Author: Vasco de Sousa

Two recent artworks have called my attention to, well, why I liked the “originals” better. No, it is not what some of us call regression, and French critics the enmerdification, where things just get worse over time. It is possible to create better remakes, but people don’t do that as much as they used to.

The thing is, every copy of an artwork is a new artwork. When we speak of the film Wizard of Oz, we are probably talking about the 1939 film starring Judy Garland. We are not thinking about the version with Laurel and Hardy, or the cheaply made animation, or the other attempts. There is something special about that classic 1939 version. It was not the first adaptation of Frank Baum’s novel, nor the last, but it feels like the authentic one (even if it is pretty different from the novel).

In the same way, when I recently heard a remake of what I thought was my favorite song, I wondered why I disliked it. Did it disturb my sense of the past through change? No, I didn’t dislike it more than most songs. But, by changing the voices, by taking away the storyline of the video, by taking the lyrics out of context, it made me realise that, well, the lyrics mean very little on their own.

Which song am I talking about? Walk this way, by Run DMC and Aerosmith. The thing I liked about the song was the chemistry between Run DMC and Aerosmith, a chemistry that went beyond the song itself and steeped into the music video. The way they are both knocking on each other’s wall, complaining about two types of music that were considered on the edge of bad taste at the time, had a comic element. The mixture, the fusion, the competition between hip hop and heavy metal that somehow created a harmousious oneness was quite a feet.

The remake, on the other hand, only keeps the words. That fusion of styles, that conflict, that competition and resolution, is completely gone. It becomes too serious, too literal, and it loses all of its fun.

Walk this way is not a song that says, “dress as you like.” Rather, it is a comment on a moment of time, when subcultures seemed to clash. It is like the roughest Presidential debate ending in a “I hear you man.” It is like Darth Vader finally helping Luke at the end and saying, “tell your sister, you were right.” No, not as sentimental as that. It is more like, well, maybe a war film, where those guys who fight each other unite under a common cause.

Anyway, Vader’s admission only works because he was fighting against Luke, or trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side, for three films. All that energy we expended in seeing him as an enemy makes his admission more powerful. In the same way, the energy of seeing rap and metal and new, noisy, competing narratives made the power of the two styles coming together so impactful in the 1980s, in a way that cannot easily be reproduced today.

Yes, the lyrics exist, but it is a song with a music video, not simply a poem.

The other thing that got me was the new Trailer for Minions 4. There are a lot of songs that we can listen to in the gym, because they have that energetic kind of rhythm that works for working out. Because of that, they are terrible for sitting around and watching a cartoon. The songs sound like overkill, placed in the wrong place, and actually make the action seem weak.

Context is important. Not just context of the actual song or scene itself within a larger work, but the cultural movement behind the artwork, the place you listen to the song, and so many other things.

Sometimes context turns clowns into demons, or peaceful music into war songs. Quentin Tarantino played with that in Resevoir Dogs, using classical music for violence. He probably stole that from Stanley Kubrik and others, who mastered the technique long before.

Horror is cheaper and easier to make than art, and almost any hack can make banal things scary. But the true masters use context to do the exact opposite, and make us less afraid of what once frightened us.

Walk This Way (Run DMC and Aerosmith version) is not just a nice poem that can be adapted by anyone. It is a testament to the power of artistic fusion, one that links two supposedly irreconsilable artforms into a mix that, well, is fun to listen to. Beyond the song itself, and the weaving of the two styles, there is a video with a narrative. It takes many bad things and makes something great, like taking sour vegetables and making a delicious soup.

The new Minions movie seems to do the opposite. It takes our favorite characters and songs, and makes something that isn’t as good as any of them. There are a couple of funny jokes, but it doesn’t look like it is worth watching. It feels flat, artificially constructed.

Even before I found Rick Beato’s Youtube channel, I had a theory that technology was making many arts worse, (not just music, but especially music.)

However, unlike Beato, I think the downward slide began over 100 years ago, perhaps 200. And I do not think that technology is the only culprit.

Let’s summarize Beato’s theory. He seems to see the high point of music as some time around the 1970s. Still in the 60s, automation was making music easier to make. People no longer had to experiment, they no longer needed mastery of the instrument.

We can see something similar in painting. With the invention of the photograph, artists no longer had to know how to paint. Even if they wanted to paint realistically, they could merely take a photograph and project it onto a canvas (camera obscura existed for hundreds of years, but that did not necessarily create a timeless piece of art.)

However, artists reacted to photography by going in new directions. Some of these directions were worse, we no longer have true masters, paintings might be blobs of just empty canvases, and sculptures might just be hunks of metal.

Movies also have a lot of the same problems as music. Films can be corrected in post (post-production), and many films are a mess without a screenplay and without rehearsals, designed to be fixed in post-production.

