Sir Karl Popper at The Movies
2022 Year of Aesthetics Series №18
For Matios, Da Fat Tony’s Movie Klub and Trishank
In the essay, Rationality and Scientific Revolution in the book Myth of the Framework, Karl Popper brings up the idea of theories being selected by criticism and falsification and replacement by better theories. This selection is quasi-Darwinian. He does some hand waiving on the emergence of new theories almost as if it is unimportant, but reading between the lines and some of the text, Popper seems to believe that it is very hard to pin down emergence of theory, the causes can be the irrational to the empirically bound, hunches uneducated and educated, mythical, wild guesses, the next logical step, rejection of the next logical step etc.
Emergence is not fully understood and hard to pin down back end critique and falsification on the other hand that which selects and weakens or strengthen old theory is key to survival. Since no theory can ever be called complete usually a weakness or a corrective or addition is found, this weakness often leads to a new stronger theory that has limits to be tested. This is one form of emergence that Popper does cover and even extends to study of history in The Pluralist Approach to the Philosophy of History in the Myth of the Framework. Popper thinks that criticism and falsification leads to better history and science by finding problems, generating a theory and criticizing and testing it to improve it with newer theory.
I see a movie problems that I want to solve. First quality of movies have decayed. I see several movie critics, who either go along to get along or movie critics who want their own kind of mediocre movies (usually politically motivated). Movies have often been adapted from novels, because they are new, novels and movies to be good often depend on emergence of a new conception. Decay in criticism and box office profits have lead to the commoditization of movies, this makes movies content instead of works of art.
EMERGANCE PROBLEM
Movies were first driven by stories and stars, there was high uncertainty and studios invested a many small movies, depending on cast and winning directors and writing. Movies while following genera were best if they were novel or contained novelty. Movies were pure stories and pet projects of directors or were written for actors in mind. Studios also controlled actors more with contracts, so actors would be in one studios films. This lead to a very bumpy form of emergence, and while this did not lead to every movie being great but it lead to a great fat tail where great movies could emerge.
Like Popper, I don’t know understand emergence or where the next great movie will come from, great movies are not safe, Passage to India, Taxi Driver, Patton, The Phantom Thread, and the Florida Project were not safe or easy sells to studios. These movies success were never certain, although they follow the idea of a solid story and supporting casts that drove the movie.
Today we live in an IP driven movie industry, where story isn’t as important as a Cinematic Universe (CU). This leads to mining the same thought space over and over again. Reusing characters and wanting one studios CU to rival the another studios CU. This takes much novelty out of the movies and a lot of production capital out of production of many movies different types of movies, it makes the fat tail were exceptional movies emerge much thinner. Like cancer, it will feed on dollars until it kills its host. Marvel had 22 movie bloated beast, that many of us watched, and it has lead to more an more expansion of bloated and repeats of the same idea over and over again.
In recent memory, many an actor if they did a superhero or action film movie were not considered serious actors. Now Scarlet Johansson, Anthony Hopkins, Cate Blanchet, Robert Downy Jr, George Clooney etc. line up and these CU -IP driven movies are paths to success instead of lessoning of ones value as an actor.
Since stories were a factor in pre-CU movies, one could count on stories being good enough to support star power to cover flaws, an example is Peck and Bergman in Spellbound or Bogart and Bacall in Key Largo. Stars were under contract so they were cheaper and had little choice in what they could work on. They could be loaned between studios but because Bogart, Bacall, Peck and Bergman were under contract it was easy to get them to be in specific picture and many pictures. Note if you look some times secondary casts were shifted from movie to movie, and stars changed, in the studio system. This synergy between good actors and good stories with novelty was broken by the sequel driving CU.
An example of this is that the original Star Wars Trilogy, emerged because of its novelty but as soon as it the CU model was opened up the prequels and sequels were rather rubbish, and very much mined the old space for characters, design and concepts. The new that was added was forced and did not work very well. Similarly, Harry Potter has now a cinematic universe that is falling apart. Nostalgia baiting was mixed with subverting expectations lead to movies that both were boring and disjointed.
