In my opinion: Thank God For Bad Politics!
Blog by Star!Expert, Friday, February 10, 2006
In my opinion there is a correlation between bad politics and good films. Hear me out on this one...whenever the North American political scene takes a turn for the worse (like now), the quality of films seems to take a turn for the better (like now). There‘s a war in Iraq that few support, a president in the White House who’s approval rating is in the toilet, a deeper gulf between the haves and have-nots, and yet the movies have never been better.
Of the 5 pictures nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards only one was made for more than $30 million (it is estimated that the average film now costs close to $60 million; Fun With Dick & Jane cost over $100 million!!!!). Not that budget dictates a film’s quality, but it does often dictate a film’s content. Lower budget films can present subject matter and tackle issues that bigger budget films can’t risk doing. Hence Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck and Crash, all films that challenge an audience (even Munich, made for more than $30 million, is not an easy sell to audiences).
And this is not the first time that filmgoers have benefited from a crappy political climate… in the early ‘60s, during the halcyon days of the Kennedy administration, films tended toward the saccharine. Oscar winners included West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, My Fair Lady and the Sound of Music – don’t get me wrong, I think all of these movies are great, just not groundbreaking. But along comes the Vietnam War, Lyndon B. Johnson and – wait for it – Richard Milhous Nixon! Cue the great films – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, In The Heat of the Night, Bonnie & Clyde, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Cabaret, Deliverance, The Godfather I and II, Chinatown, Taxi Driver… but as quick as you can say Jimmy Carter the films go all soft again – Rocky, Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Star Wars, Chariots of Fire, On Golden Pond.
It took Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. to make it safe to go back to the movies – The Killing Fields, A Soldier’s Story, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Platoon, Mississippi Burning, The Last Temptation of Christ, Born on the Fourth of July, Goodfellas, The Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, JFK, The Crying Game and Schindler’s List were all released during the Reagan/Bush years… so forgive me if I wasn’t so thrilled about the arrival of Bill Clinton. Suddenly I’m forced to sit through such revisionist crowd-pleasers as Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, Gladiator, Chicago and all three Lord of the Rings flicks. Again, not bad films, just a touch on the safe side.
So three cheers for George W. Bush, the man I like to think is responsible for Far From Heaven, The Hours, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, House of Sand and Fog and Mystic River. When the inevitable happens on Oscar Night, and they hand the Best Picture prize to Brokeback Mountain, I hope they remember to thank Dubya… because without him none of this would have been possible.
