EYES WIDE SHUT test screening
agen...@my-dejanews.com
for the latest David Cronenberg flick, eXistenZ. Being a big Cronenberg fan,
I was quite excited. However, I began to suspect something was fishy when,
before entering the theater, each individual in the crowd was forced to sign
a "secrecy" form and also to provide his/her name, address, and a valid piece
of identification. I have been to test screenings before, but never once had
to verify my identity. All this for a Cronenberg film?! Hmmm.... Well,
imagine my surprise when it was announced that we were not seeing eXistenZ at
all, but a rough cut of Stanley Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT. (There was a
noticeable gasp among some of the crowd when this was announced.) If I was
disappointed at not getting to see Cronenberg's new film, I was doubly
excited to get a first peek at Kubrick's new project. Here's what I saw:
(NO SPOILERS)
The cut we saw was over three and half hours long and featured no music
whatsoever. As such, I would have to say that the movie was overlong by at
least a half hour. The storyline meandered too much, and a few scenes were
genuinely puzzling to most of the audience. However, there is much
brilliance on display here. I would not rank this film with Kubrick's best
work (i.e. PATHS OF GLORY, DR. STRANGELOVE, 2001, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) but
prefer it over his most recent efforts (BARRY LYNDON, THE SHINING, FULL METAL
JACKET). The story has some genuinely disturbing moments, and watching
husband and wife team Cruise and Kidman playing kinky psychologists added to
the unsettling tone. Both give fine performances, though Cruise is not always
believable portraying a very unorthodox doctor (he relies on too many of
usual mannerisms). However, Kidman is a revelation. Nobody will look at her
in the same way after this film. Lately, she has been playing more and more
risque parts and this time she cuts loose with little left to the imagination
(exactly what this says about Cruise and Kidman's real life marriage is
better left to the psychoanalysts in the audience). There are a couple of
instances where the film almost verges into hardcore porn territory, but then
cuts away just before you get a look at Cruise or Kidman's private parts.
The supporting performances were all excellent. Of particular note were
Sydney Pollack and Leelee Sobieski. I had never seen Sobieski before, but
she manages to hold her own and then some (she looks strikingly like a young
Helen Hunt).
As I noted before, the film definitely needs to be edited down a bit,
although a good musical score could help to boost scenes that seemed overly
stagnant. I'm very anxious to see this film again in its finished form.
It's not a masterpiece by any means, but a very disturbing film about the
extremes of human sexuality.
One last note: I was told Kubrick would be in the audience, though my quick
perusal of the theater turned up no such sighting (not that I know what he
looks like, other than his being an old guy).
By the way, I cannot reveal my identity nor respond to any email. I have a
feeling Kubrick's people would have me flayed and chopped up into little
pieces if they ever found out who I was.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Jimmi
movie fits demographics. That's why so many films have become predictable,
boring and unwatchable.
Just make a film and throw it out there. I want my film to be an artists
vision, not based on what a bunch of people thought I should see.
Jimmi
Michael Brooke
As someone who's currently co-producing a feature, I profoundly
disagree.
Film is far too expensive a medium to "just make and throw out there" -
we have a responsibility to our investors to make sure that the film
stands a chance of making back at least some of its money in a fiercely
competitive market. And before you jump to the obvious conclusion that
I'm some faceless money-man who would say that, believe me I'm equally
determined to make sure that our film is as true to its director's
vision as we can possibly get.
But no-one makes films in a vacuum - we're all constantly testing
elements of the film on people, from letting them read bits or all of
the script to trying out marketing ideas to casting suggestions (you can
see our initial poster design at
http://www.filmsite.co.uk/paradisegrove). When the film is close to
completion, there's no question that we'll be trying out various rough
edits on an audience and monitoring their reaction closely.
Test screenings serve a whole wealth of functions beyond "making a movie
fit its demographics". As our film is a comedy, I'd like to be
reasonably sure that people will find it funny - and there's no way that
you can tell that for sure in an editing suite accompanied by people who
know the material so well that they're sick and tired of it: I'm
certainly not going to be a reliable judge of the material, and the
director's going to be even less so (by the time we've finished, he'll
have lived with it for over two years). I doubt very much we'll be
making drastic changes unless we're in for a very unpleasant surprise -
but we'll almost certainly be making significant tweaks based on our
initial findings.
All of which is plain common sense - and countless major artists have
undertaken exactly the same process. Personally, I don't find 'Psycho'
or 'Annie Hall' the least bit "predictable, boring and unwatchable", and
yet both underwent substantial changes as a result of test screenings.
A 'Psycho' that was true to Hitchcock's own vision would have featured a
fidgety, post-bebop jazz score and no music in the shower scene, while
the original cut of 'Annie Hall' was apparently a wildly self-indulgent
three-hour mess that was largely about the Woody Allen character.
In any case, films are made by "a bunch of people", not one single
artist - the number of genuine "auteur" directors who really do control
every single element of their films can be counted on the fingers of one
hand. And even Stanley Kubrick (whom you would have thought would be
one of them) takes suggestions from actors, crew and indeed audience -
he recut both '2001' and 'The Shining' after gauging initial audience
reaction!
Michael
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a lavish tribute to the cinema's wildest imagination
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ste...@my-dejanews.com
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
> Jimmi <jim...@TAKETHISOUTop.net> wrote:
>
> > I think test screening are so hideous. It is just a way to make sure a
> > movie fits demographics. That's why so many films have become predictable,
> > boring and unwatchable.
> >
> > Just make a film and throw it out there. I want my film to be an artists
> > vision, not based on what a bunch of people thought I should see.
> >
>
> As someone who's currently co-producing a feature, I profoundly
> disagree.
> Test screenings serve a whole wealth of functions beyond "making a movie
> fit its demographics". As our film is a comedy, I'd like to be
> reasonably sure that people will find it funny - and there's no way that
> you can tell that for sure in an editing suite accompanied by people who
> know the material so well that they're sick and tired of it: I'm
> certainly not going to be a reliable judge of the material, and the
> director's going to be even less so (by the time we've finished, he'll
> have lived with it for over two years). I doubt very much we'll be
> making drastic changes unless we're in for a very unpleasant surprise -
> but we'll almost certainly be making significant tweaks based on our
> initial findings.
>
> All of which is plain common sense - and countless major artists have
> undertaken exactly the same process. Personally, I don't find 'Psycho'
> or 'Annie Hall' the least bit "predictable, boring and unwatchable", and
> yet both underwent substantial changes as a result of test screenings.
> A 'Psycho' that was true to Hitchcock's own vision would have featured a
> fidgety, post-bebop jazz score and no music in the shower scene, while
> the original cut of 'Annie Hall' was apparently a wildly self-indulgent
> three-hour mess that was largely about the Woody Allen character.
I do see some limited value to test screenings in determining how a film
should be marketed or what jokes audiences tend to find funny. But I'd wager
that they've done *at least* as harm as good. I can't count the number of
films I've seen that sacrifice narrative or character plausibility for the
sake of a happy ending.
Not all films are (or should be) immediately accessible to all audiences, but
test screenings are likely to reward only those that are. If you showed IN
THE COMPANY OF MEN to an audience selected from people who think STEPMOM and
YOU'VE GOT MAIL are among the greatest films ever made, they'd likely suggest
that it should end with Chad apologizing to Howard and Howard making a
marriage proposal to Christine. If you showed STALKER and SOLARIS to an
audience selected from a STAR WARS convention, you'd get a lot of responses
along the lines of "It's too slow, there's too much talking and the special
effects suck." Anyone who thinks the Sid Field model of narrative is the only
valid one would probably be horrified by the inconclusive endings of Abbas
Kiarostami's AND LIFE GOES ON, THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES and TASTE OF CHERRY.
For that matter, *I* found the final scene of LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL nauseating,
but I'd hesitate to tell Roberto Benigni that he must change it.
Personally, I tend to judge the ultimate worth of a film by how much it
sticks with me and/or how well it stands up to repeat viewings. I can think
of a number of 1998 films that I initially overrrated (BUFFALO 66, HAPPINESS)
because they kept me entertained while I was watching them but seemed
flimsier once I started to think about them and that I initially underrated
(SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, UNMADE BEDS) because I couldn't have known how much
some of their images and characters would haunt me.
This is admittedly an extreme example, but do you think a film like FUNNY
GAMES would benefit from test screenings? I was disgusted by it while
watching it (even though I'm quite aware that this is exactly how the
director wants an audience to react), but I've come to respect its intentions
(even if I have many qualms about the film's execution of those intentions),
value the skill of Michael Haneke's direction and the actors' performances
and think that seeing it was a worthwhile, powerful experience without ever
coming to the conclusion that I "like" the film or that I got much pleasure
out of seeing it. One is unlikely to be able to express this kind of
complicated, ambivalent response by filling out a form or answering a
questionnaire 5 minutes after the film is over, yet I think there's something
worthwhile about this kind of reaction.
>
> In any case, films are made by "a bunch of people", not one single
> artist - the number of genuine "auteur" directors who really do control
> every single element of their films can be counted on the fingers of one
> hand. And even Stanley Kubrick (whom you would have thought would be
> one of them) takes suggestions from actors, crew and indeed audience -
> he recut both '2001' and 'The Shining' after gauging initial audience
> reaction!
Jimmi is guilty of romanticizing the director's role and ignoring the extent
to which films are commercial products, but I hardly think that it's an
auteurist excess to suggest that the director and/or screenwriter should
determine how their film ends, not a studio marketing department or test
audience. You Brits don't have to worry about this, but I'm horrified by the
extent to which Miramax gets busy with the scissors on many films that they
distribute; Jonathan Rosenbaum, for one, claims that their extensively
reworked cut of TEMPTRESS MOON is a distortion of the original cut. (One of
their 1998 releases, HAV PLENTY, was at least honest enough to include a
reflexive ending in which the protagonist makes an autobiographical film
about the experiences that we've justspent 90 minutes watching, only to have
his film picked a distributor who insists on eliminating his original
downbeat ending. From what I've heard, this is exactly what happened to the
director of HAV PLENTY.) I'd trust Chen Kaige's instincts over Harvey
Weinstein's any day of the week, at least if aesthetics take precedence over
marketing savvy.
Steve Erickson
Remove "no spam" to reply.
http://home.earthlink.net/~steevee
Michael Brooke
> I do see some limited value to test screenings in determining how a film
> should be marketed or what jokes audiences tend to find funny. But I'd wager
> that they've done *at least* as harm as good. I can't count the number of
> films I've seen that sacrifice narrative or character plausibility for the
> sake of a happy ending.
One of the most telling moments in 'The Player' comes when various
studio executives are talking about how happy endings are absolutely
vital - and on the wall in the background is a framed poster of
'Casablanca'. Robert Altman doesn't draw attention to this, but he
doesn't need to!
And of course there's no question that last-minute studio interference
can be profoundly damaging - but it's unlikely to happen to 'Eyes Wide
Shut', because I imagine Kubrick's right to final cut is as rock-solid
as ever.
> Not all films are (or should be) immediately accessible to all audiences, but
> test screenings are likely to reward only those that are. If you showed IN
> THE COMPANY OF MEN to an audience selected from people who think STEPMOM and
> YOU'VE GOT MAIL are among the greatest films ever made, they'd likely suggest
> that it should end with Chad apologizing to Howard and Howard making a
> marriage proposal to Christine.
Absolutely - which is why initial test audiences should be very
carefully selected to make sure that they're a fair representation of
your target audience (which of course you should have determined long
before shooting). Our own project is somewhat nearer 'In the Company of
Men' than it is to 'Stepmom', so we're going to have to tread carefully
in terms of initial audience selection.
Bear in mind that I'm not expecting test audiences to automatically love
the film - my idea of an ideal test score is something strongly
polarised between "brilliant" and "crap" (if everyone loves it, I'll be
deeply suspicious!). If they don't like it, that's not necessarily a
reason for making changes - particularly if the film is deliberately
provocative (as I hope ours will be).
The important thing is to get some kind of reaction, and hope that that
reaction will be mirrored by general audiences when the film opens - and
by experiencing it in microcosm, we can adjust the marketing campaign so
that it's aimed at the right people.
> This is admittedly an extreme example, but do you think a film like FUNNY
> GAMES would benefit from test screenings?]
I've barely had time to watch *anything* over the past few months, so I
haven't seen 'Funny Games' yet - though it's on my list of things I
should see when I'm less busy. But from what I know of it, my answer
would still be yes - simply because by anticipating the audience
response (which is something you can only do to any degree of accuracy
by arranging test screenings), you can construct the most effective
marketing campaign.
Film marketing is always fundamentally unpredictable, but there are ways
of making it less unpredictable (though I don't think anyone expected
the Daily Mail's notoriously censorious Christopher Tookey not only to
rave about 'Funny Games' but to pick it as one of his films of the
year!)
> One is unlikely to be able to express this kind of
> complicated, ambivalent response by filling out a form or answering a
> questionnaire 5 minutes after the film is over, yet I think there's something
> worthwhile about this kind of reaction.
Any halfway decent test screening would combine both an instant reaction
poll and a more detailed focus group discussion involving some of the
members of that audience who have been given time to think about the
film. This is particularly important if it's a film like the titles you
cite which tackles complex moral issues and which doesn't offer any easy
solutions - and our project very much falls into that camp. It's a
comedy, but it's also supposed to make people think (there are a couple
of moments where I hope we're going to pull off the 'Man Bites Dog'
trick of getting people to laugh and simultaneously ask themselves *why*
they're laughing).
> Jimmi is guilty of romanticizing the director's role and ignoring the extent
> to which films are commercial products,
Not so much that - it's the assumption that a film is solely the vision
of the director, which I always thought was largely fiction and my
experiences over the past few months have rendered it even more
nonsensical. Not that the director isn't an extremely important member
of the team, but he's certainly not the *only* important one, or even
the one supplying all the creative ideas.
Decades of auteurist criticism have elevated the director to an absurd
extent at the expense of equally (or in some cases more) talented
colleagues - if nothing else, my recent experience has taught me that
the job of production designer is probably the most thankless in the
entire film business in terms of creative input versus public
acknowledgement!
As I acknowledged, there are some directors who genuinely call virtually
all the shots, but they're in a tiny minority and tend to work at the
lower-budget independent end of the spectrum (the days when the Soviet
Union funded a massive-scale but deeply personal film such as
Tarkovsky's 'Andrei Rublev' are long gone!)
> but I hardly think that it's an
> auteurist excess to suggest that the director and/or screenwriter should
> determine how their film ends, not a studio marketing department or test
> audience. You Brits don't have to worry about this, but I'm horrified by the
> extent to which Miramax gets busy with the scissors on many films that they
> distribute;
Conversely, though, both Peter Jackson and Roberto Benigni have claimed
that the Miramax edits of 'Heavenly Creatures' and 'Life is Beautiful'
are improvements on the original cuts (which are available to anyone who
wants to track them down). So it's - as ever - swings and roundabouts.