The CU also brought an end of stars as drivers and has replaced with a masked persona for a character. The goal was to be able to replace high paid actors with lesser paid actors, and if not possible to fill the pipeline with new masked men and woman (sometimes unmasked) that would cost less. This has decreased the value of stars and also put them in formulaic roles. This means movies are made for cogs, and if you get a good actor he or she will be a cog in the machine. The fat tail of good movies that could be is greatly reduced because novel and star driven movies will less and less emerge.
Notice, Daniel Day Lewis did not fall in this trap, and the Phantom Thread was in the fat tail. Notice he is never in sequel driven films. For many years I would see a ok movie with Anthony Hopkins because Hopkins added enough to make it watchable but that time has passed. Hopkins is no longer in star driven movies all the time he now is a cog some times. Who will remember he was Odin, over Hannibal Lecter, it think very few. Notice that Silence of the Lambs sequel and spin offs have lead to weird results one successful and one failed TV Series.
There is also the syphon to TV, which seemed with Sopranos, Mad Men, Fargo and Breaking Bad to be a refuge for good stories, but now the model is shifting to more of these series and the market is flooded. I think we got two seasons of Better Call Saul fill because of nostalgia bating and I am sure there is going to be a spin off of the spin off, look to Mike or Kim. Again we are moving from the new to recycling the old. TV is going to have the same IP and CU model problem of creating emergence that is unique and the will make TV less great.
The drive is to make content, and adapt CU type IP into the TV space. Monsters and superhero spin-offs and villain centered films are more the norm, a year of back story, then run it as long as possible. This syphons money away from movies and also leads to content serialization, as a studio can milk this for years.
I don’t want to dictate what movies that should be made, as much as saying that too much is put into the CU movie space. It also is being made to be absorbed by foreign markets, such as China. I watched second star wars prequel in Italy and a street festival several of my friends passed by as we watched out doors, wondering why I would see it in Italian, afterwards I was able to summarize the movie almost completely sans subtitles to a remarkable degree of detail because the text and what was spoke did not matter. A movie where the dialog is formulaic and so cookie cutter that you don’t even need it isn’t often going to lead to emergence. I watch foreign films and opera often and rewind for subtitles countless times, so I am not against cinema for foreign markets, I am against the ones who cater to foreign censors and that are easily digested by anyone anywhere without thought. Not China is pushing back even on Marvel films which is may lead to a weaker films rather than stronger ones. Also Chinese cinema has produced wonderful films, stars and directors.
The CU-LP while profitable is very technology driving and CGI driven. This has meant even though the star cost has gone down, the price of these movies has gone up. The studios want a sure thing they see Spiderman or Ironman as a winner, (they have market feed back for this). So smaller star movies are riskier to the studios right now. Before studios could not put their eggs in one basket, now they are looking for a single basket sometimes with just a few eggs. This stifles emergence of novel fat tail movies, movies of the mean are goal of this model. This class of movie tries to entertain everyone with inoffensive content and mediocre but acceptable content.
Content worst example is the Disney live action cartoon adaptations, they are pure uncanny valley nostalgia bate. A plague on the theater.
Lastly, lets look at directors, more and more they are are going along with this model and the cog in the machine model is also used for directors, since directors jump from francize to francize and are often signed to on or two movies. A perfect anti-example is Wes Anderson, who has his own little world but his films are not interconnected. He uses ensemble casts and brings back his favorite actors. His stories are very novel and his characters are novel.
The fix to the emergence problem is seeing less of the CU-IP movies, and seeing more of the emergent and challenging movies.
As viewer we should start to see movies other than the action movie on the big screen, I recently watched the 50th anniversary The Godfather because I thought this was a general good and I wanted to see a great movie in the theater. On this item I am speaking also to myself. The small screens for non-action movies is a arrow in the heart of movies appreciation. When I saw Rushmore for the first time, I went and bought a second ticket for the next showing, this was because I loved this film. Now I wait on a lot of films to come to TV accessible or phone accessible, this I see is a mistake because it devalues these movies fiscally, I am enjoying them but not paying enough for them, we will get what we pay for.
The censor and blocking of the market may lead to short term weaker movies but it will lead to less demand in US market and even in the censored market. Also, the up front investment for a movie that may not show in China, may make studios diversify, we see movies like Pig getting made, with no universe or sequel or spin off possible. (I regret not seeing Pig in the theater.)
