A Concise Summary Of Film

Cafe Society
1

I can still remember from my freshman year at uni when I was at a party and some wag summarized global film in a few lines.

“American movies are about pushing the plot, and end with finally getting the gal (or guy). European movies are about the consequences of love. American movies stop before this point. Asian movies are more about setting and atmosphere.”

Maybe the guy was quoting from his Pretensious Studies 101 course. But I’ve never heard this anywhere else in the ensuing decades, and while there are many exceptions, I still see some slight wisdom in this synopsis. Wise words, or wacky hackney?

2

I understand sweeping generalizations are out of fashion. But in all serious, after thinking about this for decades I can’t decide if it is a brilliant statement - or complete shyte.

3

In what year were you a freshman?

Maybe some cinephiles here on the Dope can evaluate whether the generalization had some validity for that era

4

Are you saying it doesn’t now?

5

I’m saying that I’m not enough of a cinephile to evaluate its validity for any era at all.

6

In my experience, European movies have just as many cliches as American movies. They’re just different cliches.

7

Duh, of course. All art is convention, even the non-conventional one.

8

I ran a movie projector in college, and for a few years after, I was the fill-in at my old job at the art house, so I have seen a LOT of films. I will admit that since my son was born, my film viewing took a nose-dive, but for my first nearly 40 years, I was definitely a cinephile-- OK, maybe you could say, starting when I was about 10, so 30 years.

10 was when I noticed that Hollywood made other things besides monster movies. I saw the Ingrid Bergman/Spencer Tracy version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and suddenly wanted to see everything those two performers did. Everything from Boys’ Town to Indiscreet. Then I wanted to see everything the other actors in those movies did. And the other actors in those movies. I had lists, and cross-lists, and checklists. Every week, when the TV schedule came in the newspaper, I’d look at the movie list: anything made in the 30s and 40s was gold. Maybe a few things made in the early 50s.

Anyway, yeah, there is a certain amount of truth in the statement, as very generalized, but it’s very easy to point to exceptions.

However, even when you have exceptions, you see where there are differences that contribute to the “general.”

Take the following as VERY general statements. Please don’t fire back specific exceptions, and expect me to defend the statements in the face of them. It’s like arguing that English is spoken in the US-- not that no other language is.

In European “get the couple together” movies, the complications arise from personality, and social mores; in Hollywood, they arise from wacky antics, and random disasters.

In Europe, movies about long-time couples tend to focus on ordinariness, and how people deal with ordinary stress-- even if they are a royal couple, how do they deal with a death in the family, as opposed to an alien invasion. In Hollywood, movies about long-term couples tend to deal with really hard-hitting stressors, be they natural disasters, nuclear holocausts, or contagion. Even if they are biographical (about real people), they tend to focus on a really difficult part of their lives.

Hollywood produces atmospheric movies, but they are nearly always suspense or horror films. It’s rare to have an atmospheric love story-- and when there is, audiences don’t know how to deal with it. Almost everything Asian (which is to say Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.-- specifically excluding Bollywood) is atmospheric, but this goes way back to theater traditions in those countries.

Godzilla is atmospheric; if you can, find a subtitled version of the Japanese release, without the Raymond Burr inserts. It is actually a very impressive movie, that was not available to the US until about 2000. Look for it to be titled Gojira, if you want to see what they saw in Japan in 1954. The obvious costume of the actor walking around playing the monster makes sense in the original, because it’s much more theatrical.

Anyway, European films tend not to be atmospheric, because there has always been a push for realism in films in Europe. You see it less in British films, but continental films are really gritty, and improvisation among actors is encouraged, both in Eastern and Western Europe.

Hollywood films have been escapist, since the onset of sound (and the Depression), so they are polished and glitzy. Everything is prettier and cleaner than it is in the real world, even literal dirt.

America has produced lots of atmospheric films, but they have tended to be independent. And the atmosphere is hard to compare to the atmosphere of Asian films. Spike Lee produced some very atmospheric films, but they are also hard to compare to anything. Do The Right Thing and Summer of Sam were highly atmospheric, but also very American.

Those are observations from many years behind a projector. I have seen the same movies repeated times, and I have seen more European, Asian and Central/South American films than the typical American (I also have lived in New York City, and in Europe, in addition to running an art house projector in Indiana).

But FTR, though I have read lots of books on films, and have several film studies professors among my acquaintances, I have taken only a single class in film studies (Black [ie, African-American] Films in America).

So take my observations for what they are.

9

Interesting post. Also, I feel that European movies may be more prone to leave an open end to the movie.

Another thing I noticed (and might merit its own thread) is that quite a lot of American movies (particularly comedies) have a public confession by the main character of his/her own faults or crimes. It is usually a way to have an arc about redemption and forgiveness. My guess is that it has its origins in certain forms of puritanism.

10

Thanks for that post. I have seen a lot of classic movies but know nothing about film studies. This has made me question if the observation was accepted dogma, mistaken or showed unusual insight. Obviously, any sweeping generalization is flawed, but your analysis suggests it is likely considerably more true than false. I wonder how original these views are (were).

11

Definitely generalized, but most Hollywood movies put the plot and romance first. European movies often put the characterizations first; many don’t have a particular plot and certainly not a “Save the Cat” template.

What I’ve seen of Asian films is that they’re similar to European movies, concentrating on the characters foremost and having the plot secondary.

Naturally, you can find exceptions, but they are heavily skewed toward the generalizations.

12

Hollywood movies are not the same as American movies. Smaller and independent productions - art house films - try hard not to rely on the same cliches that work for the big studios. All rom-coms may be the same, and all action movies may be the same, and all stoner comedies may be the same, but independent films try hard to be different. (Sometimes too hard.)

The generalization may work for Hollywood films. It doesn’t work for American films.

13

I think I pretty clearly said “Hollywood” films, and had a separate discussion of indie films.

We don’t know when the OP was said. If it was said before about 1970, indie movies weren’t really a thing-- they existed, but were rare, and people would have understood “American” and “Hollywood” to be synonymous.

14

There is a lot of truth in that last statement, actually. Chuck Klosterman referred to this in film as “fake love.” His point was that movies are usually just about a courtship, but that love is mostly what happens AFTER that.

Watch a love story in a film and if they end up together ask yourself this:

Knowing what I have been told and shown about these characters, do I think there is any significant chance they will still be in a working relationship in a year?

The answer is usually firmly no.

15

If you ask someone in Morocco, Montevideo or Moscow to name an American film, are they likely to pick some 20 hour snoozer made by Warhol in the 60s?

16

At the end of Silver Linings Playbook I felt that one or both of the leads would be dead within six months.

17

That is an absolutely perfect example.

A sure sign of a bad love story is when the characters fix each other. Yeaaaah, no. Two broken people make a broken relationship. People can improve one another in a relationship, but FIX? That ain’t the world I live in.

18

I was responding to the OP and the thread in general. You had a fine post, which I never mentioned.