But they do not require being an MA in humanitarian field for their comprehension... That is the reason of financial success of Hollywood: MAs are a small minority in any society.
successfull does not equal good, or moral for that matter. how many outright bloody and violent action movies were succesfull? no matter what is the ending in those, i don't see how the mostly violent content can be viewed as a positive moral message to anyone.
In violent clashes that may appear in some of the American movies good always
that's what my point was: who cares HOW it ends, the violence in itself discredits whatever message there may have been. what i find outright ridiculous is how american movies, TV even way more so, taboo-ize sex, but violence -here ya go, nothing wrong with that... i' d rather have my kids watching naked people than people chopping each other's heads off and shooting through each other.
i guess all i mean is that i am not at all convinced about the morality of values in american movies.
Well, the message is as follows: the good guys must be able to defend themselves and their ideas. As a former professional soldier I agree with this. I do not see any problem in the naked people on the screen either, if they are not involved in something pervert.
well, see, i don't know the soldier mentality, the ends for me do not justify the means. as there is a difference between eroticism and perversion, there is a difference between violence used in defense and outright sadism. it is the sadistic features in movies that i can't stand, and you'll find them in many a movie. but there is no dispute against gusto. i prefer quality movies to superficial ones, be they american, or 'continental'. besides, i don't think movies are made to deliver moral messages, morals are learned elsewhere, not in the movie theaters.
dagmaraka wrote:besides, i don't think movies are made to deliver moral messages, morals are learned elsewhere, not in the movie theaters.
That is a very good point, dagmar, actually THE important one.
And in European movies evil always win? I wonder what European movies you saw in you r life, Some Sovjet propagandafilms?
i don't think american cinema shows violence as it is. many movies build solely on violence, violence that is sadistic, exaggerated, certainly not to be found in one's common life. not all of us are, or want to be, professional soldiers. the fact that the good guys win after they have broken bad guy's fingers one by one is not exactly a moral message to me.
besides, the storyline is usually so primitive that nobody would even care to remember any message at all. what people talk about afterwards is: oh, did you see how he flew through that window? and oh man, how the elevator tore his arm off? cool!
Soviet films had the same message the American ones had, only some of the criteria of the good and evil were different (communist values somewhat differ from the Christian ones). European movies do not transduce a direct message of evil, but they often transduce no message at all. They are too much "relativistic" in everything pertaining to moral, if this term can be transferred from physics to art.
I cannot give examples for very simple reasons: I saw lots of European movies in the USSR, but their names appeared in Russian, and I do not know their original names. If I translate, this will be translation of translation, and the result will be very far from original.
Steissd, you have to make a difference between the blockbusters and the cinematografic art people call filmmaking.
Armageddon-like films make me sick. They are one big commercial for American patriotism and the guy always gets the girl. But that isn't real life.
It is supposed to be art, not propaganda, right?
Well, I do not mean propaganda, the latter does not use subliminal messages, it directly says what to do and how.
i don't know man, I don't see it your way no matter how i look at it. I'll watch Sky Above Berlin before the City of Angels anytime. The latter being the Hollywood version (or should I say ripoff) of the first. Only simplified and nauseatingly sweetened. It often seems like the Hollywood movies are produced on the basis of the same skeleton - why even bother watching them if you always know how it's gonna end?
Well, this is a problem of individual taste; de gustibus non disputandum. But, it appears, that a grassroot European spectator prefers American production, otherwise there would be no problem with the alleged American cultural intervention. Maybe, European film directors should better learn something from their American counterparts on how to make movies that the people want to see.
steissd wrote:Well, this is a problem of individual taste; de gustibus non disputandum. But, it appears, that a grassroot European spectator prefers American production, otherwise there would be no problem with the alleged American cultural intervention. Maybe, European film directors should better learn something from their American counterparts on how to make movies that the people want to see.
There's something wrong with your definitions of American and European movies. What do you call Paul Verhoeven? Jan De Bont? An American director and an American cameraman?
And what about Monica Belluci, Jean Claude Vandamme, Arnold Schwarzeneger, Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz,....
These people have been assimilated by the U.S. film industries. They make American cinema while being Europeans by origin (well, majority of Americans also have European roots). When I refer to Europeans, I do not mean particular ethnic origin (I was born in Europe as well, by the way, in the European part of the USSR), but mindset. It is different from this of Americans. IMO, if someone wants to succeed in movie industries, he has to acquire the American mindset (and American abilities to finance projects, of course).
I will only repeat: what masses like does not mean that it is exactly of the highest quality (usually quite contrary). AND it has absolutely nothing to do with any moral messages. You don't really think that's why the masses go to the cinema, do you?