Lastly if we are going to stream and rent DVD etc. we should go back into the back catalog and see tried and true movies this sends a signal we want more movies in the smaller cost and higher risk movies.
THE CRITIC PROBLEM- The No Siskel and Ebert Problem
Socrates, Forgettabout da Critics tawk with yer pals! -Fat Tony - Lost Socratic Dialogs with Mega-Tony
Decades ago two men from Chicago, who hated each other for most of their time together rated about 5 movies a week. The gave it a thumbs up or down. The could rate anything they wanted, and it was a studios goal to get them if the movie was good to rate it. The magic is that they respected and hated each other, and they had independent tastes. So one thumbs up, meant you were taking a risk seeing the film , two thumbs down you were taking a F***ing Risk seeing the film, and two thumbs up you were golden. Siskel and Ebert were a great sorting device. They may be wrong on a 50/50 split, but they were solid on 100% accordance was easily trusted for 24 years. Notice they NEVER HAD PROBLEMS with access, nor were they dictated on what movies they reviewed but of course to run 24 years they were going to see the most important in the Zeitgeist. They also were willing to take slings and arrows for negative reviews or botched positive review. Mostly they were the gate keepers sort of the philosopher kings of the American cinema. The problem with philosopher kings is that they die and pretenders rise to fight for the crown. Also there was a healthy brand of anti-S&E critics who were held to a similar standard as S&E.
Hollywood has too much pull with critics and controls access to critics. Several times web-sites have augmented scores of fan based scores to fit desires of studios. Also, Disney, Marvel and other studios grant access to preferred critics and perks for critics. This is a low cost investment by the studios since there is not a uber-critic that has to be pleased and I can get 200 reviews of any movie on YouTube. The quality of the critics is low resolution and they never have a real counterbalance.
There is a class I call the anti-critic which wants a different CU-IP than the existing one. They think that the CU-IP model is fixable if only their dictates and politics are added these anti-critics are on both side of the political spectrum, and are more worried about feeding views to their channels by exploiting the culture war.
I propose a new and social media based idea for criticism, bypass the critics , use word of mouth to communicate about movies with people you trust. I have a movie club where we discuss movies and make each other recommendation, while this is less than perfect you should be able to figure out good faith actors and those who your tastes don’t jive with. Current online criticism is corrupt and watered down,. The studios do not want a philosopher king or a pair of them and will fight for the emergence of critics that they do not influence.
SELECTION PROBLEM
Dolla Bills yall dolllaaa bills yall dolllaaaaa dolllaaaa dolllaaaa bills y’all! -Whitey Ford
Tom to tell Michael that it was “only business” and I always liked him. -Tessio
The selection problem isn’t like Popper’s about falsification it is more about signal of profit, big investment for big safe returns is the model. As well Criticism at professional level and Youtube level has FAILED. Movies will evolve on profit margin and not much else.
Cookie cutter and cog in the machine acting is a safe bet for the studio. Studio’s don’t see content as a dirty word, in fact in almost an Orwellian consolidation of from good content to content, implying content is good enough and doesn’t have to be good.
There is a school of actors and directors who like to make films outside of this space a signal has to be sent that this is what we want, because the studios are going to go with the most risk adverse model possible that gives a big return.
Many CU-IP movies are bloated and high budget, so movie studios are sitting on a powder keg of unseen risk. If for some reason access to Chinese market becomes more limited, (we live in strange times) these simple movies for everyone may not be profitable.
Nassim Taleb, has often said it is easier to find a system where greed is rewarded for doing good than getting rid of greed or profit motive. We have an opportunity have some of each, but being more selective in our financial signal to studios. We can have the fun block buster and real solid films. Hell Block Busters that are much less formulaic may be better block busters.
It is time to signal with our cash that we don’t like every CU-IP movie, and we may want to see less of these in total and more on the small screen, not all these movies are bad and I am up for a bit of fun, but none of us benefit from seeing them all .
We should risk seeing more emergent films at the theater, ones our friends recommend in the theater, or pay for DVD or streaming.
We will get what we pay for.
Further Reading
(NOTE I buy from ABEBOOKS but Amazon has better descriptions of books, I have no affiliation with either. Amazon has damaged several new books, so I just avoid them.)