Coment

What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax—Samuel Goldwyn [1]

Rosen and Walter went to the movies and did not like what they saw [2]. I had anticipated a similar result and so did not go. Had they done the same thing they would have saved themselves much vexation of the spirit.

I know nothing of David Helfgott first- or secondhand, but recognise that it is possible for there to be many conflicting accounts of his life. This is true of everyone: I have seen home movies of a smiling Adolf Hitler patting little children on the head like a benign uncle.

The film makers chose Gillian Helfgott's version of David's life, rather than Margaret's which the authors prefer. Perhaps the filmmakers were right or perhaps the choice enabled them to make a film more likely to be successful commercially. If, indeed, the narrative was distorted and some of the characters demonised, then I share the authors' disapproval, but not their hope that things will change if one writes critical essays.

People make movies for many reasons; movies cost a lot of money. Some, made primarily for information and education, may be funded by organisations such as the National Geographic Society or, when they have some money, by university departments. Other filmmakers must make their own way financially. People must want to see their movies sufficiently to be prepared to pay to do so.

What do people want to see? Each week, one of the daily newspapers publishes a list of what is watched on television. Sitcoms head the list: repetitive narratives in which the complexities of human existence are reduced to stereotyped situations handled with a combination of one-liners and stock facial expressions. An occasional alternative to the sitcom is a depiction of major catastrophe, real or imagined, such as the sinking of a liner with much loss of life, or wars between galaxies. There is also sport to watch, which these days means either sitting on one's backside and watching others exerting themselves, or marvelling at the gyrations of the IOC.

Some 2000 years ago, Juvenal, in his Satires, wrote that the people wanted ‘bread and circuses’, ‘cabbage served up again’. Were Juvenal to be revived I do not think that he would change his view of what people want.

Rosen and Walter consider the pressures upon filmmakers. Since films are very expensive to make, many must contribute: individuals and financial institutions. These investors have not entered the field to lose their money, the directors know that they are looking over their shoulder. The audience expects to be entertained: therefore the characters must be larger than life and recognisable as ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’. Subtlety and ambivalence will get you nowhere.

They mention the defence of ‘artistic integrity’. Since art nowadays encompasses such activities as keeping a dead shark pickled in formalin in a large tank, and daubing elephants' excrement on a painting, it is difficult to know where artistic integrity begins and where it ends. Perhaps the notion has been stretched so far that it has lost any of the substance that it ever had.

The central difficulty is that money rules. More than that, no one wants to make a movie that does not attract an audience. Filmmakers hope for eminence in the field, and there are no better markers of success than long queues at the box office and frequent trips to the bank.

Rosen and Walter have chosen one example of a universal process: the need to make everything marketable. For example, in the newspapers we have eminent and respected academics telling us that, in the universities, commercialism has overcome scholarship and inquiry. Even worse, constraints have been placed upon the freedom of academics to criticise what is happening. Were Socrates to return there would be many calls for hemlock.

I share Rosen and Walter's concern, but fear that the writing of corrective essays may not achieve much. Perhaps those whose lives have been caricatured or distorted should be assisted to sue their tra-ducers. This would certainly attract publicity and might even cause those who have disparaged to think again before embarking upon the next exercise. But then who would contribute to the fund?

Let us leave the last word to Liberace: ‘I have done my best for motion pictures - I've stopped making them’ [1].