I think the most important thing in these cases is whether or not one
can justify making such changes in anything other than nakedly
commercial terms.
Jim McLennan
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk "Michael Brooke" writes:
> > Not all films are (or should be) immediately accessible to all audiences, but
> > test screenings are likely to reward only those that are. If you showed IN
> > THE COMPANY OF MEN to an audience selected from people who think STEPMOM and
> > YOU'VE GOT MAIL are among the greatest films ever made, they'd likely suggest
> > that it should end with Chad apologizing to Howard and Howard making a
> > marriage proposal to Christine.
>
> Absolutely - which is why initial test audiences should be very
> carefully selected to make sure that they're a fair representation of
> your target audience (which of course you should have determined long
> before shooting). Our own project is somewhat nearer 'In the Company of
> Men' than it is to 'Stepmom', so we're going to have to tread carefully
> in terms of initial audience selection.
Yet the original poster (and presumably the rest of the audience) were
expecting a Cronenberg film -- and were presumably thus a "Cronenberg
audience". Now, given Kubrick's reputation, I'm not surprised this was
done, but it surely invalidates the results to a significant degree:
I love DC (just saw a trailer for 'eXistenZ', which looked very, very
promisin) but find Kubrick vastly over-rated. The whole concept of
"target audiences" smacks dangerously of pandering to demographics...
> Film marketing is always fundamentally unpredictable, but there are ways
> of making it less unpredictable (though I don't think anyone expected
> the Daily Mail's notoriously censorious Christopher Tookey not only to
> rave about 'Funny Games' but to pick it as one of his films of the
> year!)
[Waves hand in air] I would! Especially since he also raved about the
similarly media-savvy and hyperviolent 'Man Bites Dog'. Though I am
less sure what he'd make of 'Dobermann'... ;-)
--
Jim McLennan
-- Next time you visit the Internet, why not pop in to TrashCityLand? --
-- http://www.trshcity.demon.co.uk --
Fawlty
>I think test screening are so hideous. It is just a way to make sure a
>movie fits demographics. That's why so many films have become
predictable,
>boring and unwatchable.
>
>Just make a film and throw it out there. I want my film to be an
artists
>vision, not based on what a bunch of people thought I should see.
Considering that most "artists" seem to be self-indulgent super-ego's,
we'd no doubt be forced to sit through even more rubbish than today.
Just see what happens when hack directors get "final cut". A nice 90
minute story turn into a big 3-hour "epic" yawn.
/Michael
You Die Joe
Jimmi wrote in message <77f1p8$k5s$1...@picasso.op.net>...
>I think test screening are so hideous. It is just a way to make sure a
>movie fits demographics. That's why so many films have become predictable,
>boring and unwatchable.
>
>Just make a film and throw it out there. I want my film to be an artists
>vision, not based on what a bunch of people thought I should see.
>
That is true to a great extent. However, there's always the possibility
that a horrendous technical blunder could be comitted by artists who've been
looking at the same film for so long they don't notice. Simple editing cues
that produce bad laughs, and other details, do merit the use of test
screenings. They are however horribly overvalued by the industry.
YDJ
Andrew White
you wrote:
>As someone who's currently co-producing a feature, I profoundly
>disagree.
You are a producer, not a director, of course you like test
screenings.
>A 'Psycho' that was true to Hitchcock's own vision would have featured a
>fidgety, post-bebop jazz score and no music in the shower scene, while
>the original cut of 'Annie Hall' was apparently a wildly self-indulgent
>three-hour mess that was largely about the Woody Allen character.
Er, Psycho was NEVER test screened in any form to the public or the
press. It is true that Hitch did not originaly want music during the
shower scene but it was down to Herrmann that suggested the change,
not some test audience.
Andrew White
45 DVD... OPEN DVD, FIGHT DIVX
**Kumba (BGT) Psyclone (SFMM)**
**Desperado (BB)
Last 3 films (/5):
The Siege ** Enemy of the State *** Mask of Zorro **
Michael Brooke
>
> Yet the original poster (and presumably the rest of the audience) were
> expecting a Cronenberg film -- and were presumably thus a "Cronenberg
> audience". Now, given Kubrick's reputation, I'm not surprised this was
> done, but it surely invalidates the results to a significant degree:
> I love DC (just saw a trailer for 'eXistenZ', which looked very, very
> promisin) but find Kubrick vastly over-rated.
Which reminds me - it's months since I had a really good wind-up of the
alt.movies.kubrick newsgroup!
> The whole concept of
> "target audiences" smacks dangerously of pandering to demographics...
Which, like it or not, you have to do - unless you want to end up with
an unfocused, over-budgeted marketing campaign that gets nowhere. Every
time I send out press releases, I'm "pandering to demographics" by only
contacting certain publications - because I can't possibly afford to
reach them all!
You can't just say "we're aiming this film at the entire 6 billion
population of the world", because that simply isn't feasible - so some
kind of demographic selection is going to happen at some point or other.
If you know who you're aiming your film at, and you know how to reach
them, you stand a much better chance of initial success - which in turn
may well develop into something bigger if the all-important
word-of-mouth factor comes into play.
But if you don't "pander to demographics", you're more likely to end up
with a marketing campaign that satisfies nobody - for example, Universal
gave 'Videodrome' (a specialist art movie if ever there was one) a
mainstream release on close to 1,000 screens in the US, and of course it
flopped disastrously. Had they opened it in a few, carefully selected
upmarket cinemas and allowed word of mouth to build, they might have
done rather better (if only because they wouldn't have thrown away
millions of dollars in print expenses), even if that course of action
would involve rather more pandering to demographics than what Universal
actually did!
As I see it, having clearly-defined target audiences is one of the most
effective ways of keeping the powers that be off your back and letting
you get on and make the best possible film.
>
> > Film marketing is always fundamentally unpredictable, but there are ways
> > of making it less unpredictable (though I don't think anyone expected
> > the Daily Mail's notoriously censorious Christopher Tookey not only to
> > rave about 'Funny Games' but to pick it as one of his films of the
> > year!)
>
> [Waves hand in air] I would! Especially since he also raved about the
> similarly media-savvy and hyperviolent 'Man Bites Dog'.
As indeed did Barry Norman, much to my astonishment at the time! (For
the record, 'Man Bites Dog' is the only film I ever premiered that
attracted more than one letter of complaint!)
> Though I am
> less sure what he'd make of 'Dobermann'... ;-)
Well, we'll find out tomorrow...
Michael
Steve Erickson
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
> <ste...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>
>
> > One is unlikely to be able to express this kind of
> > complicated, ambivalent response by filling out a form or answering a
> > questionnaire 5 minutes after the film is over, yet I think there's
something
> > worthwhile about this kind of reaction.
>
> Any halfway decent test screening would combine both an instant reaction
> poll and a more detailed focus group discussion involving some of the
> members of that audience who have been given time to think about the
> film. This is particularly important if it's a film like the titles you
> cite which tackles complex moral issues and which doesn't offer any easy
> solutions - and our project very much falls into that camp. It's a
> comedy, but it's also supposed to make people think (there are a couple
> of moments where I hope we're going to pull off the 'Man Bites Dog'
> trick of getting people to laugh and simultaneously ask themselves *why*
> they're laughing).
I've only been to one test screening - Patrice Leconte's RIDICULE - and
there was none of the follow-up you recommend. All we had to do was fill
out a form (and if we had more to say, a 3*5 card) immediately after the
screening. (On my card, I urged Miramax not to cut it.)
>
>
> > but I hardly think that it's an
> > auteurist excess to suggest that the director and/or screenwriter should
> > determine how their film ends, not a studio marketing department or test
> > audience. You Brits don't have to worry about this, but I'm horrified by the
> > extent to which Miramax gets busy with the scissors on many films that they
> > distribute;
>
> Conversely, though, both Peter Jackson and Roberto Benigni have claimed
> that the Miramax edits of 'Heavenly Creatures' and 'Life is Beautiful'
> are improvements on the original cuts (which are available to anyone who
> wants to track them down). So it's - as ever - swings and roundabouts.
> I think the most important thing in these cases is whether or not one
> can justify making such changes in anything other than nakedly
> commercial terms.
I don't know if the cut scenes from HEAVENLY CREATURES are available on the
laserdisc, but an original cut that one can only see on a bootleg video or
Japanese laserdisc isn't my idea of "available." But from all accounts, the
edits made to it were relatively minor and did improve the film. I'm more
upset about the kind of substantial re-working they did to FAREWELL MY
CONCUBINE and TEMPTRESS MOON. (Miramax hyped both films as "banned in
China," but the version of CONCUBINE eventually released in China was
actually longer than the one released in the U.S.)
On a somewhat related note, I'm also irritated that the MPAA and October
Films are reportedly sparing tender American eyes the sight of hardcore sex
in Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS, just as they saved us from Stellan
Skarsgard's erection in BREAKING THE WAVES. Thank God October didn't
release THE LIFE OF JESUS!
--
Steve Erickson
Remove "nospam" to reply.
http://home.earthlink.net/~steevee
Michael Brooke
> On Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:17:42 +0000, in rec.arts.movies.current-films
> you wrote:
>
> >As someone who's currently co-producing a feature, I profoundly
> >disagree.
>
> You are a producer, not a director, of course you like test
> screenings.
There's no "of course" about it - it depends entirely on the
appropriateness of the material. Since we're making a decidedly edgy
comedy that's aimed at a clearly-defined target audience, I think we'd
be completely mad *not* to hold test screenings, because some of the
material demands a specific response, and if we don't get that response
from the kind of people that we're aiming it at, we're clearly not doing
what we should be doing.
In any case, our director firmly agrees with me on this, so I really
don't see what you're getting at.
>
> >A 'Psycho' that was true to Hitchcock's own vision would have featured a
> >fidgety, post-bebop jazz score and no music in the shower scene, while
> >the original cut of 'Annie Hall' was apparently a wildly self-indulgent
> >three-hour mess that was largely about the Woody Allen character.
>
> Er, Psycho was NEVER test screened in any form to the public or the
> press. It is true that Hitch did not originaly want music during the
> shower scene but it was down to Herrmann that suggested the change,
> not some test audience.
Your definition of "a test audience" clearly differs from mine, because
it is documented fact that Hitchcock held two screenings of 'Psycho' in
rough cut form. True, the audience was made up of colleagues and
friends of colleagues, but he also invited along people like Robert
Bloch, who had no formal involvement with the film at all besides
writing the original novel. And Hitchcock held these screenings because
he was interested in the reaction of that audience - and changes were
made as a result of their feedback.
If those weren't test screenings, what are?
Martin Koolhoven
Michael Brooke wrote:
> Andrew White <andrew...@virgin.net> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:17:42 +0000, in rec.arts.movies.current-films
> > you wrote:
> >
> > >As someone who's currently co-producing a feature, I profoundly
> > >disagree.
> >
> > You are a producer, not a director, of course you like test
> > screenings.
>
> There's no "of course" about it - it depends entirely on the
> appropriateness of the material. Since we're making a decidedly edgy
> comedy that's aimed at a clearly-defined target audience, I think we'd
> be completely mad *not* to hold test screenings, because some of the
> material demands a specific response, and if we don't get that response
> from the kind of people that we're aiming it at, we're clearly not doing
> what we should be doing.
>
> In any case, our director firmly agrees with me on this, so I really
> don't see what you're getting at.
There is nothing wrong with testscreenings, persé.
It all depends in how you treat them.
My openion is that the best thing about test screening is when the film is
being shown. You'll know when you're film goes wrong.
Most people outside the industry see test viewings only as a negative thing.
They can only think of changed endings and so on. What they don't understand
is that the editing process is a diffecult one and at some point you'll need
the feedback.
I do agree that Hollywood producers have treated the screenings wrongly quite
often.
--
Martin Koolhoven
Replace 'geenspem' for 'cable' to e-mail Martin
Clay
"No discriminating fan would respect my music if I spoon fed them
exactly what they want to hear every time I played."
On Tue, 12 Jan 1999 03:28:20 -0500, "Jimmi" <jim...@TAKETHISOUTop.net>
wrote:
>I think test screening are so hideous. It is just a way to make sure a
>movie fits demographics. That's why so many films have become predictable,
>boring and unwatchable.
>
>Just make a film and throw it out there. I want my film to be an artists
>vision, not based on what a bunch of people thought I should see.
__________________________________
Nobody ever did tell me the truth.
I figured it out on my own.
-Pariah "Make Believe"
Clay
(Michael Brooke) wrote:
>Film is far too expensive a medium to "just make and throw out there" -
>we have a responsibility to our investors to make sure that the film
>stands a chance of making back at least some of its money in a fiercely
>competitive market.
I know what you mean, Michael. But there comes a point when marketing
and democratic studies go to far and kill the soul of the industry
(such that it has). I think we are getting precariously close to that
point resulting in bland, horrible movies. Naturaly I don't mean that
as a blanket statement. Maybe I'm just afriad of nothing but Godzillas
taking over movies....
D. Mcdevitt
On Thu, 14 Jan 1999, Andrew White wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:17:42 +0000, in rec.arts.movies.current-films
> you wrote:
>
> >As someone who's currently co-producing a feature, I profoundly
> >disagree.
>
> You are a producer, not a director, of course you like test
> screenings.
I know that David Lynch test screened "Wild at Heart" twice before cutting
the Harry Dean Stanton torture scene down. He simply wanted to know if
the vision he fostered had the same effect on people he wanted it to have.
It didn't, so he edited it... not so much to pander to the audence but to
clarify and smooth out his intentions. Apparently the scene was twice as
long and much more gruesome. He said more than 50 percent of the theatre
walked out during the scene on BOTH nights. He didn't want people to
leave disgusted; he just wanted to give them a bizzare visual, emotional
experience. When he cut it and showed it again, quite a few people walked
out still, but he confessed that that was just fine with him, there's
always a few weak ones.
Darby
Steve Erickson
(Alex Fung) wrote:
> Steve Erickson (ste...@NOSPAMearthlink.net) writes:
> >
> > I don't know if the cut scenes from HEAVENLY CREATURES are available on the
> > laserdisc, but an original cut that one can only see on a bootleg video or
> > Japanese laserdisc isn't my idea of "available."
>
> They're not on my laserdisc of the picture, for what that's worth.
>
> > On a somewhat related note, I'm also irritated that the MPAA and October
> > Films are reportedly sparing tender American eyes the sight of hardcore sex
> > in Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS, just as they saved us from Stellan
> > Skarsgard's erection in BREAKING THE WAVES. Thank God October didn't
> > release THE LIFE OF JESUS!