Economics leads to a lack of imagination. The more we have people from outside the industry pulling the strings, the more short-sighted decision making it. People who do not know how long it takes to make a masterwork are more likely to look for the quick buck, for a short term solution, than invest what is needed to create and promote the kind of films, songs, or works of art that last.

However, another possible problem is leadership. Many labels are no longer led by people who care about music. We look at the name of the companies, and they are merely subsidies of huge conglomerates.

That said, many of the CEOs have worked in the music industry for a time. But, they have bounced around companies. They seem to lack loyalty, to not have the same kind of stake in the individual business that most great leaders have.

Digitial technology makes it easier to fix mistakes. It also creates a lot of creative leeway. But, instead of being used to create new things, it is being used to try to create artificial duplications for the real world, and fix mistakes.

Now, just a warning to fans of The Chosen show, I hate it. It is because of films like this that I temporarily quit the film industry, the people I was around actually like this gargage, so i thought, “Oh no, if I make more films, it will be like this boring #$%^&.”

Yes, this show is so bad, it makes me swear in my thoughts, and I swear so loudly, I don’t even know what swear word it is, just a bunch of random characters. But why exactly do I hate, “The Chosen,” if I do not hate the people it is based on?

Theory 1. “Thou shalt not bear false witness…”

It must because I do not hate the people it is based on, that’s why. That series bears false witness against apostles, calling the Apostle Matthew a Roman collaborator, a snitch, a traitor, a corrupt sabbath breaker, and lots of other things in the very first episode. If I made a film like that about Martin Luther, Joseph Smith, or your favorite Pope, you’d probably go nuts. (Maybe I will.)

Back when Oscar Wilde wrote Salame, that play was banned in the UK for blasphemy, even though John The Baptist is a minor character and it does not even slander anyone. I was able to enjoy Salome, perhaps because the characters imagined are not distorted. And because it doesn’t slander important characters like apostles, it just tries to understand a character. Who was Salome, the one who danced for Herod? How did she react?

Theory 2: “Thou shalt not add to the word which I command you…”

“The Chosen” makes light of demon posession and it replaces scriptures with modern philosophy. And it choses the dumbest philosophies, too.

But, do I really hate all religious movies? I liked Charton Heston in The Ten Commandments. I remember watching Samson and Delilah as a child, and thinking, maybe the Bible is not so bad after all. I even remember laughing at History of the World, Part I. (Or was it Part II?) I loved Veggie Tales’ Jonah. So, I am not like the people who banned Salome. If it is done well, I actually enjoy religious movies. The problem is, it is usually done terribly, so I generally refuse to work on anything religious.

Theory 3: It takes you away from real religion

Sadhguru warns people against fake yoga, in that it takes you away from real enlightenment. I think of The Chosen as fake scriptures. The time you waste watching that garbage, could be spent reading real scriptures, or at least movies like “Veggie Tales Jonah” that have real Bible stories in them.

If the Apostles were around today, I bet they would rather you do fake yoga than watch that fake “Chosen.” At least fake yoga doesn’t slander Bible characters. (I can imagine them now, “Call us veggies, make fun of us in parody, just don’t throw us in some half baked script that turns us into a third-rate soap opera. Now excuse me, while I practice my sun salutations.”)

I enjoy films that distort other religions. Keanu Reeves was entertaining as Siddhartha in “Little Buddha.” I liked Ray Harryhausen’s puppets in “Jason and The Argonauts.” So, what is the real reason that I dislike the app “film” so much?

Real reason: It is boring and stupid

The real reason I dislike The Chosen so much is not only does it insult some people I respect from the Bible, it also insults the audience. I hate it for the same reason that I hate the new Star Treks, where you have Spock dancing like a Kung Fu master from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Propaganda.

But at least the new Spock dances! The new bible characters, well, they just stand around and talk. The camera work is boring, the screenwriting is terrible, and the acting is okay for a school play but nothing special.

Oh, but the camera work is great, you say. It has great production values, you say. I don’t really care. That is like complementing a self-published book because there are no typos in it and the writer knew how to align-justify. The fact that someone can film the actors and control the focus dial is not a reason to watch a film.

No, I did not get past episode one or two, and the only reason I even attempted to watch an entire episode of “The Chosen” is because nice people kept recommending it. I do not hate you for recommending that garbage, because as Saint Augustine once said, “love the Sinners, hate their apps.” I just lost any respect for your taste in movies. Especially if you recommend an app while recommending the show.

The Chosen is my least favorite TV show of all time. If I were a Hollywood moghul and that script landed on my desk, it would be “The Rejected.” It may have a few famous faces involved, but I give it zero stars.

What makes a good movie? That is, of course, a matter of taste.

If you ask a first year film student his favorite films on his first day, before he has been brainwashed, or educated, on why Kubrick and Eisenstein are great filmmakers, he might tell you that he loved Airplane, or the original Ghostbusters, or something with Abbot and Costello. (With me it was Laurel and Hardy).

