Before I get to the movie part of this post, I want to toast Paul Krugman. He is one of the few public figures I've ever considered a personal hero. (Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are, too, and I'm not joking.)
In the bleakest hours of the new millennium -- through 9/11, Iraq, soul-shattering scandals, national elections, and impending financial disasters -- Krugman stood as a beacon of hope and, if you'll pardon the expression, moral clarity in what Nick Lowe (and Elvis Costello) memorably called "the darkness of insanity."
Hired in 1999 as the New York Times economic columnist, Krugman wound up doing what so many journalists, even at his own paper, were failing to do. He reported. Not just what people said, but how what they said compared to independently verifiable reality. Week after week, column after column, Krugman was virtually alone (alongside Knight-Ridder, NPR and "The Daily Show") in pointing out, and explaining the significance of, relevant facts that so many didn't care to notice, even when they were right there in plain sight -- and in the public record, if anyone bothered to pay attention.
He wasn't just a good reporter but a fine critic.
What set Krugman apart from most of those in the mainstream press was not just his exceptional lucidity but his determination to remain in "the reality-based community." To him, whatever some politician said about something was not as important as the thing itself. In a characteristically direct column last July 4, he wrote of the 2008 presidential campaign: "Again and again we've had media firestorms over supposedly revealing incidents that never actually took place." (Read that piece. You will not be shocked to see how dramatically conditions have not improved.)
Krugman deserved to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Tuesday, he won a Nobel Prize in Economics. I am overjoyed. But I don't really know anything about economics. Next year, I say, it's the Pulitzer for Krugman.
In an article for Fortune back in 1998, Krugman offered a theory about why English food -- internationally renowned for being really bad -- had been that way for so long, and why at long last it was getting so much better. He submitted that the descent into badness had to do with rapid industrialization, and the difficulties of delivering fresh, quality food to the big cities. This part made me think of the movies:
... by the time it became possible for urban Britons to eat decently, they no longer knew the difference. The appreciation of good food is, quite literally, an acquired taste--but because your typical Englishman, circa, say, 1975, had never had a really good meal, he didn't demand one. And because consumers didn't demand good food, they didn't get it. Even then there were surely some people who would have liked better, just not enough to provide a critical mass.
In these times of anti-elitist hysteria, the notion of quality itself can be made to sound suspect. And yet, food culture appears to be thriving these days as the population becomes more knowledgeable about the variety and quality of food, how it is produced and how it is prepared. Chefs are celebrities. The Food Network presents cooking as entertainment and education.
Is it possible that a similar film culture could embolden the popular appetite for movies? As palates become more adventurous, attuned to unfamiliar and sophisticated flavors, could tastes in movies develop and diversify as well? How might such a thing occur? Is there... any light in the darkness of inanity?
Just thought I'd ask...
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"It is now clear that, at least as far as domestic policy is concerned, the administration views terrorism as another useful crisis."
-- Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 11, 2001
The answer is money. The more adventurous films would have to start pulling in big box office, which would require the studios to properly market and distribute them.
So the question is what could get the studios to do this? The answer is big name actors and to some extent big name directors (in terms of box office). So if you get Will Smith to headline your risque masterpiece, you might be onto something.
Also, you would need to go back to when movies would not just play 3 weeks and hit DVD. You need to create an environment for movies to be discovered.
I guess the best place to look for answers would be the 1970's
I was born, raised, and live in the Deep South. The food culture is similar to England in 1975. Many people view Italian as noodles, including Ramen. Once at a local Italian eatery I overheard an outsider ask for Bolognese. The waitress looked dumbstruck, and said "what?" I interjected, "meat." In the flour aisle, a customer can find countless brands and varieties of corn flour in a minimum of ten feet of assigned floor space, while semolina flour is a foreign term. This may sound hyperbolic, yet I am not exaggerating by any means.
The people here have been doused by Wal-Mart and other big boxes with cheap, processed garbage. Household incomes are comparably low to the rest of the country and the local grocery stores lack variety and exotic foods. Even with the rise in incomes, the culture persists because the critical judgment of food is skewed towards quantity. People view good meals by the weight of the food not quality. High obesity is easily comprehended when a person witnesses the food culture. Basically, a meal is judged by how inexpensively someone can fill their stomach to the breaching point. Bellies have expanded and portion sizes correlate. When a person is served a portion the size of their fist, they immediately are critical of the restaurant and the food. Taste is secondary.