>
> Any word if Strand is going to cut out the hardcore sex scenes in Gaspar
> Noe's I STAND ALONE, too? There's no way this film could possibly pull
> anything but an NC-17 from the MPAA, so I suspect Strand'll put it out
> unrated.
I expect so. It opens in New York March 17th for a 2-week run at Film
Forum, so it's not as thought it's likely to see the light of many malls.
Alex Fung
Steve Erickson (ste...@NOSPAMearthlink.net) writes:
>
> I don't know if the cut scenes from HEAVENLY CREATURES are available on the
> laserdisc, but an original cut that one can only see on a bootleg video or
> Japanese laserdisc isn't my idea of "available."
They're not on my laserdisc of the picture, for what that's worth.
> On a somewhat related note, I'm also irritated that the MPAA and October
> Films are reportedly sparing tender American eyes the sight of hardcore sex
> in Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS, just as they saved us from Stellan
> Skarsgard's erection in BREAKING THE WAVES. Thank God October didn't
> release THE LIFE OF JESUS!
Any word if Strand is going to cut out the hardcore sex scenes in Gaspar
Noe's I STAND ALONE, too? There's no way this film could possibly pull
anything but an NC-17 from the MPAA, so I suspect Strand'll put it out
unrated.
--
Alex Fung (aw...@freenet.carleton.ca) | http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/
"Somebody asked me what I learned from Michael Bay. And I said,
'nothing.'"
- Billy Bob Thornton
Jim McLennan
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk "Michael Brooke" writes:
> Jim McLennan <jmcl...@SPAMBLOCKtrshcity.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > The whole concept of
> > "target audiences" smacks dangerously of pandering to demographics...
>
> You can't just say "we're aiming this film at the entire 6 billion
> population of the world", because that simply isn't feasible - so some
> kind of demographic selection is going to happen at some point or other.
> If you know who you're aiming your film at, and you know how to reach
> them, you stand a much better chance of initial success - which in turn
> may well develop into something bigger if the all-important
> word-of-mouth factor comes into play.
Target screenings are rarely anything to do with marketing -- they're
about the product itself. And there's a HUGE difference between aiming
your marketing at an audience, and aiming the *film* at an audience --
the latter borders on the Troma notion of "title first, movie later".
Make your film, work out who it will appeal to, then sure, advertise in
the right medium to reach that audience.
But thinking "I want such-and-such an audience, what must I do to reach
them?" smacks of artistic prostitution. You shouldn't let a desire to
reach a specific audience interfere with the artistic processes -- this
is especially true with smaller budget films, which are the lifeblood of
originality and invention. If $200m is being invested in a movie, you
can expect lowest common denominator product, because the film will
basically be made by accountants, for accountants.
Is it just me, or is it kinda sad to hear of small budget productions
adopting mass-market tactics?
Michael Brooke
>
> Target screenings are rarely anything to do with marketing -- they're
> about the product itself. And there's a HUGE difference between aiming
> your marketing at an audience, and aiming the *film* at an audience --
> the latter borders on the Troma notion of "title first, movie later".
> Make your film, work out who it will appeal to, then sure, advertise in
> the right medium to reach that audience.
But this is the problem that all too many low-budget film-makers run
into - they invest so much time, effort and energy into making their
films that they only discover that they only have the vaguest idea who
it will appeal to when it's too late, ending up with an expensive white
elephant that satisfies no-one.
We're certainly not working along Troma guidelines - the script has had
only very tiny revisions since I first read an earlier draft nine months
ago - but because we already know even at this early stage precisely
which demographic group we're aiming the film at, we can start thinking
about the marketing campaign *now*, rather than a year down the line.
And yes, this affects both the content of the marketing campaign *and*
of the film, but unlike you I don't think this is a problem.
> But thinking "I want such-and-such an audience, what must I do to reach
> them?" smacks of artistic prostitution.
Well, in that case Shakespeare, Mozart, Verdi, Bach, Dickens, John Ford,
Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and just about any Hong
Kong director you care to name (not to mention countless others) are
clearly artistic prostitutes - since they're all hard-nosed commercial
artists who completely understood their market and how best to reach it
by pushing the relevant buttons.
> You shouldn't let a desire to
> reach a specific audience interfere with the artistic processes -- this
> is especially true with smaller budget films, which are the lifeblood of
> originality and invention.
But it really depends on what you mean by "interfere with the artistic
processes". Most of Verdi's early operas contain patriotic choruses
that have little to do with the narrative but a great deal to do with
stirring up the audience's emotions. Did these choruses "interfere with
the artistic processes"? Well, you could argue that they did, as many
of them are only tenuously related to the narrative and in some cases
Verdi wrote them separately and spliced them in - but given that they're
often the most memorable bits of the operas in question, that's hardly a
major artistic drawback.
With artists like these (as distinct from the more rarefied
starving-in-a-garret kind), questions of originality and invention
tended to revolve around how creatively they could deliver what their
audience was expecting from them, without at the same time demolishing
those expectations to the point of alienating that audience.
Hitchcock does this all the time, as indeed does Kubrick - for example,
Scatman Crothers' death in 'The Shining' happened not for any major
artistic reason but because Kubrick wanted to disorientate people who'd
read the book (where the character survives and rescues everybody). In
other words, he was tailoring his film to meet the expectations of the
market.
> If $200m is being invested in a movie, you
> can expect lowest common denominator product, because the film will
> basically be made by accountants, for accountants.
Absolutely true, and I can certainly see your argument in general terms
- if you've got nothing (or very little) to say, no amount of
demographic targeting is going to help what basically is a poor film.
In our case, though, I genuinely believe we have a very strong script
(which has attracted a cast and crew out of all proportion to our budget
- including two actors who would honestly have been first choices even
if we'd had an unlimited budget and total freedom), which deals with
complex, serious issues in a genuinely accessible and entertaining way.
It also has the immense advantage of having a very obvious,
clearly-defined audience that I know from long experience is out there -
so at least we're not going to be floundering and uncertain whenever
anyone asks us who's going to want to see the film (a malaise that
affects rather too many British films).
Any changes made for marketing reasons purely affect the surface, and
will absolutely *not* affect the substance. Personally, I don't have
any problem with tweaking the dialogue in order to make it more
accessible to American ears, provided we don't do anything silly like
setting it in the kind of mid-Atlantic limbo inhabited by the likes of
'Hellraiser' (i.e. clearly British settings populated almost entirely by
Americans).
It's really a question of knowing how far to go down a particular road -
two of our legal/financial advisers have recommending casting an
American for marketing reasons, but we don't think that would be
particularly helpful, and have settled for a British actor who is
nonetheless known in the US. As a result, this boosts the film's US
marketability without detracting in any way from the content.
> Is it just me, or is it kinda sad to hear of small budget productions
> adopting mass-market tactics?
If more small-budget films, particularly in Britain, thought seriously
about marketing issues early enough, we might see rather fewer total
disasters of the kind itemised in today's Guardian ('The Life of Stuff'
cost £2 million and to date has made just over £4,000 - and that's far
from the only recent example).
People seem to think that *any* film can work if the marketing campaign
is good enough, but that's simply not true - if the film is unmarketable
(and I've personally dealt with a few titles that were simply impossible
to deal with on a commercial basis), absolutely nothing short of major
changes will save it. So why not start thinking about the audience in
advance of production and thus make it far less likely that it will need
these major changes?
Problems only arise if you *only* think of the audience and if you
haven't got a strong enough artistic personality in your own right - but
if I didn't think the script was worth it, I wouldn't have signed away
two years of my life on this project.
Michael Brooke
And that's an excellent example of exactly what I've been talking about!
You can't satisfy everybody, and anyone who tries is asking for trouble
- but if test screenings show that precisely the kind of people you're
aiming your film at are responding very negatively (in the sense of
reacting in a radically different way to that which you intended), then
that's a very good reason for making changes.
And you're not going to be able to work this out in the editing room -
sooner or later, you're going to have to show the film to an audience
that isn't prepared for it, because that's the only way you're going to
tell what works and what doesn't. It doesn't mean taking their word as
gospel, but if you get reactions along the lines of the ones that Lynch
got, you've clearly misjudged a particular scene's impact.
What I find baffling is that no-one seems to think that this process is
particularly unusual or reprehensible with other art forms - virtually
all live theatrical productions undergo revision (often extensive
revision) in front of paying audiences before the official "first night"
- but as soon as you start applying it to film, it somehow becomes an
act of cultural vandalism.
Gonigal
In article <1dlofoq.s1z...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) writes:
>What I find baffling is that no-one seems to think that this process is
>particularly unusual or reprehensible with other art forms - virtually
>all live theatrical productions undergo revision (often extensive
>revision) in front of paying audiences before the official "first night"
>- but as soon as you start applying it to film, it somehow becomes an
>act of cultural vandalism.
I think because with plays there's no "directors cut", no physical example of
the original play before it was revised before opening night (except for the
script, which doesn't really capture a performance). With films, there's
usually a physical document of the director's "original intentions", and after
that is altered for any reason, including test screenings, it puts the idea in
people's minds that the director's original vision has been censored, and that
the "real film" is sitting in a vault somewhere, and will maybe someday be
released on special edition DVD. Never mind that the changes might very well
have been made because the director realized the original version was not
getting the reaction from the audiance that he wanted, it still leaves the
impression in people's minds that the original vision has been compromised.
-D.G.
-------------------------------------------------
"The news is my hooker, and the truth is her pimp."
-Dan Rather
(OK, maybe it wasn't really Dan Rather who said it, but it makes a better quote
if it was.)
Ken James Burke
interesting discussion on indie test-screenings compared to the
original EWS post), but each successive post from Michael Brooke make me
want more info on this film he's working on. I'm partly curious what a fan
of the Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer would come up with as a
producer...
So how 'bout it? Who are these actors? What's the story? Who else are
attached to it? These can't be state secrets now if you're looking at
test-screenings at this point.
Ken Burke <aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
D. Mcdevitt
> What I find baffling is that no-one seems to think that this process is
> particularly unusual or reprehensible with other art forms - virtually
> all live theatrical productions undergo revision (often extensive
> revision) in front of paying audiences before the official "first night"
> - but as soon as you start applying it to film, it somehow becomes an
> act of cultural vandalism.
>
And lets not forget writers! Damn, no novelist would get anything done
without their editor! And you're right, I've been to many pre-run
theatrical performances where the author and director of a play request
that the audience stay afterwards and make comments or suggestions. This
is not to say the creative forces behind the play need to listen...
Darby
Dylan Bryan-Dolman
> > What I find baffling is that no-one seems to think that this process is
> > particularly unusual or reprehensible with other art forms - virtually
> > all live theatrical productions undergo revision (often extensive
> > revision) in front of paying audiences before the official "first
night"
> > - but as soon as you start applying it to film, it somehow becomes an
> > act of cultural vandalism.
Shall I be the one to say it? Self-selecting audiences for live theatre
are considerably smarter than movie preview audiences, who may often be
deliberately selected by the testers for their youth, lack of education,
and lowest-common-denominator tastes.
Dylan
=dbd=
Jim McLennan
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk "Michael Brooke" writes:
> But this is the problem that all too many low-budget film-makers run
> into - they invest so much time, effort and energy into making their
> films that they only discover that they only have the vaguest idea who
> it will appeal to when it's too late, ending up with an expensive white
> elephant that satisfies no-one.
Certainly true, but I would have said it wasn't the director's
responsibility to market the film. That's up to the producer surely
-- and one would assume (given any degree of competence) that he will
have an idea of the target audience simply from reading the script.
> > But thinking "I want such-and-such an audience, what must I do to reach
> > them?" smacks of artistic prostitution.
>
> Well, in that case Shakespeare, Mozart, Verdi, Bach, Dickens, John Ford,
> Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and just about any Hong
> Kong director you care to name (not to mention countless others) are
> clearly artistic prostitutes - since they're all hard-nosed commercial
> artists who completely understood their market and how best to reach it
> by pushing the relevant buttons.
Yet all of them have certainly had their failures. So much for them
"completely understanding" their market. I think, given what we all
know about the making of 'Eyes Wide Shut' that describing Stanley
Kubrick as a "hard-nosed commercial artist" is disingenuous at best.
Hard-nosed commercial artists do not stage the longest production
times on record! Nor do they refuse to give interviews!
There are scales of such things: for example, in Hong Kong cinema,
Wong Jing is clearly, obviously and quite possibly even takes pleasure
in being, a whore. But someone like Wong Kar Wai just as clearly cares
a lot less about pandering to the audience.
> Hitchcock does this all the time, as indeed does Kubrick - for example,
> Scatman Crothers' death in 'The Shining' happened not for any major
> artistic reason but because Kubrick wanted to disorientate people who'd
> read the book (where the character survives and rescues everybody). In
> other words, he was tailoring his film to meet the expectations of the
> market.
Er...surely the OPPOSITE is true? He was tailoring his film to CONFOUND
the expectations of the market -- since they would not be expecting the
death?
> If more small-budget films, particularly in Britain, thought seriously
> about marketing issues early enough, we might see rather fewer total
> disasters of the kind itemised in today's Guardian ('The Life of Stuff'
> cost £2 million and to date has made just over £4,000 - and that's far
> from the only recent example).
Marketing disaster, or truly shit film? :-)
> People seem to think that *any* film can work if the marketing campaign
> is good enough, but that's simply not true
Batman and Robin? Godzilla? Waterworld? All generally regarded to be
pretty irredeemable...but despite critical slagging, I suspect they
are all going to make money.
> So why not start thinking about the audience in
> advance of production and thus make it far less likely that it will need
> these major changes?
Because this leads to an inevitable dilution of the artistic vision?
It's no coincidence that none of my favourite films are what you would
call cinematic blockbusters. And I think that's probably true for most
people here.
Wookie
Wookie
erc...@concentric.net
your mother wrote:
> Wasn't Kubrick supposed to do a movie about artificial intelligence?
>
I have not heard of anything about such a movie!!!at least he finally
released something!! Now lets hope it still has his touch!!!!!
Gordon Rennie
>
> Wasn't Kubrick supposed to do a movie about artificial intelligence?
>
Peace Electric
> And that's an excellent example of exactly what I've been talking
> about! You can't satisfy everybody, and anyone who tries is asking
> for trouble - but if test screenings show that precisely the kind of
> people you're aiming your film at are responding very negatively (in
> the sense of reacting in a radically different way to that which you
> intended), then that's a very good reason for making changes.
I'd also suggest that anyone who believes test screenings can't be an
extremely useful tool, go out and rent the 'Out of Sight' DVD Special
Edition as soon as possible. There you'll be able to see Soderbergh's
original trunk scene, which was nothing more than one tediously long
extended shot. When he tested the film he realized that it was a huge
mistake on his part (for a variety of reasons), and so went out and
reshot the entire thing. The superior version we have now, with the
dreamy dissolves, the close-ups of Jack's hand on Karen's thigh, and
the powerful sense of intimacy, are there for one reason and one reason
only: test screenings.
