[Reader-list] Urban desperation in the movies

[t byfield]

menso at r4k.net (Fri 01/17/03 at 02:55 PM +0100):

> Well, this is why I replied stating that movies showing
> urban violence linked with gang activity and poverty are
> not something new, since I didn't see this link either :)

_financial times_ also ran a rave review of 'city of god,' last week
some time; iirc, the same review dealt with 'gangs of new york,' but
trashed it.

sol yurick, who wrote the book that the cult classic 'the warriors'
was based on, told me a few weeks ago that a remake of that film is
in the works. i doubt that would have been the case ~5 years ago in
the dotcom heyday, for the same reason that zeitgeist-antennas like
spielberg make dystopian movies like 'minority report' when high-
tech is (a) attracting negative cultural evaluations, and (b) is 
turning from movelty to normalcy.

movie-making trends in the US are an abiding mystery, in the same 
way that, say, 'the fashionable colors next season' are a mysteri-
ous operation. in part, it's a production/reception problem: the
studios try to anticipate what the Next Big Thing is, and of course
to capitalize on it, so in that sense it's surely a 'top-down' pro-
cess. but they also hedge their bets -- and the box office is some-
thing of a wild card in deciding where tastes are going. clearly,
'quality' in a parochial kultural sense doesn't play a big part; 
but just as clearly, plain-old 'culture' does.

my guess -- as someone who spent a decade and a half watching the
posters go by, instead of the movies themselves -- is that there's
a very dystopian trend brewing, and that there is indeed a growing
interest in the issues at play in gang films. fwiw.

cheers,
t