Of course, even if he isn’t brainwashed, being exposed to new voices like Charlie Chaplin can increase what he has to choose from, and his favorite films can change simply because he wasn’t before exposed to what he really enjoyed.

Analysis can be a killjoy. Looking at a film like Airplane frame by frame and from an ideological perspective, it might seem sexist, or against one’s religious or political beliefs. Some innocent joke is suddenly a source of everything that is bad in the universe.

I never really liked most Kubrick films, but for some reason, I tried to learn from his filmmaking method. I found 2001 long and drawn out, other films I couldn’t even finish. Sure, Dr Strangelove was more interesting as I got older, but most of the ones that Kubrick fans recommend to me frankly bore me.

A lot of French films have the same effect: I hear the “making of” and they sound like masterpieces; but I try to watch them and I am fast asleep.

I am not the first to look at films this way. In their Caheirs du Cinema, the great French analysts who led the new wave looked at the B films of Hitchcock and analysed crowdpleases as the true masterpieces of cinema. But why not Harrihausen? Suddenly the works of Chaplin could also be enjoyed, but why not Laurel and Hardy?

If you need to talk about the making of a film, the politics or ethics, the economics or any other factor external to the film itself to tell me it is a good film, then I lose interest. A good salad is not a good salad because of the chef’s politics or how long he spent in the kitchen.

That said, I look at my favorite films, and how they were made, and I have observed a pattern. No one necessarily got rich off the film, but everyone from the above the line (producer, screenwriter and director) down to the runner was paid more than a living wage for the time. Unlike Kubrick’s movies and Elon Musk’s philosophy, most if not all the people involved worked fourty hour weeks, with adequate lunch breaks, free weekends, family time, and all the rest of it.

Almost every one of my favorite actors, writers, editors and directors has stories about time with their family, often spent during the making of a film. Some may be single, but they tend to have stories of time with their friends.

None of them used amateur actors. Sorry, I do not really like the films of Ken Loach or those social realists. (Though I hear that style was popular with certain dictators in the mid twentieth century). If you cannot afford professional actors, that is one thing, but those who choose to repeatedly work with amateurs tend to make films that look like bad documentaries.

I have written films that can be shot in one room because of a lack of confidence in raising money, but they are not my favorite to watch. And they are not necessarily that simple to make anyway. Keeping one room available for the entire production is more difficult than it seems, unless you are the sole owner of the property and any adjoining rooms. (even if your producers are partial owners, they may decide to do some spring cleaning or home improvements that ruin your set because they do not understand the filmmaking process as well as you do).

My favorite films have full-time (not overtime) professional casts and crew (but often not celebrities). People involved are paid well enough to live on, usually, but very seldom do they get rich off the movie.

I dislike films with so many stars that you get dizzy recognising them from other movies. Speilburg’s Lincoln was terribly boring, more like watching a poorly planned improve at the afterparty of an academy awards show than a proper movie. Even the flags and main characters felt like crowdfunding cameos.

Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West, on the other hand, had only two recognisable faces, both of which were not famous for their looks or politics, only for their talent. PeeWee Herman’s Big Adventure had some very brief celebrity cameos, but the main characters are played by actors I have not seen anywhere else.

But education can get quite political, and politics often get in the way of good judgement. While I often say that I would rather work with people with film degrees, I mean those who survived the degree without being contaminated by the politics, those who hold a strong interest in making films that are in their own right, rather than feeling the need to satisfy some socio-political goal. As Moliere says, the point of entertainment is to please the audience, not the critic. And I believe the best way to do that is making middle of the road pictures, with career professionals rather than celebrities or amateurs.

Currently, I think the countries doing this best are India and Hungary. I have very little time for British movies, for anything that shows at film festivals like Raindance. Well, I watch them sometimes, but do not tend to enjoy them (I am grateful that youtube and DVD players allow double speed).

Hungarian movies that get no European funding tend to be much better than British films that get European and Lottery funding. I do not know why, but government funding, even tax credits, seems to diminish the quality of art. (It might be because the EU and UK directives push bad art).

While newer films have much better effects, the writing and acting is terrible. Having a soldier play WonderWoman is distracting, it is like something Ed Wood would have done.

The truth is, I am not afraid of AI taking over films because it seems that it already has. The current generation of talent seem to act like robots, lacking any personality as they are shot down for the slightest controversial opinion. The worst part is that a growing part of the audience is a bunch of robots.

okay, rant over. Let us be grateful that we can still remember the old films and shows instead of seeing the remakes or reruns. Even if we become killjoys because we see their imperfections a second time, we have our innocent memories.

And a few films, like those with Laurel and Hardy, are pretty good even if we see them after getting a film degree.