Categories: uncategorized
Date: 23 May 2006 15:38:29
The good thing about holidays is that I can spend time catching up on my favourite method of relaxation - reading. As such I managed to finish 3 books during our week away - about 3 times my normal throughput in a normal week.
I managed to get a certain mix of reading in managing 2 film books and a history book. The trouble is that I've now started another film book. I forgot how much went on in Hollywood in the late 60's and through the 70's. Having already managed to get through The Kid Stays in The Picture by Robert Evans and Adventures in The Screen Trade by William Goldman, I'm now onto Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind.
Whereas the first 2 are written by insiders (a producer & a screen writer) this is more of an overview containing interviews with many actors, directors and other insiders. You learn some very interesting things about people from these books.
Yet what interests me the most is the way in which eveything changed during that decade. However it now appears to have gone back to the way things used to be. The '70s saw a brief period of individualism. New things were done and allowed to be done. Chances were taken. Sure some things went wrong but the industry went from strength to strength.
Now we're back to the old days where imagination has been replaced by formula. Most new ideas are held off in favour of repeated formulas and a desire to make a killing in profits. You saw a film like Batman, so they make more films like Batman. You saw The Matrix, so they make more like it. Play safe and make money but wonder why people choose to stay away.
This reminds me that the only real changes that ever take place are on a personal level. No matter how advanced the human race becomes they just find new ways of doing old things. The only real, lasting change comes from the action of accepting Jesus. Nothing else performs such a miraculous and lasting change. All other things are just reinventions of the status quo.