Part One: Make Room For The Art We Don’t Yet Know We Need
What America’s Cinema Business Needs Now — The 101 Things, Part One | The Art Pillar: Recommendations 1–10
After six installments exploring what America’s cinema business needs, you might expect me to finally get back to making movies. I’d like to too. If everything wasn’t in such shambles now, I might well make that my prime focus again. Is there a market in America for films for grown-ups now?
I’ve spent significant time identifying what’s broken in our ecosystem. Some of you have helped too. Thank you. Let’s get back to the future now. So here come 101 things America could actually do to sustain authored cinema. I know, I know. One hundred and one? Couldn’t I settle for ten? That’s just not who I am…
I think it makes the most sense to put the full range of choices on the table and let all of us start deciding which deserve attention and action. If once again you feel you want to write a note saying I am overwhelming you and it is too much to even consider, please recognize that I did reduce it to get it down to 101: I have a whole other “reserve” list of suggestions! See, I do prioritize and try to make things a wee bit easier for you to deal with.
When people ask me how we make things better, my first response is to ask whether they practice — actually practice — utopian dreaming. And I don’t mean the Land Of Milk and Honey sort of utopian dreaming either (not that I personally would ever even like such a land… milk? and honey? yuck!), but the sort of U-dream that is within reach, that we can build if we try. This isn’t pie in the sky stuff. I pity all the poor souls who respond to me that “this is the way it is and we have to deal with it”. We are not stuck with this no matter what. You need to know where your North Star is if you ever expect your ladder to reach it. And when we accept that things can’t change, we risk becoming the very people standing in the way of making them better. The practice of utopian dreaming catapults the rest of us who know everyone deserves beautiful things.
And that’s not all…
To make the exercise a little more manageable, I’m organizing the 101 into four groups: The Art, The Artist, The Audience, and The Ecosystem. They correspond to the four things we’ve been trying to sustain throughout this series. That’s what organization looks like, buttercups. We’ll explore all four in shorter installments of roughly ten recommendations each, giving everyone a chance to consider and discuss the possibilities without requiring a weekend retreat to read the whole thing. Maybe share a post or three with your local film support org and ask them to lend a hand bringing this all into the realm of the real. Once we’ve examined them all, I’ll publish the complete list as a working reference, just for all you single-helping sorts. How’s that work for you?
I’m not pretending these are all original inventions either. Some have been proposed more than once over the years. Others are already being practiced somewhere, often by people who deserve considerably more recognition.
Where possible, I’ve included existing programs worth studying and organizations that might be well positioned to help. Those are possibilities, not assignments; nobody has agreed to take on a job just because I’ve put their name next to it. But really… wouldn’t it be nice if they would? And the people who eventually build some of these things may be individuals or organizations we haven’t even heard of yet. That would be even better. I know there’s a ton of talent that hasn’t been given the opportunity to shine. It would be nice to empower them (I have ideas for that too, btw).
Anyway, let’s begin with the reason any of this matters: the art.
First, Make Room For The Art We Don’t Yet Know We Need
When I use the phrase authored cinema, I’m talking about filmmaking deliberately shaped by a personal perspective. It can be any kind of film, from a comedy, a documentary, a thriller, or something that won’t ever fit comfortably into any category. It can entertain the hell out of us. It can be difficult, ridiculous, disturbing, beautiful, or all of those at once.
What matters is the intention behind the work and the room the author has to make their perspective sing—and in film that usually means the director (but not always) is holding the reins.
America once had a remarkable environment for such films, however flawed the underlying economics may have been. I got to come of age in that era and that’s probably the secret to my success. We should all want another, more sustainable version of that creative vitality. And we might want to begin with a few changes to that prior model.
The First Ten: Artistic Freedom And Experimentation
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Give authored cinema a permanent place in American cultural life.
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Build a firewall between public funding and political interference.
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Establish a national network of Cinema Invention Labs.
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Establish a First Audience Guarantee for adventurous films.
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Establish a Director’s Creative Rights Charter.
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Build an actual economy for short-form cinema.
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Give filmmakers a year to discover what they might do next.
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Create a Film Rescue and Reinvention Fund.
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Put genuine commissioning authority into more hands.
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Build a Public Cinema Circuit that doesn’t depend on acquisition.
Some of these could grow out of existing organizations and programs. Others might require new structures, new partnerships, or people who haven’t yet been given the opportunity to lead. I’m particularly interested in the ideas that could change how the business functions, rather than merely help a few more people survive its current dysfunction.
Ten Things We Could Actually Do To Benefit Cinema Art In America
1. Give authored cinema a permanent place in American cultural life. If we believe cinema is an art, why do we still treat its cultural future as something the commercial marketplace alone decides? What if we created a national commitment to authored cinema that guaranteed continuing investment in its creation, exhibition, education, and preservation? We could even establish minimum commitments extending beyond any particular administration. Our museums and libraries don’t have to demonstrate that every individual work can turn a profit. Why are we asking movies to do so?
Possible starting points: The National Endowment for the Arts, Library of Congress, Future Film Coalition, and the many other groups with a stake in American cinema. We might need a new national alliance to make this happen. And perhaps some entirely new leadership.
2. Build a firewall between public funding and political interference. Imagine an America where public money could support a film fiercely critical of the government that funded it, and nobody could interfere with the filmmaker because they disliked what the film said. That’s a cultural commitment worth fighting for — even if I disagree with what the film says; we have to accept that the bigger principle is more important than the content. Any new funding system should have independent selection, enforceable protections against ideological retaliation, transparent decision-making, and a means for artists to challenge any actions taken against the work. How do we make our commitment to free expression actually mean something? If we can figure out the right protections, could we build a non-partisan coalition in support of it?
Precedents worth examining: The arm’s-length approaches embraced by the UK’s British Film Institute and the Canada Council for the Arts. We should also study where public funding systems have failed to protect artistic independence. Good intentions alone won’t be sufficient. Who are the experts in this? Why aren’t they already part of this conversation?
3. Establish a national network of Cinema Invention Labs. Why shouldn’t America be the place where filmmakers can invent tomorrow’s cinema? I’m not talking about another screenwriting lab. Where are facilities where filmmakers could experiment with unusual formats and technologies that may not yet have names? Imagine a filmmaker developing a work designed to be screened simultaneously in several cities, with different audiences contributing to the experience. Or an entirely new cinematic form that can’t be adequately tested within conventional production and distribution structures. Give artists access to equipment, technical expertise, collaborators, modest funding, and an audience willing to experience something unfamiliar. We could make prototypes, screen them, discuss what works, and sometimes discover something nobody knew was possible. Cinema is still young. Let’s not let it get stale before its time.
Possible starting points: Creative Capital, Columbia’s Digital Storytelling Lab, Open Cities accelerator. What about other university film and art departments, artist-run spaces, and experimental cinema organizations? The existing work in immersive storytelling and emerging technologies offers useful examples, but I don’t find much conversation spreading. We need labs to explore cinema’s artistic possibilities well beyond the technologies that happen to attract investors.
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