I tried this topic several months ago with scant success. Remember? I got bogged down first in the difference between “product” (what Hollywood makes) and “vision” (which is what Filmworks likes to think it shows). I finally retreated, reluctantly, into myth, trying to make the point that if Hollywood films are worth anything at all, it’s because of the myths they capture – not myths in the false sense, but myths in the good sense of telling universal American stories in ways that Joseph Campbell might applaud.
Well, I’m back at it again. This time I want to go after the topic from the old craft vs. art angle. I believe that the best Hollywood movies display considerable craft, but not much in the way of art; Filmworks offerings may or may not have a lot of craft, but they certainly don’t lack art.
We all know what good craft is. We go to crafts fairs and buy handsome pottery to give as gifts or to look nice in our own kitchens, But we don’t regard these items as art. What then is Art? Hang on. I’ll (foolishly) come to this hoary topic presently.
Meanwhile, consider The Fugitive, the fine Harrison Ford movie of 1993. I can’t think of a craftier Hollywood product, and I love it for that. In the story Tommy Lee Jones, a U.S. Marshall, pursues Ford across the Midwest and up and down Chicago because he believes that Ford, a prominent physician, has killed his wife. Of course, Ford has done no such a thing – icons like Ford do not murder their wives. What I like so much about the story is how screenwriter David Twohy has given Ford two daunting tasks: He has to solve the murder all alone, while also avoiding capture by the wily Jones. Worse, the very places he has to visit to gather evidence are where he is most likely to be nabbed, namely Cook Hospital and the county jail. This neat bit of plotting cranks up the drama, which every well-crafted thriller must do.
The Fugitive is a near beginning-to-end chase and as such archetypically cinematic. But Twohy is crafty enough to alternate between moments of high drama and moments of relaxed drama. Think of Ford as occupying one plot line while Jones nails down the other. The film then cross cuts – another piece of venerable cinematic craftiness – between the two plots. For most of the film the two plot lines, though parallel, are geographically distant. But three times during the film the lines of plot actually converge as Jones closes in on Ford – in the sewer pipe at the dam, at the jail, and at the hotel at the end of the film. You hold your breath. Rent this film and watch it solely for these constrictions of plot and accompanying heightening of drama.
But art? The old TV series on which Ford’s The Fugitive is based had more art. If it had never been cancelled it would have just gone on and on, with Richard Kimble (the Ford character) running, running, searching futilely for the one-armed man who might exonerate him. There is a kind of awful truth here – of existential unfairness, of being hounded — embedded in such a fatalistic plot. Truth’s beauty; beauty is art. This then is my definition of art: it embodies truth, even ugly truth, in ways that touch the heart. But the Ford version wraps everything up happily at the end with Jones finally learning of Ford’s innocence in the basement of the hotel, and letting Ford off the hook. They drive off in a cop car, laughing together inanely. It’s characteristic Hollywood cop-out, pure and simple. Truth, beauty, art – all down the pop toilet. The film lacks the conviction of its premise, mainly that the criminal justice system is corrupt.
Hollywood constantly does this. It hits on premises that have seeds of truthfulness, and thus art, then tosses both out at the end in order to send viewers away happy. We at Filmworks won’t always send you away happy, but we do hope that you leave the Tower feeling that, at least, you’ve experienced something approximating truth – and therefore art.