March 3, 2021
Last night, I finally got around to watching Bryan Fogel's must-watch documentary, The Dissident. A bit late to the game, I know, but to be honest, I wasn't a fan of his filmmaking in Icarus at all (the Academy disagreed, so his career is safe), and more importantly, I hadn't been in the mood for a tough, investigative documentary for awhile. Something about a global pandemic, a day full of Zooms, four years of political trauma, and living in a society where a majority of whites would rather believe that pizza-parlor dwelling pedophiles are ruining our country rather than structural racism... you get the picture - by the end of the day, I just want to unwind with some Ted Lasso. Lucky for me, the majority of film provider's are more than happy to oblige, and are turning their backs on hard-hitting documentaries in favor of something more, well, entertaining, and that's not great for society. But before we go get all up in arms about the evils of corporate America, we need to recognize our own complicity in this chicken/egg situation - because while SVOD/Broadcasters may be driving this bandwagon, filmmakers and audiences are all merrily coming along for the ride.
But first, the evil corporate overlords. It's old news now, but in case you haven't heard it - in spite of winning an Academy award for Icarus, and premiering his film at Sundance, Bryan Fogel couldn't get any major buyers for The Dissident. And going back to my critique of Icarus - I think this film is 100 times better, more chilling, and more masterfully made - it should be an easy sell to the buyers if not to audiences. But something about him showing the evils of MBS, and of Netflix, Apple and others not wanting to "speak truth to power, when trying to entertain" - a paraphrase of what Netflix's Reed Hastings was quoted as saying when they pulled an episode of Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act that was critical of MBS - also for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi - just wasn't leading to lots of offers. I mean, heck, they'd just gotten done signing a deal for eight films with a Saudi studio two months prior to Sundance, how would that look? (Side note - to be fair, Biden hasn't done a lot more than Hastings here, even if he did release the report).
But this isn't limited to Saudi Arabia and MBS - another taboo subject for the major Streamers (and Studios) has been anything remotely critical of China, because, well, that's another important market that thinks differently about democratic ideals, and is showing a lot more promise for subscriber growth, than "the West." But while most folks have been focusing on Netflix and other's reluctance to criticize China and Saudi Arabia, Dan Einav wrote a nice piece in the Financial Times this week arguing that they've pretty much abandoned anything too political, controversial, or well, journalistic. He interviews Fogel, who says, "What we’ve seen is that the business interests of these companies have taken precedence over human rights violations,”..."Subscriber growth and investment is what is key. The Netflix that distributed Icarus three years ago is a very different company to the Netflix of today.” And then Ai Weiwei, who agrees, saying "The message that has been sent is clear: you cannot survive if you question power.”"
Einav continues: "Fogel and Ai’s comments are in stark contrast to the widely held belief that we are living through a “golden age of documentary”. While the growing popularity of non-fiction work in recent years is undeniable, it has primarily been driven by films and docu-series whose main strength is easy consumability rather than investigative depth. “Everything has become entertainment,” Ai says. “It is a symptom of capitalism and the ‘winner take all’ mentality that proliferates in society, the desire to extract more profit from the audience through any means necessary. This is a death spiral.” "
Fogel, Ai Weiwei and many other documentary filmmakers (too many to name here - I am not lumping all documentary makers or films into this argument) remain committed to hard-hitting investigative documentaries, but there's also an undercurrent of filmmakers who have read the writing on the wall and are more than happy to make this same shift in their filmmaking. This week, I was also clued into a CJR piece from October, 2020 - Television is making more documentaries than ever—but skipping the journalism. The article covers the rise of documentaries that are eliding their roots, hiding just how much input the subjects have in the story. It's a big problem - to everyone except the folks in the industry who are essentially saying, "yeah, but... the money sure is good." The author, Danny Funt, takes a look at the Hillary Clinton series on Hulu, which was made with footage shot by her staffers, and with plenty of editorial notes from Hillary and her staff - yet was taken at face value, as "remarkable access" and "surprisingly candid" by the press and reviewers.
