No more masterpieces, please

“When access is easy, we tend to favor the short, the sweet, and the bitty. When access is difficult, we tend to look for large-scale productions, extravaganzas, and masterpieces,” writes Cowen. “The current trend—as it has been running for decades—is that a lot of our culture is coming in shorter and smaller bits.” Think 30-second YouTube clips instead of a full movie, iTunes singles instead of complete albums, two paragraph blog posts instead of an entire essay. And now the 140-character limit on Twitter instead of a blog-style free-form text box.

From Ben Casnocha's review of Tyler's Cowen's Create Your Own Economy.

I'm with the attention gnats on this one. It's a very rare masterpiece that I haven't failed to enjoy. I didn't like Ulysses, was terribly let down by Citizen Kane, couldn't understand the fuss over Raging Bull, and not only do I not get 2001: a Space Odyssey but suspect there is not much there to get. I'm sure some of this is simply a reaction against hype: few works of art can survive being acclaimed as a mind-shattering aesthetic event. I'm a chronic anticipator. No sooner has something been proclaimed a masterpiece than I start wondering if I'm going to like it, or be one the dunces who doesn't get it, and laughed out of school. What book or movie or album could possibly survive that anxiety load without at least a slight dip of disappointment?

As time has gone on, and I've gotten more secure in my judgments, another explanation has come to the fore. There is something intirinsic to the masterpiece that I don't like. Something about its masterpieceness. It's the aspiration I think, whether fulfilled or not. Few things are as unattractive as ambition. I tend to prefer "craftsmanlike" or "good" over "masterpiece" and "excellent." I prefer Revolver to Sgt Pepper, Touch of Evil to Citizen Kane, Portrait of the Artist to Ulysses, Mean Streets to Raging Bull, Strangers on a Train to Vertigo. Who wouldn't? Strangers on a train does all the things people go to Hitchock for — the suspence, the plot, the glints of dark humor — whereas the thing that critics like about Vertigo, one suspects, are that it doesn't contain any of those things: the plot's a mess, the suspense sags, and there are virtually no jokes. The same with Ulysses: an anti-novel. So it gets acclaimed as Joyce's best novel. Or Citizen Kane: cinema's box of tricks turned inside out, so it gets to be as Welles's best film. Give me the solid little under-achievers, any day.

The last book but one

While looking for reviews of my new book online, I accidentally turned up some reviews for my last book, Blockbuster, over at livingsocial.com. They come from real readers, not those pale, doughy creatures of the night known as critics. Thanks, guys.

Report abusenoyes

fotini douglas, 10 months ago

As I was a film major at uni this was just like a big film geek flashback that I really enjoyed!
Academic, insightful and witty! No cinematic diatribes here - a great background into the growth of the 'summer' blockbusters in Hollywood and how it has evolved/mutated over the years. Its all about the money!
A film geeks dream - with all the facts and figures on ET, Alien, Star Wars, Indiana, Arnie, Empire, Lord of The Rings - its all there- every biggie ever made!
There is some fantastic insider information collected from years of interviews with the who's who of the film industry. Useful for film buffs and academics alike (a rare mix!) it will inspire you to support the independent film industry and cinemas of the world.
There is some scary $$$$ being spent!

Report abusenoyes

Mark, 10 months ago

An intelligently argued case, by someone who grew up with the first wave of blockbusters (and is pretty much the same age as me, as it happens - he comments on how great it was to be a teen when “Raiders” first opened and, like him, I remember coming out of the cinema and wanting to be an archaeologist!), that attempts to put right the myth that Spielberg and Lucas, between them, killed decent films in Hollywood. Apart from a few niggles (he used “Skywalking” as a source, but makes some elemental mistakes regarding “Star Wars”, which bugged me), this is a good book, encompassing a wide range of films and talking indepth with a lot of directors. Well worth a read.

Report abusenoyes

Doris, about 1 year ago

Hilarously written ... A great read. It's taught me, that whenever I make a film, the characters better be adaptable to toys and other marrketing merchandise for it to make money! But seriously ... a must read for Spielberg and Lucas fans.

Report abusenoyes

Facebook User, about 1 year ago

It's fast-paced, easy to get into, and a thoroughly engrossing story, charting the history of the modern-day blockbuster from Jaws through to Lord Of The Rings.

Report abusenoyes

Facebook User, about 1 year ago

I loved this book. It felt like vindication for all the critics and art movie fans about how what they like is better than everyone. Shone took me back to the joy of seeing Star Wars, Raiders, and Titanic in the theaters. Good stuff.

