Nicholas
Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to
literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree
or disagree with him.
THEY STILL MAKE ‘EM LIKE THEY USED TO
The
phrase “they don’t make ‘em like they
used to” became a cliché when nostalgic people talked about the films
Hollywood used to make. The idea was that the old studios once turned out
something enjoyable and entertaining, even if it presented an innocent or naïve
view of the world.
But
I assert that, in fact, “they still
make’em like they used to”. I do not mean this as approbation. I am pointing
to the reality that many of the clichés of old Hollywood still persist, no
matter how much audiences might regard themselves as more sophisticated in
their tastes than their grandparents.
We
no longer believe in strong, silent heroes solving everyone’s problems, do we?
We laugh at sanitised versions of the private lives of public people, don’t we?
So we no longer believe in Hollywood fairy-tales, right?
Wrong.
Look
a little more critically, and you will see that the film industry in general
(but the American film industry in particular) still feeds wish-fulfliment
fantasies.
Let
me consider a few recent specimens that have passed under my upturned,
discerning nose.
Drawn by favourable reviews, I went to see
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood, set at the end of the 1960s. It was amusing and enjoyable for
much of its length. I appreciated good acting from the two leads who are
intelligently outgrowing their former pretty-boy status: Leonardo da Caprio as
an egotistical, fading cowboy star and Brad Pitt as his unassuming stunt
double. I took the hint from the title (“once
upon a time”) that this was going to be a sort of fairy-tale, not to be
taken too seriously. I understood that there was going to be something elegaic
about the movie when the Manson “family” were introduced into the narrative – the
murders they committed did, after all, put a full-stop to the era of “flower
power”. One sequence I found touching and sad as hell - the sequence in which the actress Sharon
Tate (played by Margot Robbie) goes to the movies to see herself, and is
clearly thrilled by the thought that she has now made it big. Clearly she
hasn’t (her part is a silly supporting role in an indifferent film) and we know
that, in real life, she would shortly be murdered by Manson’s mob. This is what
gives the sequence some of its pathos.
BUT
(and I make absolutely no apology for the spoilers here – the film has already
been on release for months) the ending is ridiculous, whether or not we have
been warned that it’s a fairy-tale. The Manson “family” never make it to their
notorious murders. Instead, they raid the home of the stuntman who, with the
faded cowboy star, fights them off and kills some of them. This sequence is
filmed as joyful fun, including the cowboy star blasting one of the Manson
group with a flame-thrower. The Manson murders never happen and there’s a sort
of happy ending.
So
in the end, what are we getting? Just
another movie with catharsis by violence, like those old cowboy films that we
are now too sophisticated to enjoy. John Wayne kills the bad guys and rides
into the sunset. Brad Pitt and Leonardo da Caprio kill the Mansons. Happy
ending and fadedout. To say that this is “ironic”, knowing and self-referencing
is simply having ten bob each way. It’s the same scenario old studio-dominated
Hollywood used to make.
Now
for a switch of genres. If ever we get to see them on Youtude, DVD or another
platform, Hollywood’s old “biopics” of musicians and composers are things that
we now laugh at, apart from the moments when we are enjoying their musical
interludes or production numbers. Cornel Wilde in A Song to Remember (1945) as Frederic Chopin; Katherine Hepburn and
Paul Henreid pretending to be Clara and Robert Schumann in Song of Love (1947); and Dirk Bogarde pretending to be Franz Liszt
in Song Without End (1960). All of
them can now be seen as soap-operas, hilariously inaccurate as biography,
sanitised, romanticised and Americanised. The same is true of those old movies
about modern, popular composers. Robert Alda pretending to be George Gershwin
in Rhapsody in Blue (1945); or Cary
Grant gamely pretending to be Cole Porter (and gamely pretending that Cole
Porter was heterosexual) in Night and Day
(1946). And don’t get me started on sanitised biopics about singers,
bandleaders and dancers that the studios used to grind out – movies purportedly
about Benny Goodman, Al Jolson, Glenn Miller etc. You have to groan your way
through their contrived, fictitous soap-opera scenarios to enjoy the singing or
dancing bits.
We
are far too sceptical and worldly-wise to fall for this sort of thing now,
aren’t we?
Okay
then – compare them with the recently-released Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic of the late Freddie Mercury of Queen.
I went along and enjoyed much of the music. And smirked in disbelief at the
intended drama. Fact - Brian May, lead
guitarist of Queen, was one of the consultants and producers of the film. So
guess who gets to be represented in the film as a paragon of hard work and
decency when Freddie is in danger of going off the rails? Much of the film is
complete fiction. There is a contrived ending where the band, which has broken
up, reunites for the Live Aid concert. In reality, they hadn’t broken up at
that time. The film makes them the great and outstanding hit of the concert (they
weren’t) and it’s all so tragic and brave because, says the film, Freddie
Mercury had been diagnosed with AIDS shortly before the concert took place (in
reality, he wasn’t thus diagnosed until years later). And then there’s the sentimental
stuff about Freddie’s One True Love and a quick glossing over of his sex-life
and… oh fudge! You see that I can easily pull apart this film as being
essentially the same sort of soap that the old musical biopics were. I was now
going to dissect the same techniques in the new film Rocketman, purportedly giving the life of Elton John (who, unlike
Freddie Mercury, is still alive, and therefore capable of protecting his
image).
Maybe
fifty years hence, through some media device as yet uninvented, a youngster
will watch Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocketman and laugh at the gullibility
of audiences way back in the 2010s. The film industry now, more than ever,
plays to youthful tastes (action flicks, superhero blockbusters etc. based on
comic-book assumptions) and produces fantasy worlds as its prime
income–earners. Hence the persistence of old tropes. But don’t let it be
assumed that its “serious” films are more rooted in the real world than films
were in the past. Movie-making is still essentially a dream factory; “irony” is
just a way of re-packaging old storylines while claiming to be hip; and biopics
of showbiz figures are the same soaps they always were. Generations X,Y, Z,
Milliennial, Inane, Whatever please be advised. They still make ‘em like they used to.
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