Most of the doc leaders he interviewed basically shrugged and said conflicts of interest are just the norm now. Or as he reports: "Repeatedly, I heard the claim that audiences only care about watching an entertaining story, not a work of credible journalism. If that were truly the case, producers would be more forthcoming." Look folks, I work in branded content, and people question me about the ethics of it daily, but none of the projects I've ever worked on were as ethically compromised - with an utter lack of transparency - as any of the docs in this article. I think we need a much bigger conversation about doc ethics - or maybe just a refresher course? As Funt relates in closing: "In 1961, Joan Didion offered a cautionary note to the subjects of magazine profiles. “I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests,” she wrote. “And it always does.” A journalist like Didion wants to tell a true story. Anything else is advertising, no matter what you call it".
Amen, and that's coming from someone working mainly with advertisers, who happen to be much more transparent with their audiences. (h/t to the Doc Business newsletter for this link, even if it's a few months old now). That said, working with brands making films has proven the hunch that most of them also look towards entertainment value over hard-hitting exposes. They may not hide their ethical compromises, but they aren't exactly leading the charge towards more hard-hitting journalism.
But the platforms, the brands, the filmmakers alluded to above - none of them are operating in a vacuum here. Audiences are not exactly clamoring for this stuff, either. As I admitted at the start of this piece, I too am guilty of looking for entertainment over eating my vegetables most nights – and I have access to many free screeners, making it easier to get over the paying for pain threshold. While the avoidance of The Dissident by the majors was clearly a political decision, I am sure they have plenty of data showing that audiences aren't watching the harder hitting stuff, or they'd be sure to make more of it. In fact, when I speak with many of these executives they tell me these films just aren't performing. And while we can argue for a public service role - which none of them have, by the way - it's not helping anyone if they acquire a bunch of films that no one is actually watching. I often argue that we need a new public television, or a foundation/donor led distribution platform that would give a home to these non-commercial films. But let's be honest - those would make us feel better, but probably not do much in the way of building an audience that has already proven it prefers Tiger King (or anything on Discovery+) to journalistic docs. It's not that there's no audience out there, but it's much smaller than any of us would care to admit - and we are all part of the problem (by way of what we watch), aren't we?
Back in 1985, Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, which argued that contrary to Orwell, we were less likely to find ourselves oppressed by state control, and more likely (a la Aldous Huxley's Brave New World) to be oppressed by our entertainment. The book goes into a lot more in-depth analysis of our situation, arguing that the medium itself (in his argument, broadcast television, but I'd extend it to the moving image in the digital age) doesn't lend itself to in=depth analysis, only surfaces. Looking back at his thesis today is pretty disheartening - I mean, he thought Reagan was the apotheosis of what showbiz would do to political discourse. But as the National Review (!) recently put it: "It’s almost as if Donald Trump was made in a lab to be the Postman’s postmortem rebuke to us all." But even the current shift in our political leadership isn't going to do much to change the situation - we've built an entertainment machine that will keep feeding us what we want, and we'll happily keep feeding it, so we don't have to stop and think about reality for too long.
Postman didn't really have a lot to offer in the way of solutions - and spoiler alert, neither do I, but he hinted that some of it came down to education, and to demystifying the media and taking more control - dominating our media, lest it dominate us. Solutions aren't easy here, but one might be hinted at in the end of Einav's FT piece when he points out "if streaming platforms are to continue to attenuate the influence of public broadcasting — still a leading subsidiser of political documentaries in many countries — it seems incumbent on them as the world’s leading streaming service to inform their viewers about pressing global issues." This may be something we have to force through political action if not through the focus of our attention, because they've made it clear they won't do it for the good of society. There's a reason that the major streamers will take on films about racism in the US right now - because it's been made clear by both artists and audiences that it's required. We need to make sure they feel the same obligations when it comes to uncomfortable truths in other arenas as well.
|
|
Film
 Kill Fees and (perhaps) a new Equity Model for Foreign Financing? Deadline has a report from this year's virtual EFM (the market part of the Berlinale), where the big news is the blowback from CODA's big sale at Sundance. When Apple bought the film for $25M+, many people missed the fine print - that the film had been financed through pre-sales to many foreign distributors, and now the sales agents and Apple were offering a purported 10% kill fee (above their initial financing level). But many distributors refused and are fighting hard to keep rights in their territories. This will all get sorted out by lawyers and money, but one anonymous seller was quoted with the best idea of the bunch: "But it’s true there are different models to be investigated. Perhaps we’ll arrive at a position where buyers take equity positions in movies." That's the ticket - screw the kill fees - if the foreign buyers are taking the risk, let them see the rewards and be treated as equity investors, who will often stand to make much more than 10% in these situations - and perhaps, the profit can be used to save that part of the business. Note: After I wrote this, the Hollywood Reporter also covered the debate.
