On Hollywood Movies

I have always had a strangely limited relationship with movies. Like so much, it starts with childhood. Mum did not have a long attention span, didn’t like spending money and did not find it easy to challenge her assumptions. The only movie I remember being taken to see in the cinema was “The Sound of Music”. In those days, TV was at the centre of family life, but there was only a choice between two or three channels. Whenever one choice was a movie, Mum would intone “I don’t like films” and any unwatchable rubbish on another channel was thereby selected. If we watched any movies at all, they were conservative ones, usually featuring a virginal Julie Andrews or some similar creation by Walt Disney.

Somehow the behaviour initiated by Mum has stayed with me as a life long habit, even though I don’t share any of her reasons to avoid movies. There is no topic for which my knowledge is weaker. Whenever anyone refers to a movie, I am usually the only one in the room who has never seen it and fails to understand the nuance. At a recent choir rehearsal, the director made a point about Star Wars, checking first that everyone had seen the movie to avoid spoiling for anyone. Of course, everyone else had seen the movie. Not only had I not seen it, I had no interest in seeing it, so told him he could not spoil it for me. The lady standing next to me uttered, “You really are from another planet”. I don’t think I was supposed to hear her, but I did and I am grateful, because the remark made me think. We all have ways that are different to others, and it is good to know what they are so we can understand them and respond. If you put 100 adults from developed countries into a room, I would be the one who had spent the lowest proportion of my life watching movies. If you ever play Trivial Pursuit against me, always select the entertainment category as my Achilles heel.

Sometimes I see this strange quirk as a regret, and sometimes an opportunity. My social assets are plainly diminished by the cultural void of my lack of movie experience. Probably my intellectual assets are too, though maybe if I had seen more movies I would have had less time to do other things like read or sing or walk. Many people have dreams about what they’ll do when they retire, and one of mine is to catch up on all those great movies that I missed. I am not sure whether the dream makes any sense, since movies tend to date badly like so much else. But on balance this feels like an opportunity.

Anyway, now I am sort of retired and am time rich, and I am blessed to live in an age where some gadget on the TV means I can watch movies all day at home if I want to, so it is time to start acting on the dream. This year my new year’s resolution was to watch a couple of movies per month.

I have made a bad start. I have the time, but habits do not change easily and I seem to find other things to do when I might choose to find a movie. Once or twice, I have sat in front of the TV only to find that the brilliant gadget is not working that day because of poor internet connectivity or something. But mainly, I think the trouble is that my standards for what makes a worthwhile movie to watch are not easy to meet.

I like movies that are about realistic people doing realistic things. Is this too much to ask? It does seem to be nowadays. In my life, I have never seen a gun used, and I’ve only once been in a fight, in as far as I got annoyed with someone and grabbed his collar. Am I that unusual in this? Yet violence seems to be central to almost all movies. Then I struggle to see the point of movies about aliens or superheroes, and why have animation and computer graphics become so popular, when portrayal of humanity is all about acting? Historical movies are fine, so long as there is lesson or relevance to today, so, sorry, endless costume dramas don’t quite cut it. War is OK as a subject, so long as it doesn’t degenerate into superhero territory or glorifying violence.

What does this list say about me? I don’t know, really. Last year my family and I sat down at home to watch a movie, since we try to find things to do together. The family chose Kingsman. I lasted about twenty minutes before I found that I had to just leave the room. There was nothing but mindless violence and foul language. The movie just made me angry.

Luckily, the last couple of weeks have made me feel better. At home, I watched Four Lions, Philomena and Carol. Thanks to Iberian airlines and two long haul flights I have added Brooklyn, Spotlight and The Danish Girl. Six lovely movies have restored my faith in the medium and reignited the dream.

I sort of don’t understand why anyone would want to watch the more popular fare. I suppose there is some escapism and some relaxation to it – we are not always in a mood to be challenged or depressed. I suppose I am lucky not to have so stressful a life that I need a fix of unreality all that often.

And none of the six movies I watched were in the least depressing. True, there were serious subjects and the need to engage the brain. A full range of human emotion was on view, including sadness. But each was ultimately uplifting, much more than a burst of Star Wars in my opinion.

Four Lions should be required viewing for all American kids, to balance the manufactured face of Jihad peddled by the mainstream. Philomena was a wonderful story of forgiveness and hope. Carol and the Danish Girl both helped to understand the historical context of sexual tolerance. Brooklyn had the simplest of simple stories, but still said a lot about loyalty and dilemmas of emigration. Spotlight made me wonder why such journalism is so out of fashion, if we exclude the marvellous crusading by The Guardian and a few others. All of them made me think, and to challenge lazy assumptions about the world, and to come away with an enhanced belief in the miracle that is humanity.

All these movies are educational as well as entertaining, helping society to face dilemmas and find a way forward. There is a long history of such movies, on subjects such as civil rights, female emancipation, complex sexuality, or even awareness of nutrition (Super Size Me). Movies have power. I sometimes link my extreme naivety in dealing with girls in my teens and early twenties to the absence of movies in my upbringing.

So don’t mainstream movies represent a terrible lost opportunity? Of course the main purpose is commercial and entertainment, and I am not one of those who find conspiracy theories behind the way the movie industry chooses subjects. Executives have to look at potential audiences, their likelihood of visiting a cinema, costs and risks. They may have become lazy in their extreme focus on a single, young, American, male, escape-seeking demographic for almost all movies, but such laziness does not imply any conspiracy, indeed rather the opposite, it may represent lost opportunities for the parts of the industry.

But, conspiracy or no, the lost opportunity is more than missed chances to challenge and educate. The problem is that the weight of movies of certain types perpetuates false and dangerous conceptions in the minds of Americans. Is it any wonder that mainstream America thinks in binary terms of good or evil, friend or enemy, that naïve valour will win out in happy endings, that women are secondary, or that guns and violence are valuable. Mainstream movies avoid the leading edge – as an example nowadays you might see a female or black hero, but so far not a Moslem one.

I guess it was ever thus and there is little that can be done, and I guess I am hardly the one to pontificate on a subject about which I know so little. But perhaps part of my rejection of mainstream movies is about some anger at their damaging effects on society, and perhaps others might feel the same, and collectively with advances in technology something can change for the better. I will not hold my breath. And until then, my search for movies to catch up on will continue to feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.