Good morning,
Much of what is wrong in the world today is encapsulated in a short exchange that takes place late in the ninth episode of The Offer, the brilliant story of the making of The Godfather, currently streaming on Paramount+.
Here is the scene: One of the “suits” from Gulf & Western (the corporate owner of Paramount at the time) is pontificating about what the entertainment the public needed from the movies. To that executive, this meant producing short films, maximizing the number of screenings each day, avoiding films that lacked depth and instead going for spectacle. To his mind, the movies are escapist fare, the purpose of which is the generation of profits.
Then Bob Evans, the then-head of Paramount, walked in the room. Evans was the executive behind many of the greatest films of the 70s—Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Love Story, and The Godfather, among others. Evans had his pulse on the public mood, understood the revolutionary nature of the times, and had clear ideas of what it takes to create great art, while still generating profits.
He summarized what the great movies had in common, “They break all the rules. They’re not formulaic.” He spoke of not delivering the public what the executives think the public needs. Then he uttered words that resonate to today and many of the issues we face… “We can’t chase after what the audience wants to see. We need to show the audience what it needs to see…”
The movies people currently appear to want to see are loud, filled with computer generated visions of violence, generally with comic book heroes or ridiculous action-figure heroes. And while the movies deliver people what executives believe people want, more thoughtful movies, like Coda, and The Power of the Dog, and much of what is on “quality” streamed TV, deliver what many of us really seek—stories that address the human condition, involve interpersonal conflict, and concern moral virtue. The “mainstream” movies deliver what the executives think will “sell,” ignoring anything that might stimulate people, or make them think, or even make them uncomfortable.
WE NEED TO SEE AND HEAR THAT WHICH WE DON’T NECESSARILY ‘WANT’ TO HEAR
The idea that we should just give people what they “want to see” carries through to our everyday lives. Few people want to be challenged to think differently—to have their ideas challenged. Several years ago, one of our Rabbis was speaking of the need to address climate change in his Yom Kippur sermon. In the midst of that sermon, a conservative friend walked out, whispering to me as he passed by, “I don’t need to stay here and listen to this.” Of course, he doesn’t need to listen, but he should listen. We are in a world of far too much talk and too little listening. We live in a world where many liberals want to ban books with offensive words (typically offensive in our own times but not when the words were written). That same world is where many conservatives want to ban books that have ideas they find offensive. But their mutual desire to impose limits on access is not limited to just books—it also extends to limiting the exchange of ideas.
WHAT THE PEOPLE NEED TO SEE IN POLITICS
Meanwhile, our leaders pander to their perceived constituencies, fueled by polls, focus groups, and handlers. Republicans who know better continue to parrot the “big lie” of a stolen election, and that the January 6th insurrection was just a bunch of angry tourists, or that we needn’t be concerned about the attempts to lock-in election officials that will circumvent the next election’s results. They do it out of cowardice. Were they brave, they would give people what they need—an accurate accounting of the facts and a warning as to the looming dangers.
Would we not be better off if our leaders told the truth to their constituents—that they sat crouched in the capitol fearing for their lives, that a very real group of insurrectionists attacked the capitol and people died, that our president encouraged these people, that our president lied and many around him either amplified his lie, while others around him acknowledged the absurdity and danger of his lie but didn’t act?
WHAT WE NEED FROM BOOKS
But back to books and movies and art that can challenge us and confound us. They can cause us to revisit comfortable assumptions and dare to demand more of ourselves. We need the arts because they allow us to confront issues in narrative, emotive, and creative ways.
Many of you know that I’m a big Levar Burton fan. Not only is he a great actor, with roles including Kunta Kinte in Roots and Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but he was the host of Reading Rainbow, a transformative show that helped reverse the “summer slide” in learning. His catch phrase was “but you shouldn’t just listen to me on this” and then he would have kids give book reviews.
As Levar Burton stated in his interview on The View this month, “Read the books they are banning. That’s where the good stuff is.” Here’s an article about that and the Burton interview: https://bookriot.com/levar-burton-on-book-bans/
Amen.
CONCLUSIONS
What I learned from this series is that we often sell people what they want and not what they need. The movies, the politicians, and the media all sell people too short, selling them what they think people want but they all, instead, should be elevating the entertainment and the conversation.
Have a great day,
Glenn
POSTSCRIPT: BOB EVANS AND PARAMOUNT
The Godfather was produced by Paramount, where Andrea worked. When I told Andrea about The Offer and mentioned Bob Evans, she indicated he was quite a big deal. I have never fully appreciated what goes into the making of movies. The story of the making of this particular movie—arguably one of the greatest ever—is enlightening and extraordinarily entertaining. And this guy Evans is the personification of the Hollywood genius. What else was he behind? True Grit, The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park, Plaza Suite, Harold and Maude, and Serpico. The movies of many of our childhoods.
From the archives:
Simplistically, the people want fast food but need the balanced diet.