IFC Center Re-Opens (as) Right (as possible): Regular readers know I am not ready to go back to the cinema, at least not until we have more folks vaccinated, and we learn more about these new variants. But I should give props to IFC Center, who are re-opening on March 5th in NYC because the Governor allows it, but have at least listened to their core audiences (according to them), and are mandating masks, not allowing any food or drink - to help those masks stay on - and are offering dynamic pricing to encourage folks to attend at different times of day. This along with the usual stuff, like better filters, reserved and spaced seating, etc. If you're gonna open up, this is a better way to do it than some others. IndieWire has the report. And not long after I wrote this, Gothamist reported that a few other theaters are following their lead and keeping the concession stand closed. Kudos.
Alamo Drafthouse Files for bankruptcy - but has a plan: Alamo Drafthouse announced that it is going into bankruptcy, but while this is a weighty headline and a sign of the impact of Covid on arthouses, they also announced that they have a plan. They've sold the company to their existing equity backers, plus some new investors and Tim League remains involved. I know from speaking with them, that the plan is to come out of this stronger, so let's hope the filing and the investments position them to thrive post-pandemic. Variety has the report. But I will mention two things- I predicted this just last week, and I fear very few other mini-chains will have the foresight or the backers to follow their lead and set themselves up well for the future. This won't be the last big news we see in the exhibition or distribution sectors.
|
|
Branded Content
 Pfizer Teams with NatGeo and Disney on a COVID Doc: A new doc - Mission Possible: The Race for a Vaccine - from Pfizer and NatGeo tells the inside story of the development of the Pfizer vaccine. A brand-funded film that will surely be interesting to a broad audience. The film launches March 11th on Disney+ via NatGeo, and was produced by the branded content teams at Disney and NatGeo. FastCo has the story.
|
|
Miscellany:
The Arts Sector lost a lot of Jobs in 2020, and needs a new WPA. Several news reports here. First, up, California lost 175,000 Creative Economy Jobs last year. According to a study from Otis College reported on in the NYT. While such studies often include jobs like architecture (Fair enough) or law (ahem), the numbers are pretty stark. And this report comes not long after NYC reported a 66% drop in such jobs. This is just showing the two major Coastal markets, and the overall numbers are undoubtedly just as bleak. With no federal leadership here yet, NYC artists are calling on Cuomo to start a new WPA for the arts, and there's a bill in front of the NY Senate that proposes just that. Sounds like a good idea - or start of one - to me.
The NPR Effect - one reason the left may have no Limbaugh - Interesting article in Vox by Sean Illing (sent to me by my friend Kelly DeVine, artistic director of the Global Peace Film Fest) on Rush Limbaugh and the "Right Wing Echo Chamber" this past week. The article is an interview with Paul Matzko, the author of a book on the history of right wing talk radio called The Radio Right, and his thoughts on how the far right took over talk radio, completely. A big part of it was Reagan getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine in the 80s, but as he notes, Carter and others had ignored the law for awhile before that time. But what's really interesting is his response when asked why there isn't an equivalent from the left:
"The reality is that if you’re a station owner, and you’re looking for the programs that you can sell the ad slots for the highest dollar value, you pick a right-wing host because they have the entire right scope of the political spectrum. But if you choose a left-wing talk radio host, you have a natural competitor that’s subsidized by the government, which is a center-left National Public Radio affiliate. Left-wing talk radio has a baked-in competition for viewers and the right-wing doesn’t. This wasn’t the intent of NPR — it’s just an unintended consequence." (emphasis mine). An interesting take, that sounds about right at first glance - and a position I hadn't thought about before.
|
|
|
Like This Newsletter? Subscribe & Past Issues
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
