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Jan 11, 2009

Citizen Kane

A few weeks ago I was at a party, and talking with this "guy" (I mean, "douchebag."). We were talking about movies when he shared this gem:

"I'm a film snob. I only watch foreign films."

He said it with so much pride, it was all I could do not to vomit. In retrospect, I wish I did, in his face, and let him suffer the bile burns.

Please, can we agree foreign directors don't have a monopoly of truth? The human experience is not any more honest overseas. We're just selective.

I'm mystified why people treat foreign cinema as superior to American. I think people forget what's brought across our borders is the crème de la crème of foreign fare. Screen and DVD competition is fierce, so investors will not waste money distributing mediocre movies to the United States. There's already a big hurdle getting the public to watch foreign films, let alone mediocre ones.

So, what this aforementioned jackass refers to as "foreign films," is a narrow swatch of what's produced. Honestly, "foreign," means sifted, and filtered.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I must agree with douchebag, Foreign Films are much more creative then American Films. It is not that the Foreign Films are Academy Award worthy however the story lines seem to be genuine and clever. American film makers are desperate for ideas. You can tell by the amount of movies that are remade. How many Batman movies do we need? Wasn't the Incredible Hulk movie remade within a year of the original release? (and when I say original, I mean the latest remake.) Even the The Titanic was remade at least three times, once in 1943, 1953 and of course 1997. Creativity is missing from American made films. The American film makers just want to improve movies, they don't have the talent nor skills to create new ideas.

Mi Thoughts said...

Here's the thing Eb...do mind if I call you Eb? I'm not arguing foreign is fantastic; I'm just saying let's not lump everything domestic together. Yes, there have been multiple Batman films, but different directors, Burton/Schumacher/Nolan, tackle different subjects within each movie. Their directorial stamps are quite distinct. Furthermore, we don't chide China for churning out five sequels to Once Upon a Times in China.

Eb...we could IMDB this conversation to death. We could dig up interesting nuggets and toss them back and forth. My only point was, and still is, generalizations are stupid. There's garbage everywhere, but there's brilliance everywhere too.

Also, the US makes up less then 5% of the global population. I would hope, purely from a numbers perspective, the world can produce more creativity then us.

Unknown said...

Why is this post called Citizen Kane? I watched this movie on the Flight home from India (what you watch when you have 20 free hours to kill)and I don't see what a douche has anything to do with Rosebud.

Mi Thoughts said...

I'm titling all the posts after movies I like. It doesn't get any deeper then that.

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