I think people's biggest problem with test screenings is that they're
so often misused. It's a great way for the filmmakers to gauge their
work, but it can be damaging when the test audience is given unwavering
final cut, as so often happens in Hollywood. And though it's always bad
when that occurs (I think we can all agree), it would be a mistake to
completely eliminate *all* test screenings just because a couple of
hacks don't know how to use them properly.
--
peacel
pea...@sk.sympatico.ca
“The world and its characters materialize out of the abyss of the
imagination, and in their impossibility, they seem more real than
the characters in many realistic movies.”
-Roger Ebert on ‘Babe: Pig in the City’
Michael Brooke
> In article <1dlo9b8.1c...@everyman.demon.co.uk>
> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk "Michael Brooke" writes:
>
> > But this is the problem that all too many low-budget film-makers run
> > into - they invest so much time, effort and energy into making their
> > films that they only discover that they only have the vaguest idea who
> > it will appeal to when it's too late, ending up with an expensive white
> > elephant that satisfies no-one.
>
> Certainly true, but I would have said it wasn't the director's
> responsibility to market the film. That's up to the producer surely
> -- and one would assume (given any degree of competence) that he will
> have an idea of the target audience simply from reading the script.
Having an idea of the target audience is one thing, but making sure that
the finished film is going to appeal to that same target audience is
quite another. A line on the page is very different in terms of impact
to a line spoken on screen in Dolby Stereo!
It's just been pointed out, for example, that our script contains a line
that certain sections of our target audience might find extremely
offensive. Are we going to change it as a result? As it happens, we're
not - because we're trying to be provocative in that scene, and if a few
people are offended, that's fine by us. But if we genuinely didn't want
the audience to be offended - see the 'Wild at Heart' example that
someone else posted - we might have considered changing it.
> > > But thinking "I want such-and-such an audience, what must I do to reach
> > > them?" smacks of artistic prostitution.
> >
> > Well, in that case Shakespeare, Mozart, Verdi, Bach, Dickens, John Ford,
> > Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and just about any Hong
> > Kong director you care to name (not to mention countless others) are
> > clearly artistic prostitutes - since they're all hard-nosed commercial
> > artists who completely understood their market and how best to reach it
> > by pushing the relevant buttons.
>
> Yet all of them have certainly had their failures. So much for them
> "completely understanding" their market.
Well, no-one can predict with any absolute degree of certainty whether
or not something is going to work (either artistically or commercially)
- but the names I mentioned certainly have a better track record than
most on both scores.
> I think, given what we all
> know about the making of 'Eyes Wide Shut' that describing Stanley
> Kubrick as a "hard-nosed commercial artist" is disingenuous at best.
> Hard-nosed commercial artists do not stage the longest production
> times on record!
Kubrick is a multi-millionaire many times over (a status he first gained
back in the early 1960s with 'Lolita'). He doesn't exactly *need* the
work - but when he does get round to making films, he invariably ends up
pushing very similar marketing buttons to those pushed by mainstream
Hollywood producers.
He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
'2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s), he usually works
within recognised commercially attractive genres and he also - almost
uniquely - *personally* supervises details that are normally left to the
most junior members of studio marketing departments, such as ringing up
cinemas to find out what colour their walls are (to give a famous
example). True, some of this is due to artistic perfectionism - but it
also shows an unusual awareness and knowledge of marketing techniques
that in some cases end up informing the content of his films.
> Nor do they refuse to give interviews!
Kubrick doesn't refuse to give interviews - I certainly recall
interviews at the time that 'The Shining' and 'Full Metal Jacket' came
out, and I'm willing to bet you a great deal of money that there will be
at least a handful of interviews to accompany 'Eyes Wide Shut'.
True, he's careful about who he gives interviews to - but that's just
basic PR. Someone in his position doesn't exactly need to talk to every
publication under the sun, and he's well aware of this.
>
> There are scales of such things: for example, in Hong Kong cinema,
> Wong Jing is clearly, obviously and quite possibly even takes pleasure
> in being, a whore. But someone like Wong Kar Wai just as clearly cares
> a lot less about pandering to the audience.
True, but even Wong Kar-Wai makes a point of working with major stars!
In any case, he's very much the exception - in fact, I was tempted to
mention him in my original post, but it had got quite long enough!
> > Hitchcock does this all the time, as indeed does Kubrick - for example,
> > Scatman Crothers' death in 'The Shining' happened not for any major
> > artistic reason but because Kubrick wanted to disorientate people who'd
> > read the book (where the character survives and rescues everybody). In
> > other words, he was tailoring his film to meet the expectations of the
> > market.
>
> Er...surely the OPPOSITE is true? He was tailoring his film to CONFOUND
> the expectations of the market -- since they would not be expecting the
> death?
OK, I'll accept that quibble - but my point is the same: the fundamental
purpose of that scene (according to Kubrick in one of these interviews
he apparently never gives) was to surprise people who'd read the book.
A pure artist who sought to impose his own vision would never have
thought like that.
> > If more small-budget films, particularly in Britain, thought seriously
> > about marketing issues early enough, we might see rather fewer total
> > disasters of the kind itemised in today's Guardian ('The Life of Stuff'
> > cost £2 million and to date has made just over £4,000 - and that's far
> > from the only recent example).
>
> Marketing disaster, or truly shit film? :-)
But this is my point: had the producers bothered to think about
marketing early enough, the film might have turned out better! As any
first-year marketing student knows, marketing is not necessarily about
selling an existing product - it's just as much about making sure that
there is a market for the product before the product is developed.
In our case, we've established that there is a definite market for what
we're making - so we can relax (to some extent) and make the best
possible film that we can, knowing that there will be an audience at the
other end - thus avoiding (or at least diminishing the likelihood of)
last-minute panic and major changes. So the film ends up far closer to
what we intended, *and* we have a built-in audience, thus increasing the
likelihood of commercial success and the chances of going on to make
more films.
> > People seem to think that *any* film can work if the marketing campaign
> > is good enough, but that's simply not true
>
> Batman and Robin? Godzilla? Waterworld? All generally regarded to be
> pretty irredeemable...but despite critical slagging, I suspect they
> are all going to make money.
...albeit nowhere near as much as their producers were hoping, which
rather proves my point. In any case, spending an absolute fortune on
marketing is no substitute for not getting the film right in the first
place.
> > So why not start thinking about the audience in
> > advance of production and thus make it far less likely that it will need
> > these major changes?
>
> Because this leads to an inevitable dilution of the artistic vision?
I disagree that it's "inevitable" - because you could apply exactly the
same argument to 'Macbeth'. This was aimed at a specific target
audience - the court of James I - and written to specific requirements
(a shorter-than-average play because the king's attention span was
apparently less than it could have been). I suspect the target audience
also inspired the subject matter as well. So is 'Macbeth' diluted in
any way? I don't think so.
In any case, it's a long-established fact that artists working under
some kind of restriction often end up producing more satisfying work
than artists who have total freedom.
> It's no coincidence that none of my favourite films are what you would
> call cinematic blockbusters. And I think that's probably true for most
> people here.
But I'm not talking about cinematic blockbusters - I'm talking about
films in general. You seem to think that when I talk about marketing
and target audiences I'm talking about trying to reach the largest
possible audience, which I'm not - I'm merely making sure that the film
reaches the *right* audience, which is another thing that distributors
have been known to cock up if left to their own devices.
Michael Brooke
> Umm... I know this is off-topic (but praise be, so is this whole
> interesting discussion on indie test-screenings compared to the
> original EWS post), but each successive post from Michael Brooke make me
> want more info on this film he's working on. I'm partly curious what a fan
> of the Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer would come up with as a
> producer...
>
> So how 'bout it? Who are these actors? What's the story? Who else are
> attached to it? These can't be state secrets now if you're looking at
> test-screenings at this point.
Sorry - at this stage I can't give away too many details in a public
forum like this, because we're still at delicate contractual negotiation
stages (which is why all of the points I've made in this thread have
been deliberately generalised). Shooting hasn't yet started - which is
why the points I've been making are more philosophical than practical
(though I do firmly believe that one of the curses of the British film
industry is that people don't think enough about marketing at a suitably
early stage).
I will reveal, though, that it's a dark comedy set in a very strange
north London Jewish old age home, that Luis Buñuel was one of the major
inspirations and that our production designer is a major Buñuel and
Svankmajer fan, but I'm going to have to wait until contracts are signed
with certain people before revealing any more.
Sorry to be so cryptic, but under the terms of *my* contract there are
certain details that I've got to keep under wraps in a public forum like
this - but rest assured that I'll keep you posted! In any case, there's
virtually no chance that the film will open anywhere much before this
time next year, so don't get too excited!
Jim McLennan
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk "Michael Brooke" writes:
> Well, no-one can predict with any absolute degree of certainty whether
> or not something is going to work (either artistically or commercially)
> - but the names I mentioned certainly have a better track record than
> most on both scores.
Are you claiming their success is due to changes made to their films
after test screenings? Because that's really the question. I doubt
there's any evidence for that: I've little doubt that every major
turkey of the past few years was also test-screened to death. Didn't
help them.
> He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
> '2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s),
So do most Hollywood directors, given the chance. It doesn't make
Kubrick particularly marketing-savvy -- just famous.
> he usually works
> within recognised commercially attractive genres and he also - almost
> uniquely - *personally* supervises details that are normally left to the
> most junior members of studio marketing departments, such as ringing up
> cinemas to find out what colour their walls are (to give a famous
> example). True, some of this is due to artistic perfectionism - but it
> also shows an unusual awareness and knowledge of marketing techniques
> that in some cases end up informing the content of his films.
Or, perhaps more simply, that he's a control freak? I'm also somewhat
unsure how 'Lolita', 'Clockwork Orange' and 'Dr.Strangelove' are within
"commercially attractive genres"... Again, big directors with big
stars do tend to make mainstream films -- simply because the costs
involved preclude anything else. It doesn't mean Kubrick is a marketing
genius.
> True, he's careful about who he gives interviews to - but that's just
> basic PR. Someone in his position doesn't exactly need to talk to every
> publication under the sun, and he's well aware of this.
When was the last interview with him you read? Seen many on-set reports
from 'Eyes Wide Shut'? Pardon me if this doesn't sound particularly media
savvy! Or maybe the rest of the industry is totally wrong in the way
they promote films? Kubrick's methods are certainly wildly different,
to say the least.
> OK, I'll accept that quibble - but my point is the same: the fundamental
> purpose of that scene (according to Kubrick in one of these interviews
> he apparently never gives)
Oooh, petty! I didn't say "never", just that he refuses them generally.
> was to surprise people who'd read the book.
> A pure artist who sought to impose his own vision would never have
> thought like that.
Oh, c'mon! Changing the book in such a major way is CERTAINLY imposing
his own vision!
> > > People seem to think that *any* film can work if the marketing campaign
> > > is good enough, but that's simply not true
> >
> > Batman and Robin? Godzilla? Waterworld? All generally regarded to be
> > pretty irredeemable...but despite critical slagging, I suspect they
> > are all going to make money.
>
> ...albeit nowhere near as much as their producers were hoping, which
> rather proves my point.
They worked in financial terms because of the marketing campaign, which
rather proves MY point. From a financial standpoint, the marketing
investment rescued what would otherwise have been unmitigated disaster.
You market the hell out of anything, people will buy it. A good film
will succeed without significant marketing: it's called "word of mouth",
and is universally regarded as the best publicity, because you can't buy
it.
> In any case, spending an absolute fortune on
> marketing is no substitute for not getting the film right in the first
> place.
Agreed -- but sadly, all too often it is. Marketing is regarded as being
more important, and sometimes has as much of the budget.
> > Because this leads to an inevitable dilution of the artistic vision?
>
> I disagree that it's "inevitable" - because you could apply exactly the
> same argument to 'Macbeth'. This was aimed at a specific target
> audience - the court of James I - and written to specific requirements
> (a shorter-than-average play because the king's attention span was
> apparently less than it could have been). I suspect the target audience
> also inspired the subject matter as well. So is 'Macbeth' diluted in
> any way? I don't think so.
You've got no idea, because we don't know what Shakespeare (or whoever!)
would have written without outside influence. It might have been ten
times better, I don't know -- and neither do you.
> You seem to think that when I talk about marketing
> and target audiences I'm talking about trying to reach the largest
> possible audience, which I'm not - I'm merely making sure that the film
> reaches the *right* audience, which is another thing that distributors
> have been known to cock up if left to their own devices.
Making sure the film reaches the right audience, that's fine -- I have
no problem with that at all. But making changes to the film based on the
opinions of potentially unrepresentative viewers seems to me to be a
process fraught with difficulty, shall we say.
Andrew Johnston
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk says...
> Kubrick is a multi-millionaire many times over (a status he first gained
> back in the early 1960s with 'Lolita'). He doesn't exactly *need* the
> work - but when he does get round to making films, he invariably ends up
> pushing very similar marketing buttons to those pushed by mainstream
> Hollywood producers.
>
> He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
> '2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s),
I recon A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is an exception as well--or was Malcolm
McDowell a major star in the UK on the basis of IF... and O LUCKY MAN by
then?
Alberto
> On a somewhat related note, I'm also irritated that the MPAA and October
> Films are reportedly sparing tender American eyes the sight of hardcore sex
> in Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS
I am sure this is not of any consolation to you, but I just
saw and advance screening of the italian version and it was
10 minutes shorter than the 117' expected, and no explicit
sex -only some nudity.
Andrew Johnston
alberto...@iol.it says...
sex but cover it with a black box with the word "censored" on it. I dunno
if he's being serious, or just being Von Trier.
Gary Couzens
Andrew Johnston wrote in message ...
>> back in the early 1960s with 'Lolita'). He doesn't exactly *need* the
>> work - but when he does get round to making films, he invariably ends up
>> pushing very similar marketing buttons to those pushed by mainstream
>> Hollywood producers.
>>
>> He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
>> '2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s),
>
>McDowell a major star in the UK on the basis of IF... and O LUCKY MAN by
>then?
And, just to nitpick, I'd suggest that Matthew Modine was at least a "name"
(if not, then or now, a major star) by the time he made "Full Metal Jacket".
He'd played leads before then, notably in "Birdy".
Gary Couzens
Gary Couzens
Alberto wrote in message <1dlp7es.1yl...@net130-141.mclink.it>...
>Steve Erickson <ste...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> On a somewhat related note, I'm also irritated that the MPAA and October
>> Films are reportedly sparing tender American eyes the sight of hardcore
sex
>> in Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS
>
>I am sure this is not of any consolation to you, but I just
>saw and advance screening of the italian version and it was
>10 minutes shorter than the 117' expected, and no explicit
>sex -only some nudity.
