), but lovers of scattering viewers constantly forget about this circumstance.
Therefore, the viewer naturally forgets about such lovers. The distribution forgets – both domestic and global. Even an institution like the American Film Academy, which is considered the most influential in the world of cinema and cinematic success, forgets. It only values films that people watch. The rest – don’t exist.
All films that have managed to cross borders and be released in wide distribution are made for viewers. Western critics value this quality (“Life is Beautiful,” the Brazilian “Central Station,” the Taiwanese “Crouching Tiger,” etc. are received with enthusiasm); our critics, as a rule, grimace. Now we are scolding Soderbergh for betraying “arthouse” for “the people.” Foolish.
“We’re Not From Around Here…”
Pleasant is when it’s comfortable. The public is accustomed to high-quality picture and sound; the watery tones and flat, nasal dialogues characteristic of our films evoke a sense of sloppiness, archaism, and poverty. Our cinema, for the most part, is substandard goods.
Worse, from the point of view of the modern politically correct world, our understanding of the very purpose of cinema is substandard – we are convinced that the public wants the truth, we interpret this truth as a striptease, and we turn only the unsightly inside out. This began when perestroika lifted the ban on criticism, and “chernukha” (grim, bleak depictions of reality) flooded the cinema. Most often, there was no smell of exposing birthmarks here – “chernukha” had a clear commercial slant: criminal themes sold well in Russia, and the exoticism of wild customs sold even better in the West. A telling example is Vitaly Kanevsky, a very gifted director who amazed intellectuals with the unprecedented level of truth in his autobiographical film “Freeze, Die, Come to Life.” The film about a prison childhood received a prize in Cannes, and the director, who had suffered from the Soviets, realized that suffering was his capital. His subsequent films were opportunistic, but the outlandish texture carried him for a while, and the director left Russia in the hope of long-term success. The success turned out to be short-lived: watching the wildness of customs quickly became boring, and Kanevsky had no new ideas.
His fate is the fate of our cinema of the 90s. It sucked the meager well of “chernukha” dry and continues to suck, although the source has dried up. “Chernukha” was not a new level of truth – it was the stump of a train station beggar, shamelessly displayed. Such a beggar is given alms, but with disgust – they rush to move away. And cinema must earn money, and with dignity – so that people rush to come to it.
For those for whom the word dignity sounds too moralizing, I will say it differently: a person with dignity is more pleasant than a person tearing his undershirt on his chest, and therefore his efforts are more commercially effective.
Mysterious East
Here is the secret of the success of the new Chinese cinema, which for Europe and America is as if on another planet, but conquers European and American screens. It has long overtaken us, although it has a less glorious history, and the Chinese mentality is even further from the American than the Russian. It can show life as terrible as you like, but it always has human and national dignity. It tells about life without complaining to the world about “unhappy China,” as our cinema does about “unhappy Russia,” a “God-forsaken” country; its heroes are worthy of love and sympathy. Our “Peculiarities of the National Hunt” are frightening: each of the peculiarities goes against generally accepted values. We flaunt what is usually considered shameful. “They” and “we” have diverged fundamentally.
They tell stories – we whine, they cultivate the positive – we nurture criminal consciousness, indulge complexes, and provoke aggression, they are patriots – we believe neither in ourselves nor in our own country; for them, political correctness is indisputable – for us, it is a reason to snarl, and the basic concepts of “morality” and “spirituality” are, like bras, out of fashion. These are the barriers that separate us more reliably than state borders. As director Boris Ayrapetyan noted at a plenum of Russian filmmakers, our cinema is now a destructive, not a creative force.
But who wants to deal with convinced destroyers? What madman finds this so pleasant that he will pay money for it?
Kirdyk Means Harakiri
Self-deprecation had to be replaced by an antithesis. At best, “The Barber of Siberia” arose, at worst – “Brother 2.” Both films are primarily ideological. “The Barber” should arouse longing for “the Russia we lost” and turn minds towards a sweet monarchy. “Brother 2” commercially exploited the xenophobia wandering in the “ochlos” (mob) and made it the banner of the crowd. Both options, despite their skill, evoke the natural antipathy of an unengaged viewer. I’m not even talking about the authors’ orientation towards the West they reject: Mikhalkov makes a film half in English, Balabanov makes a wretched version of an American action movie. Both films want to take “national identity,” but in fact, they are cosmopolitan and do not express Russia as “Life is Beautiful” expresses Italy.
Look at the “Oscar” and rating lists – who is in demand? Gladiator, a model of nobility; Erin Brockovich, a fighter for justice; Billy Elliot, stubbornly pursuing his dream, a new Maresyev; Tom Hanks in “Cast Away,” an exposer of health-damaging machinations at a tobacco company from the film “The Insider,” new Romeo and Juliet in “Titanic”… Strong heroes, with ideals, you want to deal with them. In our cinema, you can’t find an attractive hero, and even the eroticism is sickening. You have to admire either the unearthly junker Tolstoy, who faints at the sight of a woman, or the semi-fascist Danila Bagrov.
“Arthouse” is a special case. It does not count on a large audience and is aimed at the future of cinema, forming new ideas and a new language. But even the future, according to our arthouse, is also dark and terrible. With outstanding merits at times, its examples represent the same tendency of hopelessly combing wounds, express a society that has stopped forever (which is half-truth) and masochism as a “peculiarity of the national character.” This is a well-crafted, but still a “stump.”
Black and White Cinema
It is foolish to question the importance of arthouse for art, and it does not need protection. But it is already certain that the categories that are basic for mass cinema need protection. I have already said about some. It is necessary to add the malicious word “myth.” There are critics who swear by this word. They should be pitied, as a color-blind person is pitied: mythological consciousness in the modern understanding is available only to a person who is able to independently separate the ideal from harsh reality and not confuse operetta with social film drama, measuring everything with one yardstick. Of course, you can hang signs for the incomprehensible: this is a lion, not a dog, but if you focus on the color-blind, the cinema will have to become black and white.
International success accompanies films where, with any exoticism of texture, there is a common language of ideals. Previously, our cinema was separated from the world by a wall of communist norms, but there remained points of mutual understanding in the best, world-recognized films. Now the time for rapprochement has come, and we are like without pants: we have neither ideals, nor norms, none at all. And there are no norms without them – they are dictated by a sense of self-preservation: declarations, commandments, laws written and unwritten arise, and everything else that we confuse with the restriction of freedoms and that is actually a sign of civilization. Art is a free tree, but attributing divine origin to it is possible only in the same myth. A product of human consciousness, it is subject to all its diseases, including the tendency to suicide. You can admire the freely growing jungle of the Amazon, but no one will live there – they will prefer a park area not clogged with thistles. The alternative to human norms is lawlessness. The ship of society can be rocked as much as you like, but art is its gyroscope. Without a clear sense of top and bottom, the ship will overturn. And everyone around will only be amazed: well, what suckers!