[oscargrouch]

Watching pre-code hollywood you can see how the movies from the US from that era were not far away from the european movies in terms of brightness.

Once i knew about this i understood why most of the hollywood movies turned out into the brain damages in comparison to the european cinema.. this together with plot based movies + capitalistic objectives being considered above artistic values and originality, turned things worse.

The only reason some US movies have artistic values is or because the film-makers are defiant of the system, rule-breakers, managing to bend the system into their favor or the money-making machine captivated some talented foreign film-makers.. But of course giving the system keep draining and eating itself, its never enough, and there are no roots nor a organic and sustainable growth.

But the system works in a sort of vampiresque form, so once there are no more talent to suck, or the talents are not "selling out" anymore, all the system goes down with time..

I love to watch the cultural and cinema areas because there are a lot of lessons to learn from the perspective of technology, because our fields are not that much different once you see the patterns..

I always tough that the US capitalism need some sort of balance to not always become imbalanced because its giving too much focus on profits.

Technology companies that were once inventive turn into to "give more profits to the shareholder" machines and eventually lose what actually gave them the edge anyway. Apple for instance didn't learn its lesson and its repeating the same errors of the past unfortunately..

I know it was about "pre-code" and "what it have to do with it?" right? But i focus on this to learn about how technology can blossom and other controversial things like "what the nazis did right" (*) in terms of technology to understand more about this..

(*) - My current answer to this is that the nazi were there just in time to collect all the science that have been promoted since the XIX century. So basically the nazis were there to collect and use all that scientific prowess to forge their war machine (of course they were also masters at giving people meaning and big goals/dream big).

[briandear]

France’s film industry is a counterpoint. While there are some good films, they are the exception. A lot of real crap gets made in France because they don’t answer to the box office. (I really love the French New Wave, so I’m not a French film hater — but there is a lot of garbage that gets made because of how films get funded and exhibited — i.e. nationalistic film quotas.) The UK on the other hand has some pretty cool films — it seems to be a hybrid of the American privately funded system with some non-profit support.

The Korean film industry is “capitalistic” and they are putting out some really great stuff; though Korean “dramas” are the East-Asian version of novellas — I can live without that. But the people seem to like it.

[oscargrouch]

I like your comment because it really make the root point here more evident..

Different strategies with different outcomes, it's hard to compare anything against the US which is an outlier, but there are some connections between tech and the cultural industry (especially movies).

And also as your point make more evident, of course that making the movie industry more sustainable and able to attract attention somehow is wanted. But giving there are people that like to eat more sushi than pizza, and giving the movie industry can shape itself while shaping its customers at the same time, i wonder if there's not a good way to mixing both (i mean hollywood could have been more bold in that regards instead of focusing too much in shaping its "milking cow")..

Anyway art is against "useful" or at least should have such a freedom that it doesn't even need to abide to useful.. Movies are a wonderful medium exactly because it's on this thin line between be art and something "useful" somehow.. making it a very sophisticated art form. (James Cameron comes to mind in mixing well both worlds, but guys like Denis Villeneuve are the ones that mix it really well in my point of view, bringing more sophistication to the table of popularity)

Somehow technology in general falls into those same traps. It must be sustainable, but to keep moving forward it also needs not to kill creativity. That's why i've mixed "maximizing the shareholder profit" into the equation to show how despite the fact that capital was paramount for the success of the endeavor in the first place, it can also be the source of its ruin when it makes the endeavors to lost what made them successful in the first place because they are focusing too much in just one vector (it actually kind of works great for industrial endeavors, but its not hard to see that more sophisticated industries like software and cinema, it doesn't live to it's full potential).

[WalterBright]

I'm curious why you think "capitalistic objectives" mean bad films.

After all, capitalistic objectives means making movies that people are willing to pay to see. Wouldn't that mean better movies?

[oscargrouch]

One of the reasons films are popular is by reinforcing a pavlovian behavior, where the movie industry learn what people like to see and give them that in return in a formulaic manner.

It works like a self-fulfilling prophecy, so once the formula of the popular of a given period is found, movies are made repeating those patterns to attract paying costumers (movies are one of the only industries who can mold their customers to become their customers).

Particularly i don't think popular convey into best, sometimes i'ts not even good, its just a Pavlov dog expecting to be entertained. So answering your question if people watch movies to be entertained, yes that industry works, as the profits show. But i disagree this industry create good movies as in the form movies were meant to be.

I don't mind formulaic movies, i don't judge people that want to be entertained as i was one of them and i still am from time to time, but once you dig down in the the cinema rabbit hole your sense of good changes quite a lot.. its like once you learn to taste more fancy food, with a myriad of tastes and colors a macdonald's does not taste the same. Or getting back to program in C after learn to program in D :)

Best as in movies for entertainment purposes, yes. Best as in sophisticated movies, i dont think it's the best system. I don't know what would that be.. and i bet it probably would need to be a "capitalism 2.0" that mixed with other things, but the system is kind of broken and until we really fix this we will need to live with economical crisis from 10 to 10 years..