First, let me admit that I haven't seen the film and after what I have read
on this list will not pay $10.50 to see it in Manhattan.  It will be on
cable sooner or later.

Having admitted that, I want to assert that film is a business.  It
occasionally produces some great artists, John Huston, Akira Kurasawa,
Ingmar Bergman, but it remains a business.  When I went to see Good Night,
and Good Luck, I was one of the youngest people in the theater and I am near
60.  But who born after 1960 would remember Edward R. Murrow?

Most films are aimed at a demographic roughly 14-24.  I can remember when I
was young people bragging about how many times they had seen Star Wars.
Ditto more recently for Independence Day and the Ring Trilogy.  The typical
investor in films would rather have one that teenagers see ten times than
that history buffs see once and cheer about its accuracy and clarity.  The
market can do many things but it isn't much good for making great art any
more.  It is pretty hard to get most Americans to study history in school.
Film for most is entertainment and history just isn't entertaining to most
people.

Even Huston and Kurasawa had to make plenty of money.  The Maltese Falcon
was Huston's directorial debut.  It was and remains very popular.  Kurasawa
developed a world audience, as did Bergman, though the Swedish film
institute also subsidized his work.

The great Indian director Satyajit Ray made his first film, Pather Panchali,
on $20,000 out of his own pocket.  He drew every scene (he worked at an
advertising firm in Calcutta), the actress who played the grandmother (or so
I have read) was an opium addict so he had to keep her supplied while he
worked for more money to finish his film, otherwise she might disappear.
Fortunately for Ray, John Huston somehow saw the film and he and others got
it distributed around the world.  Ray's career was made.

I have to say, given what the film industry is around the world--Hollywood,
Bollywood, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo--we are lucky to have as many genuinely
brilliant films as we do.  For my money, some of the best American films are
slice of life dramas about every day Americans.  Catch "Inventing the
Abbotts" on cable sometime.  That is a wonderful film about class, personal
relations, and life in a small town in Illinois in the 20th century.

Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Louise Bernikow" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2006 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: 'New World' sadly, bad history


> i'll ask again, in case the (welcome) email flood swamped the question--
> does
> anyone have an idea about why Malick's movie turned out the way it did? an
> analysis? can't be carelessness or ignorance- the filmmakers have too many
> resources available to them- and "poetic" doesnt cut it either. thinking
> of writing
> something, eager for opinions.
> Louise Bernikow
>
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