I timed it at 114 minutes at the London Film Festival. There's not much
hardcore content - two penetration shots and two erections - but a *lot* of
nudity, including quite a few full-frontals of both sexes.
As for the British release, the BBFC has yet to give it a certificate.
(Certainly a 18 with or without the hardcore content, and I've got a feeling
they'll leave it uncut.)
Gary Couzens
Michael Brooke
> I timed it at 114 minutes at the London Film Festival. There's not much
> hardcore content - two penetration shots and two erections - but a *lot* of
> nudity, including quite a few full-frontals of both sexes.
>
> As for the British release, the BBFC has yet to give it a certificate.
> (Certainly a 18 with or without the hardcore content, and I've got a feeling
> they'll leave it uncut.)
They almost certainly will - the BBFC very very rarely cuts films that
are perceived as being Serious Art Movies, which I imagine 'The Idiots'
definitely will be. The fact that its director has a heavyweight
reputation - coupled of course with the fact that there's no chance
whatsoever that it'll get any kind of non-arthouse release - makes it
even less likely that they'll cut it.
I haven't seen it yet, but from what I hear there's nothing in it that
the BBFC haven't passed before - certificated hardcore is still
extremely rare on British screens, but not entirely unknown.
Michael Brooke
> >
> Von Trier has said that for the US version, he wants to keep the hardcore
> sex but cover it with a black box with the word "censored" on it. I dunno
> if he's being serious, or just being Von Trier.
He said he'd do that for the Norwegian release - but apparently they
ended up showing it uncut.
For the record, the film did surprisingly badly in its home market (by
which I mean the whole of Scandinavia) - fellow Dogma advocate Thomas
Vinterberg's 'Festen' was a much bigger hit.
Michael Brooke
> In article <1dlq6jb.pvz...@everyman.demon.co.uk>
> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk "Michael Brooke" writes:
>
> > Well, no-one can predict with any absolute degree of certainty whether
> > or not something is going to work (either artistically or commercially)
> > - but the names I mentioned certainly have a better track record than
> > most on both scores.
>
> Are you claiming their success is due to changes made to their films
> after test screenings?
No, absolutely not - if the work was crap to begin with, no amount of
audience testing is going to help make a silk purse out of it. And it's
also important to stress that I'm not arguing that test screenings are
the *sole* arbiter of a film's likely success or otherwise - merely an
important and often misused element of a film marketer's armoury.
The original poster, for those of us who can remember back that far, was
claiming that test screenings were fundamentally wrong and that films
should just be "thrown out there" - and *that's* what I'm arguing
against. As so often, people are trying to see complex issues in
strictly black-and-white terms: Art Good, Marketing Bad.
> Because that's really the question. I doubt
> there's any evidence for that: I've little doubt that every major
> turkey of the past few years was also test-screened to death. Didn't
> help them.
It wouldn't - no amount of test screenings and subsequent tinkerings
will help a film that's fundamentally lousy because it wasn't developed
properly at the script stage.
>
> > He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
> > '2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s),
>
> So do most Hollywood directors, given the chance. It doesn't make
> Kubrick particularly marketing-savvy -- just famous.
As it is well-documented fact that Kubrick is *extremely*
marketing-savvy, attempting to argue the opposite just won't wash.
> Or, perhaps more simply, that he's a control freak?
Also true - but there are plenty of other directors who are control
freaks in terms of production who nonetheless never took anything like
as obsessive an interest in the film's subsequent release.
> I'm also somewhat
> unsure how 'Lolita', 'Clockwork Orange' and 'Dr.Strangelove' are within
> "commercially attractive genres"... ]
What on earth was commercially unattractive about 'Lolita'? It was an
adaptation of a huge best-seller that was also highly controversial -
which in commercial terms is about as close to a dead cert as you can
get, once the controversial elements have been suitably softened so as
not to alienate the mass audience (or the censors), as happened here.
'Lolita' is the closest that Kubrick ever came to a straightforward
romantic comedy-drama - and it and 'The Shining' were probably the
strongest projects that Kubrick ever made in terms of mass audience
recognition in advance of release.
'Dr.Strangelove' and 'A Clockwork Orange' were slightly more adventurous
(both were based on relatively obscure novels), but still based on sure
commercial ground. The former in particular dealt with just about every
Cold War concern that had reached fever pitch during the early 1960s,
and the latter was released at a time when dystopian sci-fi was a rather
more attractive commercial prospect than it might have been ten years
earlier ('2001' probably helped here!).
I'd argue that '2001' was Kubrick's only serious commercial gamble - and
it paid off.
> Again, big directors with big
> stars do tend to make mainstream films -- simply because the costs
> involved preclude anything else. It doesn't mean Kubrick is a marketing
> genius.
I appreciate the attempts to prove me wrong (a little mental stimulation
is always good for the brain), but you're really trying to argue that
black is white. Alexander Walker, Michel Ciment and (most relevantly)
Warner Bros marketing head Julian Senior have all provided copious
first-hand anecdotal evidence regarding Kubrick's interest in the
marketing process.
> > True, he's careful about who he gives interviews to - but that's just
> > basic PR. Someone in his position doesn't exactly need to talk to every
> > publication under the sun, and he's well aware of this.
>
> When was the last interview with him you read?
The Observer, late 1987, to accompany the release of 'Full Metal Jacket'
> Seen many on-set reports
> from 'Eyes Wide Shut'? Pardon me if this doesn't sound particularly media
> savvy!
Has the film been totally ignored by the media? Hardly. Have stories
about the obsessive secrecy surrounding the production fuelled
speculation about the film? No question. Do such stories help increase
anticipation to a massive degree? A very definite yes.
And is Kubrick aware of this? I'd have a very hard time believing he
isn't!
Your argument would only stand up if the film then opened with no
advertising (or tie-in interviews) whatsoever - but I somehow doubt this
is going to happen!
> Or maybe the rest of the industry is totally wrong in the way
> they promote films? Kubrick's methods are certainly wildly different,
> to say the least.
Hardly - in fact, Kubrick's methods here are almost identical to those
used by George Lucas to promote the new 'Star Wars'!
Again, we have obsessive on-set secrecy, with only a tiny amount of
"official" material released to the general public. Result: a massive
build-up of anticipation and a virtual guarantee that the film will open
very strongly indeed even if it turns out to be a total dog. And that
applies to 'Eyes Wide Shut' as well as 'Star Wars' - or indeed to most
films by Steven Spielberg, another film-maker who's fond of closed sets
and absolute secrecy, but who nonetheless has a sure marketing touch.
> > OK, I'll accept that quibble - but my point is the same: the fundamental
> > purpose of that scene (according to Kubrick in one of these interviews
> > he apparently never gives)
>
> Oooh, petty! I didn't say "never", just that he refuses them generally.
Yes, but that's irrelevant to the point I'm making - which is that he
certainly *does* give interviews when he has a film to promote. And I
doubt this is a coincidence. Whether or not he deigns to give
interviews when he hasn't got a film to promote is neither here nor
there.
> > was to surprise people who'd read the book.
> > A pure artist who sought to impose his own vision would never have
> > thought like that.
>
> Oh, c'mon! Changing the book in such a major way is CERTAINLY imposing
> his own vision!
Indeed it is - but you're missing my point, which is that the change was
made because (according to Kubrick, anyway), he was trying to manipulate
that section of the audience that would have been familiar with the
original novel. In other words, the film (or at least that scene) was
being made with a specific target audience in mind - and it was also
altered after completion as a result of initial audience reaction (the
official UK version lists two actors in the opening credits who are no
longer featured in the film!). Kubrick himself made the cuts - why?
> > > > People seem to think that *any* film can work if the marketing campaign
> > > > is good enough, but that's simply not true
> > >
> > > Batman and Robin? Godzilla? Waterworld? All generally regarded to be
> > > pretty irredeemable...but despite critical slagging, I suspect they
> > > are all going to make money.
> >
> > ...albeit nowhere near as much as their producers were hoping, which
> > rather proves my point.
>
> They worked in financial terms because of the marketing campaign, which
> rather proves MY point. From a financial standpoint, the marketing
> investment rescued what would otherwise have been unmitigated disaster.
...by massively increasing total overall investment, thus reducing
profit margins (if any) still further. Which goes to prove what I said
at the beginning. I'd be genuinely interested to know if those films
really did make significant amounts of money - or whether the fact that
'Batman and Robin' is one of the most heavily hyped DVDs on the UK
market is merely because Warner Bros are still trying to claw back as
much money from a dud product as they can (every time I go into Tower
Records, they're showing 'Batman and Robin' as an enticement to people
to buy DVDs!).
> You market the hell out of anything, people will buy it.
*Some* people will buy it, but if the product's no good, it won't be
anything like as successful as its manufacturers may have hoped. I've
just bought a recordable MiniDisc Walkman at a price that's a fraction
of what it was when Sony were marketing the hell out of them a few years
ago. Actually, in this case the product is pretty good (as indeed was
Betamax), but in both cases Sony never really got their target market
sussed.
> A good film
> will succeed without significant marketing: it's called "word of mouth",
> and is universally regarded as the best publicity, because you can't buy
> it.
Which brings this argument full circle. I completely agree with you
that word of mouth is critically important - especially at the
lower-budget end of the spectrum. There's no point relying on word of
mouth if no-one goes to see the damn thing when it opens (and I'm
speaking from very long experience here!)
But how do you generate that word of mouth in an environment where it's
virtually impossible to run a film longer than a fortnight unless it's
doing well (or if it's playing in a cinema owned by the distributor,
which doesn't happen that often)? You show the film in advance of its
release, and monitor how audiences react to it! One of the most
important questions in any test audience questionnaire is "Would you
recommend this film to your friends?" - which is one of the few ways of
gauging likely word of mouth in advance.
Even great reviews don't help - because I've seen plenty of films get
across-the-board raves and still die at the box office, or at least do
much worse than such rave reviews would suggest.
> > In any case, spending an absolute fortune on
> > marketing is no substitute for not getting the film right in the first
> > place.
>
> Agreed -- but sadly, all too often it is. Marketing is regarded as being
> more important, and sometimes has as much of the budget.
...or indeed more of it! I'm willing to bet that the marketing budgets
for 'Trainspotting', 'The Full Monty' and 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'
were many times greater than the production cost.
But is this necessarily a bad thing, given that those films probably
wouldn't have been the hits they were if it hadn't been for the amount
spent on marketing them? None of them are bad films, and all would
probably have managed good word of mouth - but none of them were obvious
hits: indeed, the producers of 'Trainspotting' and 'The Full Monty' were
deliberately playing down the chances of them doing particularly well!
> > > Because this leads to an inevitable dilution of the artistic vision?
> >
> > I disagree that it's "inevitable" - because you could apply exactly the
> > same argument to 'Macbeth'. This was aimed at a specific target
> > audience - the court of James I - and written to specific requirements
> > (a shorter-than-average play because the king's attention span was
> > apparently less than it could have been). I suspect the target audience
> > also inspired the subject matter as well. So is 'Macbeth' diluted in
> > any way? I don't think so.
>
> You've got no idea, because we don't know what Shakespeare (or whoever!)
> would have written without outside influence. It might have been ten
> times better, I don't know -- and neither do you.
The trouble with arguments like these is that people keep bringing in
unanswerable abstract points. *Neither* of us can answer this one - not
least because even if a "pure" draft of 'Macbeth' was available we're
still dealing with subjective opinion. But I can think of very few
"director's cuts" that are indisputable improvements on the original
release cut - in fact, all too often, they reveal just why the cuts were
made!
> > You seem to think that when I talk about marketing
> > and target audiences I'm talking about trying to reach the largest
> > possible audience, which I'm not - I'm merely making sure that the film
> > reaches the *right* audience, which is another thing that distributors
> > have been known to cock up if left to their own devices.
>
> Making sure the film reaches the right audience, that's fine -- I have
> no problem with that at all. But making changes to the film based on the
> opinions of potentially unrepresentative viewers seems to me to be a
> process fraught with difficulty, shall we say.
I agree - but that's not what I've been arguing. *Any* process is open
to misuse, but my basic point is that test screenings can often be
extremely valuable and in some cases essential - particularly in cases
(such as comedies) where the audience response is a vital part of the
overall experience. What you actually do as a result of test screenings
is up to you - this is where you really have to have the courage of your
convictions - but not having them at all is more than a little
misguided.
Martin Koolhoven
Andrew Johnston wrote:
> >
> Von Trier has said that for the US version, he wants to keep the hardcore
> sex but cover it with a black box with the word "censored" on it. I dunno
> if he's being serious, or just being Von Trier.
Probabaly both. I hope he does it.
--
Martin Koolhoven
Replace 'geenspem' for 'cable' to e-mail Martin
Martin Koolhoven
Michael Brooke wrote:
>
> > Are you claiming their success is due to changes made to their films
> > after test screenings?
>
> No, absolutely not - if the work was crap to begin with, no amount of
> audience testing is going to help make a silk purse out of it. And it's
> also important to stress that I'm not arguing that test screenings are
> the *sole* arbiter of a film's likely success or otherwise - merely an
> important and often misused element of a film marketer's armoury.
I completely agree.
> The original poster, for those of us who can remember back that far, was
> claiming that test screenings were fundamentally wrong and that films
> should just be "thrown out there" - and *that's* what I'm arguing
> against.
I don't think anybody working in film will share the point of view of the original
poster. Everybody who has ever been in an editing room knows you'll need the
feedback. First you show the film to people who's openion you find worthy and at
some point you might want to test the film on an audience. NOT to see whether you
are telling the right story, but whether you tell the story right.
> > Because that's really the question. I doubt
> > there's any evidence for that: I've little doubt that every major
> > turkey of the past few years was also test-screened to death. Didn't
> > help them.
>
> It wouldn't - no amount of test screenings and subsequent tinkerings
> will help a film that's fundamentally lousy because it wasn't developed
> properly at the script stage.
NOTHING is free ticket to success. Artisticcally or commercially. Test or no test.
>
> > I'm also somewhat
> > unsure how 'Lolita', 'Clockwork Orange' and 'Dr.Strangelove' are within
> > "commercially attractive genres"... ]
>
> 'Lolita' is the closest that Kubrick ever came to a straightforward
> romantic comedy-drama - and it and 'The Shining' were probably the
> strongest projects that Kubrick ever made in terms of mass audience
> recognition in advance of release.
EWS has even better cards.
> I'd argue that '2001' was Kubrick's only serious commercial gamble - and
> it paid off.
Barry Lyndon had a star, but that was all commecial-appealing it had.
>
> > Seen many on-set reports
> > from 'Eyes Wide Shut'? Pardon me if this doesn't sound particularly media
> > savvy!
