On the question of who judges the quality of a film, it is easy to start with a notion that the ultimate judge of a film's quality is the individual moviegoer. As individual moviegoers, this is often what we think we are doing: we have the autonomy "decide for ourselves" if a film is good … Continue reading When Hollywood defines the limits of good cinema
I have recently published a book, titled "The political economy of Hollywood: Capitalist power and cultural production". It is the most comprehensive publication of my political economic research on the Hollywood film business. The book contains new and updated empirical research on the Hollywood film business, both domestically and internationally. Notably, I retrieved a large … Continue reading 2022 – Book – The Political Economy of Hollywood
A survey of academic writing on the business of culture will show that authors seldomly restrain themselves from making predictions or giving recommendations to the hypothetical economic actor. This offering of future-oriented arguments to an audience should not be surprising. The disciplines of economics, business, management studies and public policy teach people to theorize market … Continue reading Making culture rational … with power
Your movie turned out the be a flop? "Nobody knows anything". You mistakenly believed consumers wanted to see a movie set in the 1920s? "Nobody knows anything". You thought your casting decisions were going to be loved by all? "Nobody knows anything". "Nobody knows anything"–this was the opening line of Adventures in the Screen Trade, … Continue reading Hollywood’s mantra: “Nobody knows anything”
Missed Part 1? Read it here. Part 1 introduced Scorsese’s argument in his Harper’s essay, which was about much more than Fellini. The first part also explained how we can connect Scorsese’s essay to the drive in the Hollywood film business for major film distributors to differentially accumulate, i.e., beat a benchmark that is relevant … Continue reading Why Scorsese is right about corporate power, Part 2
What is more pleasurable: reading Martin Scorsese on cinema or reading reactions to Scorsese on cinema? The reactions compete for our pleasure because they reveal how easy it is for someone’s words to make us jump into a debate with two feet and eyes closed. In the March 2021 issue of Harper’s, Scorsese wrote an … Continue reading Why Scorsese is right about corporate power, Part 1
notes on cinema 