Very interesting piece. I had never heard of the guy. No doubt if you like him, and what he says makes sense to me, then he is a dangerous liberal activist according to Fox News. And in 2001, he would have simply been called a traitor.
The analogy of "generating a film culture" with the phenomenon of the food channel caught my attention. The food channel typically discusses how to prepare food, not how to enjoy food. The enjoyment aspect flows from that, rather than being up front. There are not many TV shows I know of that discuss how to prepare films, at least not in the "you could do this yourself on Saturday" vein that a cooking show has. However, with the quality and affordability of equipment, and the proliferation of YouTube culture, maybe there should be. There could be a range of programs from the strictly-for-fun to the "here is how a pro would light this". Maybe these things exist already on cable channels that I won't buy.
Begging you pardon, Jim, but Krugman never struck me as a "beacon of hope" - if anything he was an alarmist, and a bit of a gloomy gus, but, granted, that's my perception.
David L: The hope Krugman offers is in his ability to distinguish between what is worthy of alarm and what is not. When somebody in government or the press would go into hysterics about something (say, Iraqi WMDs or something Hillary Clinton supposedly said but, in fact, didn't), he would simply point to the actual evidence. Or lack thereof.
Howsabout a revolution in taste in the realm of journalism?
Wasn't he on Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago, all bug-eyed and delusional, kind-of stuttering on about how we're all gonna die and we should invest in canned food and shotguns as a result of the financial crisis?
That ain't no beacon of hope ... that's an emergency floodlight of fear!
I take your point, though.
I can't believe there are only 6 comments!
Krugman is an American hero. Simply put.
His point about food, however, was not really an aesthetic one, but an economic one. Its extension in film would be to Hollywood movies, which are mediocre for practical reasons-- if the public is kept on a diet of mediocre films, one won't have to conjure excellent films, which are harder to guarantee, to make money.
The larger public considers most "great films" work. This is somewhat different from the "acquired taste" of higher-quality food. Aesthetic enjoyment-- particularly of truly brilliant films-- requires education and effort on behalf of the viewer. Enjoying better food merely requires an open mind and taste buds.
I've wondered that too, especially since I lived with food snobs for a while; they got their needs satiated by the mass culture while I had to scrounge in the niches. Which is exasperating since 40 years ago there was hardly any mass cultural movement more encompassing than the movies (which were intellectually stimulating too) - except for music, of course.
I think it could happen again. Right now, movies, even the great ones, don't seem overtly engaged with their own history, the way they did in America in the late 60s, early 70s. Hence they don't prompt people to look back and gain a deeper, more fulfilling understanding of what movies can do (in the context of past & present). But yeah, it could definitely happen. The advent of DVDs (particularly the Criterion Collection), TCM, and even our beloved blogosphere may be setting the groundwork for this. We'll see.
And yes, an increase in do-it-yourself filmmaking (facilitated by viral video distribution and cheaper technology, could definitely help as well.
Daniel Quiles, I think that having an open mind and taste buds is actually about the same as the requirements for enjoying great movies--an open mind and eyes and ears. It's also true that conoisseurs--those who actually distinguish between good and great wine, for example--are those who have taken considerable effort to learn what makes a good wine, etc., similar to films. I admit that I know less about the former than the latter, but if "Sideways" is at all accurate, I think that after a certain level all aesthetics deliver about what you put into them; Jack's mind is so open to experience that he treats everything equally, whereas Miles will experience everything but has put effort and thought into his every choice.
I'd be happy if our appetite for genuine news reporting (instead of reporting on what politicians said and what other politicians said about what they said, and the instant polling that suggests how much the public is in agreement with what has been said) became emboldened. But then again, as foodie culture is a niche in the land overrun with fast food establishments, so is real reporting and responsible fact checking in the culture of "headline news" and 24 hour news cycles that need to be constantly fed with something quick and attention-grabbing.
I was very pleased to see Krugman recognized with a Nobel Prize. He is a very intelligent columnist and has a way of elucidating concepts--economics in particular--in a way that even a knucklehead such as myself can understand them.
David, it seems to me that it's a bit ironical to call Krugman an "alarmist" at this point, since we ARE finding ourselves in the midst of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression -- shouldn't the term "prophet" be more accurate? He's been warning us about the deteriorating state of the economy for quite some time now -- i just wish i had listened closer and liquidated my funds :( !
Krugman, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are my heros too! they are all three a beacon of hope and voice of reason and common sense (not to mention welcome comedy and humor) in these troubling times! :_)
So happy about the Nobel Prize as well :">