>
> Has the film been totally ignored by the media? Hardly. Have stories
> about the obsessive secrecy surrounding the production fuelled
> speculation about the film? No question. Do such stories help increase
> anticipation to a massive degree? A very definite yes.
>
> And is Kubrick aware of this? I'd have a very hard time believing he
> isn't!
But is it the reason that he does it like that? (And would an other approach give
less media interest?)
> > Or maybe the rest of the industry is totally wrong in the way
> > they promote films? Kubrick's methods are certainly wildly different,
> > to say the least.
>
> Hardly - in fact, Kubrick's methods here are almost identical to those
> used by George Lucas to promote the new 'Star Wars'!
Well, that's a bit overstated.
>
>
>
> > Oh, c'mon! Changing the book in such a major way is CERTAINLY imposing
> > his own vision!
>
> Indeed it is - but you're missing my point, which is that the change was
> made because (according to Kubrick, anyway), he was trying to manipulate
> that section of the audience that would have been familiar with the
> original novel.
No, he felt is was a better ending to the film. For everybody. I doubt he would
make an ending esspecially for a smaal part of the audience.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Koolhoven
Gary Couzens wrote:
> Andrew Johnston wrote in message ...
> >In article <1dlq6jb.pvz...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> >mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk says...
> >> Kubrick is a multi-millionaire many times over (a status he first gained
> >> back in the early 1960s with 'Lolita'). He doesn't exactly *need* the
> >> work - but when he does get round to making films, he invariably ends up
> >> pushing very similar marketing buttons to those pushed by mainstream
> >> Hollywood producers.
> >>
> >> He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
> >> '2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s),
> >
> >I recon A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is an exception as well--or was Malcolm
> >McDowell a major star in the UK on the basis of IF... and O LUCKY MAN by
> >then?
>
> And, just to nitpick, I'd suggest that Matthew Modine was at least a "name"
> (if not, then or now, a major star) by the time he made "Full Metal Jacket".
> He'd played leads before then, notably in "Birdy".
>
> Gary Couzens
But both of them could not be called stars.
Andrew Johnston
gjco...@btinternet.com says...
>
> Andrew Johnston wrote in message ...
> >In article <1dlq6jb.pvz...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> >mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk says...
> >> back in the early 1960s with 'Lolita'). He doesn't exactly *need* the
> >> work - but when he does get round to making films, he invariably ends up
> >> pushing very similar marketing buttons to those pushed by mainstream
> >> Hollywood producers.
> >>
> >> He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
> >> '2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s),
> >
> >McDowell a major star in the UK on the basis of IF... and O LUCKY MAN by
> >then?
>
> And, just to nitpick, I'd suggest that Matthew Modine was at least a "name"
> (if not, then or now, a major star) by the time he made "Full Metal Jacket".
> He'd played leads before then, notably in "Birdy".
Hey, don't forget VISION QUEST, an actual hit of sorts (something BIRDY
definitely wasn't).
Jim McLennan
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk "Michael Brooke" writes:
[A lot of stuff, largely snipped, because I think we've probably almost
come to agreement!]
> What on earth was commercially unattractive about 'Lolita'?
Ask Adrian Lyne... :-( Sure, times have changed, but his version is
hardly explicit by today's standards, and it remains "an adaptation of
a huge best-seller that was also highly controversial". Not quite a
dead-cert, as he found out! I've little doubt Kubrick's film came in
for similar criticism.
> Hardly - in fact, Kubrick's methods here are almost identical to those
> used by George Lucas to promote the new 'Star Wars'!
>
> Again, we have obsessive on-set secrecy, with only a tiny amount of
> "official" material released to the general public. Result: a massive
> build-up of anticipation and a virtual guarantee that the film will open
> very strongly indeed even if it turns out to be a total dog.
Chapter One of Star Wars would open strongly regardless of what they
do, I think. It has an enormous built-in fan base which isn't there
for Kubrick -- not least because a large percentage of the cinema audience
are too young to remember his last film, or were too young to get in to
see it! Star Wars doesn't NEED marketing, so why bother? I admit there
is a certain appeal in secrecy, but it can backfire i.e. Godzilla, where
no-one got to see the monster.
> > They worked in financial terms because of the marketing campaign, which
> > rather proves MY point. From a financial standpoint, the marketing
> > investment rescued what would otherwise have been unmitigated disaster.
>
> ...by massively increasing total overall investment, thus reducing
> profit margins (if any) still further.
You don't reduce your profit margin if your income goes up too --
and the marketing budget is designed solely to do this.
> I'd be genuinely interested to know if those films
> really did make significant amounts of money -
According to the IMDB, Batman and Robin cost $110m (I assume excluding
advertising), took $107m in the States, and $130m outside it. That's
purely a cinema gross, excluding satellite, video and TV sales. Even
allowing for marketing, I think it's safe to say it's made its money back.
> > Agreed -- but sadly, all too often it is. Marketing is regarded as being
> > more important, and sometimes has as much of the budget.
>
> ...or indeed more of it! I'm willing to bet that the marketing budgets
> for 'Trainspotting', 'The Full Monty' and 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'
> were many times greater than the production cost.
Largely because their costs were so small. For the first-named, there
was certainly a big poster campaign, but I have no strong recollection
of a big ad campaign for the other two, at least in Britain.
> But is this necessarily a bad thing, given that those films probably
> wouldn't have been the hits they were if it hadn't been for the amount
> spent on marketing them? None of them are bad films, and all would
> probably have managed good word of mouth - but none of them were obvious
> hits: indeed, the producers of 'Trainspotting' and 'The Full Monty' were
> deliberately playing down the chances of them doing particularly well!
Again, assuming we're talking in Britain, 'Four Weddings' had already
been a huge sleeper hit in America, and 'Trainspotting' had the obvious
links to 'Shallow Grave', which had been a surprising success too. 'The
Full Monty' was perhaps the only real surprise, but it's purely
hypothetical to ascribe it to marketing. Plenty bigger, flasher, more
successful campaigns have retu rned far less profit.
If you look at the box office profile of big hits, you'll tend to find
they don't open particularly large, they just decline less per week.
Turkeys' takings will fall 50-60% between weeks one and two, while hits
may only go down 10-20%. I don't think that's down to marketing: all
it can do is make people aware of a movie and its contents, really.
Gary Couzens
Andrew Johnston wrote in message ...
>In article <77sb9v$jdm$1...@uranium.btinternet.com>,
>gjco...@btinternet.com says...
>>
>> Andrew Johnston wrote in message ...
>> >In article >> >
>> >McDowell a major star in the UK on the basis of IF... and O LUCKY MAN by
>> >then?
>>
>> And, just to nitpick, I'd suggest that Matthew Modine was at least a
"name"
>> (if not, then or now, a major star) by the time he made "Full Metal
Jacket".
>> He'd played leads before then, notably in "Birdy".
>
>Hey, don't forget VISION QUEST, an actual hit of sorts (something BIRDY
>definitely wasn't).
I don't have box office figures to hand, but it can't have been that much of
a hit, as it went straight to video in the UK, under the title "Crazy for
You".
Even so, all this illustrates my point that Modine (and McDowell) were well
enough known to be cast as leads before Kubrick did, even if neither of them
were stars of the magnitude of Peter Sellers, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal
(in his day) and Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
Having said that, Keir Dullea was cast in lead roles in "David and Lisa" and
"The Thin Red Line" before he made "2001". There's also "The Fox", but he
might have made that after he worked with Kubrick, as it was released in the
same year as "2001". So he wasn't a total unknown either.
Gary Couzens
Michael Brooke
> Michael Brooke wrote:
>
> >
> > > I'm also somewhat
> > > unsure how 'Lolita', 'Clockwork Orange' and 'Dr.Strangelove' are within
> > > "commercially attractive genres"... ]
> >
> > 'Lolita' is the closest that Kubrick ever came to a straightforward
> > romantic comedy-drama - and it and 'The Shining' were probably the
> > strongest projects that Kubrick ever made in terms of mass audience
> > recognition in advance of release.
>
> EWS has even better cards.
I disagree - because 'Lolita' and 'The Shining' were based on huge
international best-sellers, so people already had a pretty good idea of
what they were in for, regardless of the other commercial elements
(stars, genre, etc.). This isn't true at all of 'Eyes Wide Shut', which
is based on a very obscure Austrian novel that I imagine very few people
have read.
>
> > I'd argue that '2001' was Kubrick's only serious commercial gamble - and
> > it paid off.
>
> Barry Lyndon had a star, but that was all commecial-appealing it had.
Not true - costume dramas set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
have a long and honourable commercial track record right up to the
present day. In fact, the BBC and Merchant Ivory owe a huge chunk of
their income to them!
I'd argue that the cold, distanced style of the film was what turned
audiences off, not the subject-matter per se. On paper, 'Barry Lyndon'
must have looked like a much safer bet than any of Kubrick's previous
three films!
Michael Brooke
> Gary Couzens wrote:
>
> > Andrew Johnston wrote in message ...
> > >In article <1dlq6jb.pvz...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> > >mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk says...
> > >> Kubrick is a multi-millionaire many times over (a status he first gained
> > >> back in the early 1960s with 'Lolita'). He doesn't exactly *need* the
> > >> work - but when he does get round to making films, he invariably ends up
> > >> pushing very similar marketing buttons to those pushed by mainstream
> > >> Hollywood producers.
> > >>
> > >> He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
> > >> '2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s),
> > >
> > >I recon A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is an exception as well--or was Malcolm
> > >McDowell a major star in the UK on the basis of IF... and O LUCKY MAN by
> > >then?
> >
> > And, just to nitpick, I'd suggest that Matthew Modine was at least a "name"
> > (if not, then or now, a major star) by the time he made "Full Metal Jacket".
> > He'd played leads before then, notably in "Birdy".
> >
> > Gary Couzens
>
> But both of them could not be called stars.
If you look at what I actually wrote, I said "generally tends to work
with", not "invariably works with". And that absolutely stands up to
scrutiny, as the vast majority of Kubrick's films feature at least one
major star in the sense of bankability as well as recognition (Ryan
O'Neal was a much bigger name in 1975 than he is now).
Michael Brooke
> In article <1dls3sb.1mb...@everyman.demon.co.uk>
> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk "Michael Brooke" writes:
>
> [A lot of stuff, largely snipped, because I think we've probably almost
> come to agreement!]
>
> > What on earth was commercially unattractive about 'Lolita'?
>
> Ask Adrian Lyne... :-( Sure, times have changed, but his version is
> hardly explicit by today's standards, and it remains "an adaptation of
> a huge best-seller that was also highly controversial". Not quite a
> dead-cert, as he found out! I've little doubt Kubrick's film came in
> for similar criticism.
Not having read the original reviews - apart from Pauline Kael's, which
was an out-and-out rave (probably the best review she ever gave a
Kubrick film), I can't tell you, though Kael didn't seem to have a
problem with the content. In fact, even the BBFC commented on the fact
that Sue Lyon was decidedly too old to play Lolita!
And the passage of time has had more of an effect than you imply - when
Kubrick made 'Lolita', it was still very much a *current* best-seller.
By the time Lyne made his version, the book had crossed the line into
"literary classic" territory, making it far less of an automatic
must-see, not least because it had already been done.
> > Hardly - in fact, Kubrick's methods here are almost identical to those
> > used by George Lucas to promote the new 'Star Wars'!
> >
> > Again, we have obsessive on-set secrecy, with only a tiny amount of
> > "official" material released to the general public. Result: a massive
> > build-up of anticipation and a virtual guarantee that the film will open
> > very strongly indeed even if it turns out to be a total dog.
>
> Chapter One of Star Wars would open strongly regardless of what they
> do, I think. It has an enormous built-in fan base which isn't there
> for Kubrick -- not least because a large percentage of the cinema audience
> are too young to remember his last film, or were too young to get in to
> see it!
Which is presumably why Tom Cruise is in the lead - and he's one of the
very few stars who generally *can* deliver a large opening audience
(unlike, say, Bruce Willis, who has made just as many flops as hits)
> Star Wars doesn't NEED marketing, so why bother? I admit there
> is a certain appeal in secrecy, but it can backfire i.e. Godzilla, where
> no-one got to see the monster.
...though much the same technique worked for 'Jurassic Park', and
countless other monster movies. Not revealing the monster in advance of
the film's release is so common that it's pretty much the norm (in fact,
it is very strongly in the interests of certain film-makers *not* to
reveal how tacky their monsters look before the film opens!).
> > > They worked in financial terms because of the marketing campaign, which
> > > rather proves MY point. From a financial standpoint, the marketing
> > > investment rescued what would otherwise have been unmitigated disaster.
> >
> > ...by massively increasing total overall investment, thus reducing
> > profit margins (if any) still further.
>
> You don't reduce your profit margin if your income goes up too --
> and the marketing budget is designed solely to do this.
Yes, but it doesn't always work, does it?
> > I'd be genuinely interested to know if those films
> > really did make significant amounts of money -
>
> According to the IMDB, Batman and Robin cost $110m (I assume excluding
> advertising), took $107m in the States, and $130m outside it. That's
> purely a cinema gross, excluding satellite, video and TV sales. Even
> allowing for marketing, I think it's safe to say it's made its money back.
The key word here is "gross" - what were the net figures? I doubt they
were anything even vaguely approaching $237m, not least because cinemas
take a big chunk of the total (the bigger the flop the bigger the
chunk). I agree it's probably broken even, but I doubt its profits were
particularly stratospheric (I'm sure 'The Full Monty' was a rather
bigger moneyspinner for Fox!)
> > > Agreed -- but sadly, all too often it is. Marketing is regarded as being
> > > more important, and sometimes has as much of the budget.
> >
> > ...or indeed more of it! I'm willing to bet that the marketing budgets
> > for 'Trainspotting', 'The Full Monty' and 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'
> > were many times greater than the production cost.
>
> Largely because their costs were so small. For the first-named, there
> was certainly a big poster campaign, but I have no strong recollection
> of a big ad campaign for the other two, at least in Britain.
I certainly do - particularly with 'The Full Monty'. Have you really
forgotten all those giant billboards around London of Mark Addy stark
naked with only a portion of fish and chips preventing all being
revealed? And didn't you see any of those newspaper ads urging people
to see it again to push it past 'Jurassic Park's box-office total?
Believe me, Fox spent a fortune on the marketing - as indeed did
Polygram on 'Four Weddings' (again, countless newspaper ads right
through the release - and these are the single biggest expense of a film
marketing campaign). And once it was clear that the films were going to
be much bigger than expected, the marketing budget climbed still higher.
> > But is this necessarily a bad thing, given that those films probably
> > wouldn't have been the hits they were if it hadn't been for the amount
> > spent on marketing them? None of them are bad films, and all would
> > probably have managed good word of mouth - but none of them were obvious
> > hits: indeed, the producers of 'Trainspotting' and 'The Full Monty' were
> > deliberately playing down the chances of them doing particularly well!
