Aug 14, 2023 02:16 AM
(This post was last modified: Aug 14, 2023 02:52 AM by C C.)
https://youtu.be/4btUeRk8GDg
VIDEO EXCERPTS: The peak year of the movies is 1939. And what happens at that peak is that the popular movies and the critically acclaimed movies are the same.
[...Eventually...] the movies split into two categories. The popular trash, like these Marvel movies, these superhero movies. And then these kinds of tiny little intellectual exercises that the critics think are so important, but the rest of us can't stay awake through.
And [...] it's simply a matter of the art form aging out. A lot of that energy went over to TV in the 2000s. In the early 2000s, I remember watching a show here called "The Shield" and thinking, oh gee, they're doing everything I did in the second golden age of mystery writing. I was writing characters just like this, and now they've all moved over to TV. And we had 20 years of great TV here. I mean it was really brilliant stuff.
But the other thing is this idea of Wokeness [...] we use it as a slogan, but it's actually a very deep philosophical movement. It is the bottom of atheistic philosophy, and it's impossible to make a good story out of it because it has no inner life. The whole premise of Wokeness is there is no spiritual life. There's only power. Everything that we believe in is power. Femininity is power. Masculinity is power. The constructs of power, and so they can't say anything about what it is to be a human being. [Will to power]
[...] You can't make a movie where a guy comes to town and builds a business, and he's the hero of the movie. Because it's all about power. So if he has power he must be the bad guy. When you get rid of the spiritual life, there's only power, and that's not a good story.
[...] In the movies at a certain point... the police, the generals, the army, they all became the bad guys. The criminal is the good one.
What you're talking about is a perfect metaphor for politics. More broadly, because you have an elite that is so up its own ass it is completely out of touch with the ordinary person. Critics like or dislike something, and it's the opposite way for the ordinary person, right?
It seems to me like it's not just about aging out. It's about a fundamental detachment of the people in Hollywood from the people who they're supposed to provide services or content for. [...] The people who are powerful are completely detached from the people.
The advent of Donald Trump, which even at the time I said: "You know this is a tragic moment when it takes a man like Donald Trump to speak for the people."
[...] this is not about whether Trump's a nice person, or a good person, or anything like that. It's simply what he represented to people. For 50 years the powers that be told people in this country, "You stink. Your country stinks. Your religion stinks. The color of your skin stinks. Everything about your history, it stinks. Your God doesn't exist."
Well, why did they elect Donald Trump? You know my feeling was, you're lucky [the intellectual class & wealthy progressive elite] that they [the ordinary people] didn't show up outside your house with a torch and a pitchfork and toss you into the Potomac.
[...] You have all the kind of beautiful things that Europe produced, and once you lose that idea [the Enlightenment], you lose everything. Today's coagulation of power and money and political ideas in an aristocracy that does not care anymore for the people. You can see it.
But going back to the movies, where the values that America used to embody and celebrate... If you think about the movies of the 80s and 90s, there's strength, resilience, independence. Taking responsibility for yourself. You look at the movies now and they are just unrecognizable. You think to yourself what message are you trying to send me, how are you trying to inspire me?
[...] It's an amazing thing, the people who built the movie industry, the people who made the movies I love, and probably you love as well... Many of them were immigrants. Many of them were Jews. And they loved this place, they loved America.
I mean because they'd seen what the rest of the world was like, especially the Jewish guys. They knew exactly what they had going on in America. And they were liberal in the sense that they wanted to be included.
But they were businessmen who thought their business depended on the audience liking what they did. So if the audience was Christian, they give them Christians.
They have a scene where the Christian guy would be nice to a Jew, and that would give you a good feeling, and they would say, yes, we're part of this country, too. And everybody said yes, you are. And that was great stuff...
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/4btUeRk8GDg
VIDEO EXCERPTS: The peak year of the movies is 1939. And what happens at that peak is that the popular movies and the critically acclaimed movies are the same.
[...Eventually...] the movies split into two categories. The popular trash, like these Marvel movies, these superhero movies. And then these kinds of tiny little intellectual exercises that the critics think are so important, but the rest of us can't stay awake through.
And [...] it's simply a matter of the art form aging out. A lot of that energy went over to TV in the 2000s. In the early 2000s, I remember watching a show here called "The Shield" and thinking, oh gee, they're doing everything I did in the second golden age of mystery writing. I was writing characters just like this, and now they've all moved over to TV. And we had 20 years of great TV here. I mean it was really brilliant stuff.
But the other thing is this idea of Wokeness [...] we use it as a slogan, but it's actually a very deep philosophical movement. It is the bottom of atheistic philosophy, and it's impossible to make a good story out of it because it has no inner life. The whole premise of Wokeness is there is no spiritual life. There's only power. Everything that we believe in is power. Femininity is power. Masculinity is power. The constructs of power, and so they can't say anything about what it is to be a human being. [Will to power]
[...] You can't make a movie where a guy comes to town and builds a business, and he's the hero of the movie. Because it's all about power. So if he has power he must be the bad guy. When you get rid of the spiritual life, there's only power, and that's not a good story.
[...] In the movies at a certain point... the police, the generals, the army, they all became the bad guys. The criminal is the good one.
What you're talking about is a perfect metaphor for politics. More broadly, because you have an elite that is so up its own ass it is completely out of touch with the ordinary person. Critics like or dislike something, and it's the opposite way for the ordinary person, right?
It seems to me like it's not just about aging out. It's about a fundamental detachment of the people in Hollywood from the people who they're supposed to provide services or content for. [...] The people who are powerful are completely detached from the people.
The advent of Donald Trump, which even at the time I said: "You know this is a tragic moment when it takes a man like Donald Trump to speak for the people."
[...] this is not about whether Trump's a nice person, or a good person, or anything like that. It's simply what he represented to people. For 50 years the powers that be told people in this country, "You stink. Your country stinks. Your religion stinks. The color of your skin stinks. Everything about your history, it stinks. Your God doesn't exist."
Well, why did they elect Donald Trump? You know my feeling was, you're lucky [the intellectual class & wealthy progressive elite] that they [the ordinary people] didn't show up outside your house with a torch and a pitchfork and toss you into the Potomac.
[...] You have all the kind of beautiful things that Europe produced, and once you lose that idea [the Enlightenment], you lose everything. Today's coagulation of power and money and political ideas in an aristocracy that does not care anymore for the people. You can see it.
But going back to the movies, where the values that America used to embody and celebrate... If you think about the movies of the 80s and 90s, there's strength, resilience, independence. Taking responsibility for yourself. You look at the movies now and they are just unrecognizable. You think to yourself what message are you trying to send me, how are you trying to inspire me?
[...] It's an amazing thing, the people who built the movie industry, the people who made the movies I love, and probably you love as well... Many of them were immigrants. Many of them were Jews. And they loved this place, they loved America.
I mean because they'd seen what the rest of the world was like, especially the Jewish guys. They knew exactly what they had going on in America. And they were liberal in the sense that they wanted to be included.
But they were businessmen who thought their business depended on the audience liking what they did. So if the audience was Christian, they give them Christians.
They have a scene where the Christian guy would be nice to a Jew, and that would give you a good feeling, and they would say, yes, we're part of this country, too. And everybody said yes, you are. And that was great stuff...
