tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post2318154777457001205..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: Dilemmas of Arts FundingBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-39746191284526963112011-11-25T07:51:28.527-06:002011-11-25T07:51:28.527-06:00I bow to your knowledge of the economics of the fi...I bow to your knowledge of the economics of the film industry. But it sure seems right. Italian art film seems just to have disappeared. I've been off film myself for a decade anyway as the commercial stuff from Hollywood is so smothered in CGI, bad writing and ideology that I can't stand to watch it. Well, I did see the new Star Trek one...Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-31763057775302045102011-11-24T17:47:43.889-06:002011-11-24T17:47:43.889-06:00Lebrecht makes a jaw-dropping statement: "The...Lebrecht makes a jaw-dropping statement: "The bad news is that half of it will be spent on film, which ought to be commercially self-sufficient."<br /><br />One can argue whether half is the right fraction, but to say that film should be commercially self-sufficient is stunning, especially coming from a Brit. Britain, thanks to its insistence on commercial self-sufficiency is --and has always been-- a second-rate film nation. Which is amazing considering the great British theater tradition. Now take a country where film has always been heavily subsidized: France. Measured by quality and influence, France has always had the second most important film industry in the world after the US. Italy provides a control experiment to prove my point. Italy has long had one of the greatest filmmaking traditions (Fellini, Visconti, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc). But today, Italy's quality cinema is dead. Why? Ask Lebrecht. The death of Italian cinema, brought about by Berlusconian beliefs in commercial viability, is one of the great cultural tragedies of our time. <br /><br />Or perhaps Lebrecht will want to argue that a commercially successful movie like Slumdog Millionaire is a sign of British film mastery. Now that would be very funny considering how perfectly crappy that manipulative piece of schlock is.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com