Ten Ways to Make Hollywood Hate Your Cinematic Masterpiece

By Sheerly Avni, Truthdig. Posted January 13, 2007.

Here's how Hollywood's "creative tension" between Commerce and Art really works: Commerce lures Art into his lair with roses and chocolate, swears his undying love, and then quickly leaves her for nights away at a nearby strip club called The Bottom Line. Then he throws the furniture and smacks her around the kitchen a bit, just to let her know who's boss, and when she's finally got her bags packed, to move back in with her sister The Theater perhaps -- Commerce shows up with another batch of roses and convinces her to stay.

There's not a lot of love there, but it's how the babies get made.

Take "Children of Men," for example, by Alfonso Cuarón, the Academy Award-nominated director of both "Y Tu Mamá También" and the only good Harry Potter installment. His movie boasts stellar performances by Clive Owen, Chiwetel Efiojor, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. It's based on a critically acclaimed novel by P.D. James, and what a story: a desperate chase set in a dismal England of 20 years from now, on a dying Earth that has been devastated by nuclear bombings, immigration conflicts, plague and environmental damage.

Not to mention the looming end of the human race -- for the past 18 years, no babies have been born. Enter a young pregnant illegal who is therefore mankind's last hope, and you have the kick-ass sci-fi premise of a lifetime. By all rights, "Children of Men" should be a blockbuster.

But as J. Hoberman wrote in the Village Voice last month, Universal has done everything it can to bury its treasure, treating the movie "like a communicable disease." Dumped in limited release on Christmas Day and finally released wide this past weekend to just 1,200 theaters, "Children of Men" still managed to come in third, after "Night at the Museum" and "The Pursuit of Happyness." It has also been included on several critics' top-10 lists, and is currently ranked number one on the New York Times' viewing poll.

Cuarón has pulled off the near-impossible: He's made a big-budget, politically charged, visually stunning film -- complete with hot leads -- that grips as much as it entertains. By following these 10 easy steps, you too can make your own $80-million unpromoted masterpiece.

You don't stand a baby's chance in 2027 of winning an Oscar, but hey, at least you'll keep your integrity.

1. Show no mercy. The fascist government of future London (one of the few surviving nations) supplements its citizens' rations with anti-depressants and a suicide pill called Quietus, which is plugged on the ravaged city's moving billboards with the slogan, "You choose when."

Heroes do not take Quietus. They trade in the right to choose when to die by choosing what to live for. In cinematic terms, that means death can come at any time -- even to someone you love, even in the first act.

2. Crack a Joke. Grim settings do not require grim performances. Joan Didion says that we tell stories in order to live, but Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor knew that jokes are how we bear it.

The humor in this movie, and there is much of it, doesn't lessen its dramatic impact -- rather it helps us connect with these men and women as they struggle to hold on to their humanity in world with no human future. Significant portions, including a car chase in which none of the characters can get their vehicles to start, play like high farce. And even the most essential plot point of the film is revealed not by a text at the bottom of the screen or by a last-minute printed prologue but by a very stoned and barely recognizable Michael Caine telling a joke.

See more stories tagged with: discrimination, art vs. commerce

Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based writer.