>
> Again, assuming we're talking in Britain, 'Four Weddings' had already
> been a huge sleeper hit in America, and 'Trainspotting' had the obvious
> links to 'Shallow Grave', which had been a surprising success too.
'sex, lies and videotape' was a rather bigger hit, but that didn't help
'Kafka' - and there are countless other examples. Plenty of surprising
debut successes have been followed by second features that flopped, and
it's fascinating reading interviews with the 'Trainspotting' team
published *before* the film opened, as they clearly weren't expecting it
to do anything like as well as its predecessor.
This is of course entirely hypothetical, but I'm willing to bet that if
'Trainspotting' had opened cold, without that marketing campaign (and
especially without that poster and trailer) it would probably have got
good reviews and done moderately well, but would probably have faded
away after a few weeks, like many other similar British films. The
poster was what made it a cultural phenomenon, as demonstrated by the
number of subsequent ad campaigns that blatantly ripped it off.
For a more concrete example, compare 'Brassed Off' with 'The Full Monty'
- both films have an amazing amount in common in terms of style and
content, and 'Brassed Off' generally had bigger stars and got better
reviews. Yet it only took two million quid compared with 'The Full
Monty's fifty million quid. Why? Because I think the marketing
campaign for 'The Full Monty' was much more effective - I can't even
remember what the 'Brassed Off' poster looked like, except that it
didn't exactly encourage me to go and see it (and having subsequently
caught up with it on TV I rather regret not seeing it properly).
> 'The
> Full Monty' was perhaps the only real surprise, but it's purely
> hypothetical to ascribe it to marketing.
I saw 'The Full Monty' on the very first show on the very first day of
its release, which was a weekday afternoon. The cinema - the Odeon West
End - was packed. How on earth do you explain that, if not as a result
of the marketing campaign? If memory serves, some of the reviews were
pretty lukewarm, and some of them wouldn't even have appeared then.
> Plenty bigger, flasher, more
> successful campaigns have retu rned far less profit.
Indeed, because 'The Full Monty' also managed to garner amazingly
positive word of mouth, which I completely agree is also a major factor.
But that doesn't explain why it was such a huge hit right from day one.
I'll tell you what happened - Fox held an unprecedented number of free
advance screenings: in fact, I think I read that by the time 'The Full
Monty' eventually opened, a six-figure number of people had already seen
it for nothing. *That's* how word of mouth went through the roof from
day one, and that's entirely due to Fox's marketing strategy.
The only "purely hypothetical" element was Fox's theory that word of
mouth would be stronger than the reviews - but they got it right. Every
other aspect of the film's massive opening is down to the marketing
strategy.
> If you look at the box office profile of big hits, you'll tend to find
> they don't open particularly large, they just decline less per week.
Not true in the case of 'The Full Monty', which shot straight to number
one in its first week with a very impressive seven-figure haul
considering it was just a low-budget comedy with no obvious star names
(Robert Carlyle hardly being a major box-office draw). And I don't
think this is true in the case of 'Four Weddings' or 'Trainspotting',
though I forget the exact figures ('Trainspotting' was certainly a
massive hit right from day one as well).
Then again, initial box office figures really depend on the release
pattern - in Britain, 'The Full Monty' was given a national release on
hundreds of screens right from day one accompanied by a huge marketing
campaign, whereas in America Fox deemed it more appropriate to open it
on a handful of screens and allow it to build its audience gradually.
But both these techniques involve a carefully planned marketing
strategy.
> Turkeys' takings will fall 50-60% between weeks one and two, while hits
> may only go down 10-20%. I don't think that's down to marketing: all
> it can do is make people aware of a movie and its contents, really.
No, it's a much more complex process than that. Just telling people
about the film's existence isn't enough: you have to convince people
that their lives aren't worth living unless they see this film,
regardless of whether or not it's any good. *That's* the secret of good
marketing - but in order to tap into the audience's psyche like that,
you have to know what makes them tick, and the only practical way of
doing that is testing out both the film and the marketing campaign on a
smaller scale in advance of the release.
You're also ignoring the fact that the logistics of a film's release are
just as much a part of the marketing strategy. Some films open on
hundreds of screens simultaneously while others open in only a handful
of cinemas, or even on occasion just one. This is sometimes down to the
budget (small independent distributors don't have much of a choice
here), but it can also be a conscious decision on the part of a major
distributor (as the 'Full Monty' example above reveals).
Similarly, the day on which a film opens is a crucial marketing decision
- if nine other films that are very similar to yours are opening too,
you stand a much greater chance of flopping than if there are just three
other films opening that are radically different from yours. Believe
me, I've had my fingers burned purely for those reasons on more
occasions than I care to remember - but I'm willing to bet a great deal
that while mainstream distributors are shunning the 'Star Wars' opening
date with a vengeance, at least one independent will open a small
subtitled art movie at the same time and will benefit enormously from
the critics' desire to write something about something that *isn't*
'Star Wars'!
I completely agree that word of mouth largely takes over after the film
opens - but the crucial challenge to film marketers is building up that
initial box-office success: opening at the right time in the right
cinemas with the right marketing campaign. It's *frightening* how much
the success of a film can depend on not getting any of those elements
wrong - which is why the original poster who claimed you should "just
throw the film out there" is so misguided.
Andrew Johnston
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk says...
> Subject: Re: EYES WIDE SHUT test screening
> From: mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke)
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.current-films, alt.cult-movies
Not only that, but Kubrick snagged Cruise at exactly the right time--
coming off of JERRY MAGUIRE, which was not only one of Cruise's biggest
hits, but the movie featuring arguably his best performance (or at least
the one that convinced a lot of Cruise naysayers that he was
significantly more than a pretty face). IMHO, the pent-up market demand
for a Cruise movie (the two-and-a-half years since JERRY MAGUIRE is, in
the dog-years like calculus of a studly leading man's career, almost
equivalent to Kubrick's 12-year hiatus) is guaranteed to insure a very
big opening for EWS.
Mark.J.Desocio
On 17 Jan 1999, Andrew Johnston wrote:
> In article <1dlp7es.1yl...@net130-141.mclink.it>,
> alberto...@iol.it says...
> > Steve Erickson <ste...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > On a somewhat related note, I'm also irritated that the MPAA and October
> > > Films are reportedly sparing tender American eyes the sight of hardcore sex
> > > in Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS
> >
> > I am sure this is not of any consolation to you, but I just
> > saw and advance screening of the italian version and it was
> > 10 minutes shorter than the 117' expected, and no explicit
> > sex -only some nudity.
> >
> Von Trier has said that for the US version, he wants to keep the hardcore
> sex but cover it with a black box with the word "censored" on it. I dunno
> if he's being serious, or just being Von Trier.
God, I hope he does it!!!
Martin Koolhoven
Michael Brooke wrote:
> Martin Koolhoven <T.H.S...@geenspem.A2000.nl> wrote:
>
> > Michael Brooke wrote:
>
> > > 'Lolita' is the closest that Kubrick ever came to a straightforward
> > > romantic comedy-drama - and it and 'The Shining' were probably the
> > > strongest projects that Kubrick ever made in terms of mass audience
> > > recognition in advance of release.
> >
> > EWS has even better cards.
>
> I disagree - because 'Lolita' and 'The Shining' were based on huge
> international best-sellers, so people already had a pretty good idea of
> what they were in for,
I wonder how many people that go to the movies acrually read books.
A wellknown story is a plus, but starapeal is much more important
> regardless of the other commercial elements
> (stars, genre, etc.). This isn't true at all of 'Eyes Wide Shut', which
> is based on a very obscure Austrian novel that I imagine very few people
> have read.
So? It is a film with sexual elements starring two of the hottest stars in
Hollywood. No book can compete with that.
> > > I'd argue that '2001' was Kubrick's only serious commercial gamble - and
> > > it paid off.
> >
> > Barry Lyndon had a star, but that was all commecial-appealing it had.
>
> Not true - costume dramas set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
> have a long and honourable commercial track record right up to the
> present day.
If you make it 3 hours long, in a tempo that most people call slow, the chances
of having a hit are tempered. (It also did not have an often read book as it's
basis)
> In fact, the BBC and Merchant Ivory owe a huge chunk of
> their income to them!
Financially rewarding, yes, but hardly blockbusters.
> I'd argue that the cold, distanced style of the film was what turned
> audiences off, not the subject-matter per se. On paper, 'Barry Lyndon'
> must have looked like a much safer bet than any of Kubrick's previous
> three films!
Not then Dr. Strangelove. A comedy about nuclair weapons (that the whole world
was talking about) with major stars in it.
What was so obscure about that?
Michael Brooke
It sounds a bit like the censored version of 'Repo Man', or the BBC2
version of 'This Is Spinal Tap' - both cases where the censorship
arguably improves the original film!
The melon-farming TV version of 'Repo Man' is well known; 'Spinal Tap'
has the swearing bleeped out - which actually makes it much more
realistic and therefore convincing!
I still don't think the end result will be a patch on the glorious
Channel Four version of 'W.R.Mysteries of the Organism', though - much
the same issues were involved, but instead of black bars, director Dusan
Makavejev superimposed goldfish swimming across the screen to hide
forbidden areas! I don't know a single person (including the film's
director) who doesn't think that the censored version is a huge
improvement on the original!
Michael Brooke
> Michael Brooke wrote:
>
> > Martin Koolhoven <T.H.S...@geenspem.A2000.nl> wrote:
> >
> > > Michael Brooke wrote:
> >
> > > > 'Lolita' is the closest that Kubrick ever came to a straightforward
> > > > romantic comedy-drama - and it and 'The Shining' were probably the
> > > > strongest projects that Kubrick ever made in terms of mass audience
> > > > recognition in advance of release.
> > >
> > > EWS has even better cards.
> >
> > I disagree - because 'Lolita' and 'The Shining' were based on huge
> > international best-sellers, so people already had a pretty good idea of
> > what they were in for,
>
> I wonder how many people that go to the movies acrually read books.
> A wellknown story is a plus, but starapeal is much more important
They don't necessarily need to have read the book - all the marketers
are concerned about is awareness of the title and the subject matter.
I'm willing to bet that a fair number of people round these parts won't
have read 'Lolita', but that virtually everyone will at least *know*
about it.
> > regardless of the other commercial elements
> > (stars, genre, etc.). This isn't true at all of 'Eyes Wide Shut', which
> > is based on a very obscure Austrian novel that I imagine very few people
> > have read.
>
> So? It is a film with sexual elements starring two of the hottest stars in
> Hollywood. No book can compete with that.
Yes, but if you combine major stars *and* a bestselling novel, the
package becomes all the more attractive. I'm not trying to argue that
'Eyes Wide Shut' isn't commercially attractive, because it obviously is
- but there won't be the same kind of instant recognition that there was
with 'Lolita' and 'The Shining', which started months (if not years)
before the film eventually came out.
> > > > I'd argue that '2001' was Kubrick's only serious commercial gamble - and
> > > > it paid off.
> > >
> > > Barry Lyndon had a star, but that was all commecial-appealing it had.
> >
> > Not true - costume dramas set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
> > have a long and honourable commercial track record right up to the
> > present day.
>
> If you make it 3 hours long, in a tempo that most people call slow, the
> chances of having a hit are tempered.
Yes, but you're talking about the finished film - I'm talking about its
attractiveness on paper IN ADVANCE of the film being made, and I stand
by my claim that it was a more obviously commercial project than
Kubrick's three previous films (bearing in mind that science fiction was
a far less reputable genre back in the 1960s).
> (It also did not have an often read book as it's
> basis)
True, but I doubt too many people have read the likes of 'Clarissa' or
'Martin Chuzzlewit' - which didn't stop the recent BBC versions being
hits. In fact, there was a major row here in Britain after the Radio
Times "gave away the ending" to 'Pride and Prejudice', which is
revealing!
>
> > In fact, the BBC and Merchant Ivory owe a huge chunk of
> > their income to them!
>
> Financially rewarding, yes, but hardly blockbusters.
Yes, but Kubrick doesn't make blockbusters either, so I really don't see
what you're getting at. All I'm talking about is commercial
attractiveness as a project, and on paper 'Barry Lyndon' definitely had
that.
> > I'd argue that the cold, distanced style of the film was what turned
> > audiences off, not the subject-matter per se. On paper, 'Barry Lyndon'
> > must have looked like a much safer bet than any of Kubrick's previous
> > three films!
>
> Not then Dr. Strangelove. A comedy about nuclair weapons (that the whole world
> was talking about) with major stars in it.
> What was so obscure about that?
Where did I use the word "obscure" to describe 'Dr.Strangelove'? And
yes, a comedy about nuclear weapons, at a time only a couple of years
after Khruschev and Kennedy nearly blew the world up, was most
definitely a commercial gamble (albeit one that paid off handsomely).
Martin Koolhoven
Michael Brooke wrote:
> Where did I use the word "obscure" to describe 'Dr.Strangelove'?
Okay, I got carried away. Sorry.
> And
> yes, a comedy about nuclear weapons, at a time only a couple of years
> after Khruschev and Kennedy nearly blew the world up, was most
> definitely a commercial gamble
Gamble? I would say it was a solid basis for succes. Esspecially if you consider
the major stars in the film. I would say that Dr. Strangelove was (as you say, on
paper) a much saver bet then Barry Lyndon.
Why wouldn't people go to see a film about a hot item?
Reagen Sulewski
<T.H.S...@geenspem.A2000.nl> wrote:
>
>
>Michael Brooke wrote:
>
>> Where did I use the word "obscure" to describe 'Dr.Strangelove'?
>
>Okay, I got carried away. Sorry.
>
>> And
>> yes, a comedy about nuclear weapons, at a time only a couple of years
>> after Khruschev and Kennedy nearly blew the world up, was most
>> definitely a commercial gamble
>
>Gamble? I would say it was a solid basis for succes. Esspecially if you consider
>the major stars in the film. I would say that Dr. Strangelove was (as you say, on
>paper) a much saver bet then Barry Lyndon.
>Why wouldn't people go to see a film about a hot item?
>
They didn't go see Primary Colors.
Gary Couzens
Michael Brooke wrote in message
<1dlsnmq.1rf...@everyman.demon.co.uk>...
>If you look at what I actually wrote, I said "generally tends to work
>with", not "invariably works with". And that absolutely stands up to
>scrutiny, as the vast majority of Kubrick's films feature at least one
>major star in the sense of bankability as well as recognition (Ryan
>O'Neal was a much bigger name in 1975 than he is now).
