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Epilogue: The State of the Artist in the Industry Today
- The University Press of Kentucky
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Epilogue The State of the Artist in the Industry Today Some good pictures come from Hollywood. God knows how, but they do. —William Faulkner You're stepping off a cliff when you start to make a film. —Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola learned during his career that a director not only has to work hard to achieve the kind of artistic independence that qualifies him to be an auteur, but also that the director has to work just as hard to keep it. For example, although a director like Coppola has often been looked upon as a maverick who makes films perhaps more subjective and personal than those of many of the other Hollywood directors, it is important to realize that his motion pictures have often been financed by some of the oldest and largest of Hollywood studios: Paramount, Columbia, and Warners. That these companies have been willing to allow him such a great degree of artistic freedom is yet another indication that the big Hollywood studios are well aware that they must make an effort to present contemporary audiences with fresh material and not just a rehash of the old commercial formulas long since overfamiliar to moviegoers. 314 Epilogue On the other hand, a canny director like Coppola realizes that a filmmaker must cooperate with the studio that has invested in his film if he expects to get backing in the future. In other words, the cooperation must be on both sides. And Coppola does not mind meeting company demands, as long as he can meet them in his own way. Thus he has it stipulated in his contracts that any cuts the studio wants to make in a film of his are to be made under his supervision. The relationship of artist and industry will always be a difficult one, since the director is primarily concerned with preserving his artistic integrity , while the industry is primarily interested in safeguarding its investment . This conflict of interest will inevitably lead to compromise, but, as has been seen in the films covered in this book, the compromise can often be one enabling the director to produce a film that is recognizably his own and, yet, one from which the studio can expect a return on its investment. "I feel that I'm not reckless or crazy," says Coppola. "It's just that I'm primarily interested in making films more than in amassing money, which is just a tool" needed to make films.1 Without the safety net provided by a Hollywood studio, not even bravery and determination can keep an independent filmmaker's dream alive—hence, the effort of going it alone and having to solicit studio backing for each film that he makes is considerable. The "Flavor of the Month" mentality of many producers—whereby they try to gauge changes in public taste—is difficult for a director to cope with. Movie executives, Coppola tells me, "can see the artist coming, cap in hand, with a project he wants to do," and they will say, "Well, he wants to do it very badly, so he's going to have to make a sacrifice because it's not a project that has been instigated by us." By contrast, if it is a project that the studio is initiating, it is possible to obtain immense amounts of money to do the film. "I've done so much for the studios," he adds elsewhere, "and yet they resent even putting me in a position where I don't have to go to one of them with my hat in my hand and have them tell me what movies I can or cannot make."2 As television becomes to an ever increasing degree the medium that claims the largest segment of the mass audience in the way the cinema once did, motion pictures are being thought of more and more in the same category as the legitimate theater: a medium that can afford to appeal to a more discriminating audience that wants fare a bit more challenging than what they can usually find on the tube. As this happens, film directors are more frequently being given a freer hand in making films that are more inventive and personal than has usually been the case in the past. After all, the major studios began to extend artistic freedom to inde- [44.220.59.236] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:17 GMT) Epilogue 315 pendent filmmakers in the first place because studio executives...