Recession Cinema
Hey there, all you under-employed and overextended movie fans! Last week, upon the announcement of the Academy Award nominations, it struck me that this past movie season was remarkable in terms of the sheer volume of quality films. Milk, Slumdog... , The Wrestler, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case... , and on and on. Such artistic riches should be celebrated, but I found myself a bit overwhelmed and longing for simpler times when moviegoers of limited means were afforded the leisure of wallowing in the essence of, say, one or two boffo films, which would dominate the marques for months, without being forced off-screen by an accelerated theatrical release schedule timed to the production excess of deep-pocketed studios. Money ain't what it used to be and plopping down $10 and change to see each and every Oscar-worthy film this past season would've had my family and I eating nail soup well into next summer's blockbuster season. During the days of the Great Depression, movie houses were operating at full capacity. Then again, so my mother has said, the price of admission was 10 cents and you sat through a double feature at least, if not a triple. My mother's favorites were the musicals with Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy - light escapist fare that always seemed to end with a scene known in Hollywood parlance as 'the kiss'. 
In my adolescence, during the recession prone 70's, we too, formed some humble movie-going habits that befit our own lean times. The film that readily comes to mind is Billy Jack, an independently produced project that, upon release, ended up for an extended theater run, partly because word of mouth had furnished the film with an unexpected set of 'legs' and partly, I'm imagining (in my overly-romanced version of hard times), because there wasn't a lot of product out there to show. As a result of this cultural and economic climate, we'd go to see Billy Jack once with one friend, then with another friend, and then with the youth group from church and probably once more with parents, who might've eventually gotten curious about this unlikely cultural lightning rod. For those of you that are incredulous at my suggestion of adolescents inviting their parents to a movie, remember that Billy Jack was our movie, with our values displayed and our way cool soundtrack theme song. We couldn't wait to rub our parent's nose in a cultural triumph of our own. The story concerns the students and faculty of a 'freedom school', essentially a band of non-conformist hippies, who experience wrath, venom and eventually, rape at the hands of some ugly local yahoos. Of course, just when you think you can't bear to see the hippie kids suffer one more demoralizing episode, Billy Jack himself intervenes with a Hapkido Karate move known as the 'outside crescent kick', which satisfies the audience's desire for vengeance. Truth be told, the hippie kids, no matter how much I rooted for them in concept, were, in their portrayal here, a bit cloying in their earnest self-righteousness. This, in combination with the disconnect of having these idealistic peaceniks redeemed through an act of violence, made for a very flawed film indeed. But, over the course of many viewings, all while contemplating the film's message encryptions, the whole thing started to make some kind of strange cinematic sense.I have a theory that the plethora of current releases originated with seed money already in the pipeline before the economy tanked. If I'm right, we'll soon see the Hollywood offerings dry up, meaning that we'll have to condition ourselves to the quaint habits suitable for a genuine recession; finding some odd and imperfect little movie that enjoys an extended run on screens that would otherwise be dark. If it's a recession not just of cash but also of culture, we'll become reflective and philosophical, interpreting everything in this magined little flawed film as having deeper meanings and lasting lessons. We'll return to the theater over and again, falling deeply in love with the only option available. So, memo to Hollywood: we're in a recession! Stop being so damn prolific and professional. Times are hard. The least you could do is play poor - allow this recession to realize its full cinematic potential. Lean times call for films with muddled messages that ferment into something close to clarity over the course of its many screenings, then gain added import in the hearts of the down-and-out audience, until the good times start to roll once again.
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