>
The point I was making was that if you change "major stars" to "name
actors", then you cover the whole of his career from "The Killing" onwards,
without exceptions. Sterling Hayden, Keir Dullea, Malcolm McDowell and
Matthew Modine may not have been major stars then or now, but they were all
well known enough to have played leads before they worked with Kubrick.
Kubrick hasn't, or hasn't yet, cast an unknown in a *lead* role. Major
supporting roles are a different matter - e.g. Vincent D'Onofrio and Lee
Ermey in "Full Metal Jacket", both of them unknown at the time.
Gary Couzens
Martin Koolhoven
Who was that guy again that turned into a Starchild?
I don't think I've seen him anywere else (not counting 2010)
Martin
al_...@my-dejanews.com
"Gary Couzens" <gjco...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> Alberto wrote in message <1dlp7es.1yl...@net130-141.mclink.it>...
> >
> >> On a somewhat related note, I'm also irritated that the MPAA and October
> >> Films are reportedly sparing tender American eyes the sight of hardcore
> sex
> >> in Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS
> >
> >I am sure this is not of any consolation to you, but I just
> >saw and advance screening of the italian version and it was
> >10 minutes shorter than the 117' expected, and no explicit
> >sex -only some nudity.
>
> hardcore content - two penetration shots and two erections - but a *lot* of
> nudity, including quite a few full-frontals of both sexes.
>
> As for the British release, the BBFC has yet to give it a certificate.
> (Certainly a 18 with or without the hardcore content, and I've got a feeling
> they'll leave it uncut.)
>
>
>
I just saw THE IDIOTS in the Singapore. I dont see whats so fascinating about
a group of people pretending to be a bunch of idiots. I am sure this is a
subject area of interest to many, but not to me. The only value this film had
was in novelty and shock value: (7.5/10/0).
Although there was nudity I am sure it was heavily censored over here.
Al Lal
http://www.angelfire.com/al/lal007/
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Michael Brooke
> Michael Brooke wrote:
>
There's no question the *subject* was highly topical - which of course
is why Kubrick made the film in the first place! - but what was largely
unprecedented was the fact that it treated a subject that many people
were not particularly disposed to laugh about (particularly after the
world had indeed come perilously close to being blown up) as a joke.
That this seems unsurprising *now* is largely due to the fact that
'Dr.Strangelove' rewrote the rule book.
Think about it - there are plenty of "hot items" that you could do a
film about now: child satanic abuse, for instance - but would you make a
comedy about it? And if the answer is instinctively "no", then try to
put yourself in Kubrick's shoes in the early 1960s, when comedies about
potential nuclear destruction were rather thinner on the ground than
they are now.
Gary Couzens
Martin Koolhoven wrote in message
<1dlvm9w.jr...@node10e13.a2000.nl>...
>Who was that guy again that turned into a Starchild?
>I don't think I've seen him anywere else (not counting 2010)
>
Keir Dullea. Debut in "The Hoodlum Priest", and played pre-Kubrick leads in
"David and Lisa", "The Thin Red Line" (1964 version) and "The Fox" and a
support in "Bunny Lake is Missing". Later, he played the title role in "De
Sade" and was Olivia Hussey's boyfriend in "Black Christmas". I'm sure there
are more titles on the IMDB - I don't recall seeing him in anything after
2010.
Jane Lumley
>coming off of JERRY MAGUIRE, which was not only one of Cruise's biggest
>hits, but the movie featuring arguably his best performance (or at least
>the one that convinced a lot of Cruise naysayers that he was
>significantly more than a pretty face).
Huh?
As a strong Cruise naysayer, I remain unconvinced.
Jerry Maguire was Cruise doing what he always does; he is the little man
of talent up against the dull authorities who just won't see the
marvellous gifts he has to offer.
Anything Cruise is in turns to middlebrow. He's himself a good-enough
reason not to see Eyes Wide Shut.
--
Jane Lumley
tomlinson
: Anything Cruise is in turns to middlebrow. He's himself a good-enough
: reason not to see Eyes Wide Shut.
How so? Kubrick has done tolerably well with actors whom I would call
mediocre (Ryan O'Neal, Matthew Modine as two examples.) Maybe (say)
BARRY LYNDON would have been better with someone else in the role of
Redmond, but O'Neal is hardly "a good enough reason not to see"
BARRY LYNDON, one of Kubrick's best.
-tomlinson
--
Ernest S. Tomlinson - San Diego State University
------------------------------------------------
"Holly? look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those
_dots_ stopped moving forever? If I said you could have twenty thousand
pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep
my money? or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?"
Anthony Poole
callow youth coming of age (Jerry Maguire, Born on the 4th of July etc.
etc.). Take him out of this character and he is usually unconvincing (most
relevantly in Interview With the Vampire, where his menace was more amusing
than threatening). Eyes Wide Shut, given the limited information on this
film, would appear to be a bit of a stretch for Cruise (not to mention
Kidman, who has played doctors before to no convincing effect).
Michael Brooke
private e-mails from people wanting to know more about my forthcoming
debut as co-producer that I might as well point them (and anyone else)
in the direction of:
and suggest they click on the article called "Director wants to put Alf
in a home" - which should answer just about all the questions that can
be answered at this stage (including "who do I contact if I want to
invest large sums of money in this masterpiece"?)
Robert Lee
> Gary Couzens wrote:
> > Andrew Johnston wrote in message ...
> > >In article <1dlq6jb.pvz...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> > >mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk says...
> > >> Kubrick is a multi-millionaire many times over (a status he first gained
> > >> back in the early 1960s with 'Lolita'). He doesn't exactly *need* the
> > >> work - but when he does get round to making films, he invariably ends up
> > >> pushing very similar marketing buttons to those pushed by mainstream
> > >> Hollywood producers.
> > >>
> > >> He generally tends to work with major stars ('Full Metal Jacket' and
> > >> '2001' being the only exceptions since the 1950s),
> > >
> > >I recon A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is an exception as well--or was Malcolm
> > >McDowell a major star in the UK on the basis of IF... and O LUCKY MAN by
> > >then?
> >
> > And, just to nitpick, I'd suggest that Matthew Modine was at least a "name"
> > (if not, then or now, a major star) by the time he made "Full Metal Jacket".
> > He'd played leads before then, notably in "Birdy".
> >
> > Gary Couzens
> But both of them could not be called stars.
Yes, both of them could at the time of their respective Kubrick projects,
actually.
--Robert
--
The Control Voice-we like to watch
http://www.ungh.com/control
Enter our CONTEST and let us give you a prize, dammit!
(Yes, you heard right, a new Jack Chick site is coming to UNGH)
Robert Lee
> This is outrageously self-indulgent, I know, but I've had so many
> private e-mails from people wanting to know more about my forthcoming
> debut as co-producer that I might as well point them (and anyone else)
> in the direction of:
That's very cool, Michael. Good luck...
Luis Canau
scenes were a bit "out of line" but I don't think someone else should
"correct" the film.
--
luis canau_______________________________
<luis....@mail.euNOT.pt> euNOT -> EUnet
cinema: http://home.EUnet.pt/cinedie
(portuguese reading ability recommended)
_______________________________________
Michael Brooke
> Andrew Johnston <and...@echonyc.com> wrote:
>
> > >
> > Von Trier has said that for the US version, he wants to keep the hardcore
> > sex but cover it with a black box with the word "censored" on it. I dunno
> > if he's being serious, or just being Von Trier.
>
> He said he'd do that for the Norwegian release - but apparently they
> ended up showing it uncut.
Just to update that post, Von Trier has said that he absolutely refuses
to cut the shot in question, and the only censorship he's prepared to
consider is one that resorts to black bars. And apparently the BBFC
have rather more problems with the film as a whole than they do with the
sexual material!
Gary Couzens
Michael Brooke wrote in message
>Michael Brooke <mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Andrew Johnston <and...@echonyc.com> wrote:
>>
>> > >
>> > Von Trier has said that for the US version, he wants to keep the
hardcore
>> > sex but cover it with a black box with the word "censored" on it. I
dunno
>> > if he's being serious, or just being Von Trier.
>>
>> He said he'd do that for the Norwegian release - but apparently they
>> ended up showing it uncut.
>
>Just to update that post, Von Trier has said that he absolutely refuses
>to cut the shot in question, and the only censorship he's prepared to
>consider is one that resorts to black bars. And apparently the BBFC
>have rather more problems with the film as a whole than they do with the
>sexual material!
>
pretending to be mentally retarded? If that's an insurmountable problem,
then the film would have to be rejected - but I didn't see anything
problematic in it, bearing in mind it'll get an 18 certificate without a
doubt.
Gary Couzens
s.p.a...@reading.ac.uk
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
> Michael Brooke <mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Andrew Johnston <and...@echonyc.com> wrote:
> >
> > > >
> > > Von Trier has said that for the US version, he wants to keep the hardcore
> > > sex but cover it with a black box with the word "censored" on it. I dunno
> > > if he's being serious, or just being Von Trier.
> >
> > He said he'd do that for the Norwegian release - but apparently they
> > ended up showing it uncut.
>
> Just to update that post, Von Trier has said that he absolutely refuses
> to cut the shot in question, and the only censorship he's prepared to
> consider is one that resorts to black bars.
I can't imagine that being too well received at the BBFC - a similar strategy
was attempted by Screen Edge with the UK release of 'Original Sins'. They used
black bars (like letterboxing in reverse), changing the aspect ratio, and in
places completely blacking out the screen as a novel way to impose BBFC cuts.
The BBFC weren't having it so have shelved the film indefinitely.
And apparently the BBFC
> have rather more problems with the film as a whole than they do with the
> sexual material!
The BBFC have these strange peculiarities - they do sometimes allow shots of
erections and penetration in 'arty' films, especially if they have subtitles.
I just received a phone call from the National Film Theatre in London,
confirming my ticket for when they show the film later this month. They are
taking the unusual step of restricting the availability of tickets to paid
'members' of the cinema - and told me a few interesting bits of info. This is
the second and last time that they will ever show the film in an uncut version
(unless it gets past the BBFC uncut) - They are having to play strictly to the
rules this time (normally they just let anyone buy tickets when they have an
uncertificated screening - the non-member just paying an additional pound per
ticket - I was doing it for years).
The whole thing is a farce as they showed clips from 'The Idiots' on British
terrestrial TV not that long ago (on Channel Four's Eurotrash).
Simon
Michael Brooke
> I just received a phone call from the National Film Theatre in London,
> confirming my ticket for when they show the film later this month. They are
> taking the unusual step of restricting the availability of tickets to paid
> 'members' of the cinema - and told me a few interesting bits of info. This is
> the second and last time that they will ever show the film in an uncut version
> (unless it gets past the BBFC uncut) - They are having to play strictly to the
> rules this time (normally they just let anyone buy tickets when they have an
> uncertificated screening - the non-member just paying an additional pound per
> ticket - I was doing it for years).
Camden Council were normally quite happy to let us show pretty much
anything at the Everyman - the major exception being 'Salo', for which
they applied much the same conditions (people not only had to be
members, but they had to be members for at least 48 hours prior to the
screening - though quite what difference that would make they didn't
explain).
GetDVD
Idiots is shown with cuts here in Singapore. But was shocked that the censor
does not take out the penis erection and hand holding penis scenes. I guess
movies don't normally show such scenes except for porno. Is there any other
movies showing such details?
regards
Michael Brooke wrote in message
<1dmp5mm.mz...@everyman.demon.co.uk>...
s.p.a...@reading.ac.uk
"GetDVD" <get...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Idiots is shown with cuts here in Singapore. But was shocked that the censor
> does not take out the penis erection and hand holding penis scenes. I guess
> movies don't normally show such scenes except for porno. Is there any other
> movies showing such details?
Nagisa Oshima's 'Ai No Corrida'.
Ken James Burke
> "GetDVD" <get...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Idiots is shown with cuts here in Singapore. But was shocked that the censor
> > does not take out the penis erection and hand holding penis scenes. I guess
> > movies don't normally show such scenes except for porno. Is there any other
> > movies showing such details?
Wim Wenders' "Kings of the Road (in the course of time)" has a scene
where a projectionist with a visible erection masturbates while the porn loop
he is projecting spools out onto the floor at his feet. Best damn metaphor
for stroke-movies ever made.
OBDisgusting: The same film also features a real-time, no-doubt onscreen
dump by the main character, for those keeping score in the transgressive
department.
Ken Burke <aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
AARON MILENSKI
scenes? Are the necessary? What's the context?
...someday we'll be dignified and old...
Gary Couzens
AARON MILENSKI wrote in message <79sgo9$c...@news.cc.oberlin.edu>...
>Can anyone who saw this film explain the significance of the
"objectionable"
>scenes? Are the necessary? What's the context?
>
pretend to be mentally retarded, which they call "spassing".
MILD SPOILERS (from memory)
An hour and a quarter in, the group's nominal leader, Stoffer, has his
birthday. He's asked "What do you want to do?" He answers "gang bang". A
group sex session follows, during which you see one erection and two
penetration shots (the same shot edited into two).
Much earlier, the group go to a swimming pool. Stoffer, "spassing" at the
time, is changed by another of the group in the shower. A good-looking woman
walks past - Stoffer has an erection (in close-up).
There's also a scene of a man holding another man's penis while he urinates.
Gary Couzens
hatshepsut
wrote:
>Idiots is shown with cuts here in Singapore. But was shocked that the censor
>does not take out the penis erection and hand holding penis scenes. I guess
>movies don't normally show such scenes except for porno. Is there any other
>movies showing such details?
I was surprised they let the gangbang scene through. After all,
Singapore censors are known for being scissors-happy.
--
Everyone has a right to be stupid.
Some just abuse the privilege.
Remove UPPERCASE letters to send email.
Gary Couzens
Just to advise that the BBFC passed "The Idiots" uncut yesterday for an 18
cinema certificate.
Gary Couzens
Jeffrey Omk
are kinder to film that is critically acclaimed or award winnings. Idiots is
shown using a R(A) rating, R for restricted and A for artistic. R(A) is for
those over 21 years old only!! Films that depict gay lifestyle also get an
R(A) rating, for example In&Out, First Wife Club. They do pass uncut eg two
films by Spielberg cos Speildberg wouldnot allow censorship. Shindler List
is shown R(A) and Saving Private Ryan is shown using NC-16 (no admission
below 16). They introduce NC-16 because of Saving Private Ryan so that
younger adult would get to watch it. And a number of films are passed uncut
during Singapore Film Festival but only for that limited showing.
regards
hatshepsut wrote in message <36c7a28...@news.pacific.net.sg>...
Luis Canau
>Just to advise that the BBFC passed "The Idiots" uncut yesterday for an 18
>cinema certificate.
Just because Perdita Durango is trash/kitsch it had to be cut. The Idiots is a
bit boring and not as good a "art film" as PD a trash/kitsch action
hiperviolent comedy.