A view of the coming attractions at the multiplex would lead one to believe that American cinema no longer knows how to tell an ordinary, adult story where the word “adult” is not a code word for porn. It has often been said that Hollywood made a film a week in the golden age of movies, all centered on main-stream adult fare. When this is said, it is always it the context that the quality of films today is slipping. In my schizophrenic view of this odd industry I’m in, I find myself quibbling with that bromide and agreeing with it at the same time, all the while digressing from the main theme of this blog as a plethora of conflicting ideas pours in.

First, we still think there is something called “Hollywood”. Even if we mean that concentration of film-related businesses in Los Angeles, or the general world of film making, referring to “Hollywood” isn’t helpful except to evoke a whiff of nostalgia for a time and place that never existed. Second, the Golden Age wasn’t all that golden. For every Philadelphia Story there were four or five forgettable “Blondie” comedies; for every Singing In The Rain there was a handful of Busby Berkeley knockoffs. Time filters our memory. We forget that The Third Man was not a hit when it was first released, Mash was viewed with horror by the studio, and Altman was thought to be nuts.

Admittedly, one part of the film industry is very centered on making large entertainments. They are expensive, technically driven pieces designed to occupy the 17-34 year old core demographic in the hope of garnering a large return on investment the first weekend of release. These films are devoted to blowing things up or tearing things apart. Most of them have predictable story lines in a genre where story line is not the leading element of the presentation. They are films that are easily dismissed by critics, as digestible as a handful of malt balls and a swig of Coke, a megadollop of immediate gratification with minimal residual side effects. In fact, some of this stuff is very well written (Iron Man for example), and most of it is at the cutting edge of film technology. Most of these films shouldn’t be written off: they are fun and they turn a dollar.

Even with a more balanced view of the comic book driven extravaganzas and the wink-wink, wank-wank comedies being offered (Superbad; Hangover), I still wonder where our audience is heading. It is clear to me that character-driven stories are being marginalized. My choice for best film 2008, Benjamin Button, was not at the center of audience interest. Neither was Slumdog Millionaire. What the audience finds appealing has changed, hasn’t it? If Bob Hope was trying to get into movies today, where would he fit in? At best, he might find a spot in episodic television as Kelsey Grammer did in Cheers and Fraiser. While Fraiser contained some of the best comedic writing and Grammer was often as good as any performer in a feature comedy, humor on this level is fading. None of the Crosby/Hope “Road” pictures would be green-lighted today, and reality T.V. has drowned out even the best of situation comedy on television. [Indeed, as reality TV. now fades, TV. producers are wondering what it is that will draw an audience as overall viewing erodes.]

I equate comedic and dramatic stories that involve the mind of the audience as quality work; I tend to place movies featuring gross-out humor or super baddies-vaporizing-the-Golden-Gate-Bridge on some other level. I suspect I don’t think that getting drunk and throwing up is really all that funny, and smashing apart a city is not all that interesting no matter how inventively it’s done or even if it’s Modesto.

In today’s market, Casablanca would be an art house film. So-called independent film makers still make films that involve real people in real situations—sometimes they even center on people that are older than thirty years—but they do not get the exposure to reach a wide audience. They don’t have the budgets that contemporary advertising requires.

Despite the length of this essay, I still haven’t answered the question posed at the heart of this blog: has the film industry abandoned the genre of films (comedy or drama) centered on ordinary people in relatively normal situations, or has the audience abandoned stories that are not primarily fantasies? When Steve, Mark and I discuss this sort of thing, we always say that if the movie is good, it will find its audience. Maybe so. I am sure that the people who made Slumdog Millionaire were asking themselves this as they were about to begin principal photography. I hope there is still a place for the sort of film that Paul Newman and Jessica Tandy starred in, Nobody’s Fool.