Funding for British Films
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David Cameron has ‘Armageddon’ in his DVD collection*. Now whatever your views on his politics, everyone must be united in the view that the bloke knows bugger all about films.
That’s why his recent comments about the British film industry are all the more shocking. Like ‘Armageddon’, Cameron’s comments are ill thought out, silly, scientifically inaccurate and contain far too much Ben Affleck.
Okay the P.M may not have mentioned Ben Affleck at all, but he had Affleck on his mind, you can tell by his eyes and from what he had to say. Cameron believes that for the British film industry to grow it needs to focus on “commercially successful pictures that rival the quality and impact of the best international productions”
Now granted, ‘Armageddon’ could have been a Christmas present from a well meaning but dangerously naive auntie, but even if that’s true, Cameron’s comments show alarmingly poor judgement.
The P.M was speaking ahead of a special review into the government’s film policy, which is expected to echo the sentiments he expressed.
What this (probably) means is that the majority of public spending will go to larger productions with a more likely chance of success (for success read - making money). While this makes fiscal sense with filmmaking unfortunately being a business, not an art, a policy of only funding ‘sure things’ is not going to work.
As Ken Loach pointed out in his slightly cross response to the review, no one can predict which projects will become a success. For example consider the two biggest U.K hits of recent times - Films about a young Indian boy being tortured and a stuttering monarch going to speech therapy – well yes they were clearly always going to be stone cold hits.
A strategy of funding a wide variety of different kinds of films would appear to be the best way forward as well as giving first timers and those trying to break into the industry their chance.
Hollywood is beginning to slowly nibble itself to death with the amount of remakes, sequels, midquels, sidequels, threequels, reimaginings, reboots, spin offs and cross-overs it’s currently churning out.** Therefore it would seem wise to continue to spread investment over a variety different projects, variety that the U.K is renowned for producing.
Hollywood’s reluctance to back original and possibly risky ideas is exemplified by the tortured pre-production ‘Red Tails’ has undergone. George Lucas, quite possibly the most powerful Sith Lord in Hollywood, had trouble getting the film made due to the fact that all the main characters are black. In the end Lucas had to stump up his own cash (luckily he’s richer than a mature cheddar, so it’s all good)
Do we really want the British film output to emulate Hollywood to such a degree? If, as the government recommends, we’re focussing on the bottom line then yes we probably do. Money talks very loudly and tends to dominate conversations, and with the UK’s output being far smaller than the U.S’ this will mean that smaller riskier productions will be squeezed out.
This would mean that the industry would become elitist with far fewer chances for up and comers to break into to it, when we consider the amount of talented British directors, actors and other filmmakers who have started out by making smaller U.K productions and then gone on to have glittering careers, this seems like a huge shame.
However the reality is that times are tight, with even Pot Noodles starting to look pricey, and the government will be looking to every sector to raise enough cash to pay for their expenses. That was mean, they’ve said sorry.
Oh well, let’s remake ‘Tyrannosaur’ but have an actual dinosaur in it this time.
*I have proof courtesy of The Daily Mirror ‘The Bastion of Truth’
**I should probably include ‘squeakquels’ here to (see the Alvin and The Chipmunks franchise... Actually don’t.)