Frontline: "The Monster that Ate Hollywood" (PBS)

Film Reviews | Regular Feature not only anti-obscenity prosecutors who "insist that, even in the digital age, there is such a thing as obscenity, and that a community will know it when it sees it." One thing is for certain: even if the line that distinguishes the difference between acceptable and obscene is continually shifting as a result of consumers' demand and suppliers' willingness to see how far they can go, the line itself will always exist. Michelle Janning Whitman College janninmy@Whitman.edu Frontline: "The Monster that Ate Hollywood" (PBS) In his 1994 book High Concept: Movies andMarketing in Hollywood, Justin Wyatt correctly identified a growing trend in Hollywood towards high budget, heavily marketed films. Wyatt argued that high concept filmmaking was so pervasive in Hollywood because it was safe and profitable for the multinational corporations who owned the studios that produced movies, and he was right if a recent installment of PBS's Frontline is any indication. Frontline's "The Monster That Ate Hollywood," which owes much to Wyatt's work though he curiously goes unmentioned , examines the depth ofcorporate involvement in filmaking and how that involvement shapes the kinds offilms that are made. With an impressive cast of studio insiders, from former heads of studios to well-known critics, "Monster" dazzles viewers with the financial ins and outs of blockbuster films. It doesn't take long to convince the viewer that Hollywood is controlled by mammoth corporations like Viacom, Newscorp and AOL/Time Warner whose various companies can handle every aspect of a film's life from its time on screen to its home distribution to television. "Monster" does not argue that a thirst for profit is anything new in Hollywood, but rather that the studios are more controlled by the hundreds of millions of dollars that are spent on them than ever before. While fairly convincing in its attempt to make sense of the economic realities of contemporary Hollywood, "Monster" is not without a certain longing for the good old days of quality filmmaking that PBS's increasingly nostalgic audience would find appealing. Making reference to great film's from the past like Casablanca, Bonnie and Clyde, One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest, etc., the documentary attempts to show how these films are less possible today due to financial concerns. The documentaryjuxtaposes these great films of the past with the recent Ivan Reitman film Evolution, staring David Duchovny, which hardly seems fair. There have been big budget epics in Hollywood since the Silent Era and they have never been particularly thought provoking , nor did the audience expect them to be. The audience for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was looking for the same thing all five people who went to see Evolution were looking for. They wanted to see things blow up and if sex could be worked in, all the better. PBS's documentary doesn't do enough in its effort to understand how audience demand is also responsible for the kinds of films being made. Elvis Mitchell, a film critic for the New York Times and NPR, does suggest that the age of the target audience for films is getting younger and younger and Roger Ebert complains that there are too many "Adams" (Sandler) and "Paulies" (Shore) today. Still, neither critic acknowledges that much ofHollywood's product has always been aimed at a young male audience and ever increasing corporate control of the studios hasn't changed that much. Many of the claims "Monster" makes are just plain incorrect. At one point the film implies that Star Wars was the first film to make ancillary profits from distribution oftoys, cards and etc. after its release—don't tell Mickey, he'll be crushed. Frontline would have been more accurate to discuss the staggering scale ofthe money that modern films make from ancillary sources. Despite the inaccuracies and vagaries of some of its content (after all, you can only cover so much in an hour-long documentary) "Monster" does manage to be fairly convincing on many of its largest claims. What "Monster" does well is to illustrate the ever-tightening control of multinational corporations on the production and distribution of Hollywood's product...