Report abusenoyes

Susan Pierce Sloan , about 1 year ago

A call to arms for the great blockbuster movies of the 70s and 80s to return and a swift rebuke to anyone who claims that only 'art' movies are any good. I really enjoyed the refreshing approach of this book.

Report abusenoyes

Facebook User, about 1 year ago

Enjoying the background to films of my childhood and which I still love. Looking forward to finally reading 'Easy Riders and Raging Bulls' to allow contrasts and comparisons to be made. Biskind is made to look very selective in the conclusions he draws. Only a quarter of the way in so can't make to much of a judgement...Having completed the book I would recommend it to others although obviously the story of blockbuster films has not yet reached a conclusion as this year's slate of summer films (heading over the $150 million mark, budget-wise) shows.

"Shone manages his difficult task beautifully. In terms of critical analysis, I found his approach much more nuanced - and certainly better written - than Biskind’s "the barbarians have taken the castle" approach. He is eloquent and evocative in his description of the early blockbusters of Lucas and Spielberg, reminding you what was great about the blockbusters of the period. Yet he is equally convincing and entertaining as he charts the gradual debasement of the form those directors pioneered.... late in the book he admits that "the audiences who trot out of Spider-Man seem content enough, and doubtless one of them will one day write a book rubbishing this one, pointing out what a bunch of bores we first-generation blockbuster fans are, still banging on about Raiders of the Lost Ark after all these years." He may well be right, but he is sufficiently rigorous in his approach that whoever tries to do so will need to be thoughtful and convincing if they are to debunk this analysis." — Cinephobia

"If this was food, it would be a giant tub of fresh popcorn, covered in hot, molten butter, with an old-school choc top for dessert... Shone has the eye of a journalist and the discerning aficionado (one each); he treats us as he would wish to be treated. ... check this out. If you're a film fan and you want an alternate perspective on late-seventies, early-eighties moviemaking to Biskind's anti-blockbuster work "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls," then this is what you need." — Illiterarty.com

"It makes a pleasant change to come across a book on film that treats popular cinema as something to be celebrated. Even rarer for that book to treat its subject with intelligence... Shone articulates perceptions I’d not come across before, and which mark him out as a singularly astute commentator... an excellent book." — Youdothatvoodoo.com

The avalanche begins

“An intricate and paradoxical tale about innocence and experience, and the dangers and rewards of being truthful, to thine own self and otherwise” — Keith Miller, reviewing In The Rooms for the Times Literary Supplement

"It is rare for a writer to exhibit such bravery" — Toby Young, The Independent On Sunday

"Readable, amusing... well-written" — The Daily Mail

“[A] cutting comic debut” — Phil Baker, The Sunday Times

So many movies, so little time...

Okay. No time to waste. Going Haiku. (Like Going Rogue. Only more poetic).

500 Days of Summer. Time-hopping sometimes arbitrary. But loved the idea. Loved the Hall & Oates song. Suspicion Zooey Deschanel would have been a little crueller in real life. Always loved her singing voice. Foxy. 

The Hurt Locker. Unbearable suspense. Best film about Iraq. (Not saying much.) Love all bomb defusal movies. But this one best. Guy deserves an Oscar. Never seen him before. Reminded me of Steve McQueen. Unlike most movie tough guys, he's nuts. Suspicion more tough guys are nuts than movies normally let on. Got lost in Whole Foods afterwards. Wandering. Numb. 

Bruno. Laughed like a drain for five minutes. Then felt my soul being slowly sucked out of me. Scenes shorter than Borat. People's hackles raised faster.  Prefer the promotional stunts. Interview on Australian "Rove", for instance. Vatever. 

Life beyond the bottle

No other word will do. For that’s what it was.
Gravy.
Gravy, these past ten years.
Alive, sober, working, loving, and
being loved by a good woman. Eleven years
ago he was told he had six months to live
at the rate he was going. And he was going
nowhere but down. So he changed his ways
somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?
After that it was all gravy, every minute
of it.

— Gravy, by Raymond Carver, from my piece about sober novelists for Intelligent Life.

Some thoughts on healthcare

I recently had kidney-related reasons to sample the best and worst of what the American / British systems of healthcare have to offer. My conclusions are as follows: the British system is a bit like being dressed by Snow's White's tweeting bluebirds, the American system more like waking up in the middle of a five-lane highway.

I exaggerate, of course, but that's healthcare for you: help takes on an almost sacred dimension when you are in genuine need of it. I recently came off the plane at Heathrow with swollen ankles and within a few hours was checked into the ER, moved to a hospital bed, where I stayed for three nights, and from there moved to a renowned kidney specialist unit, where I received expert care for the next two weeks, leaving with as many medications as I could stuff into my suitcase. All for nothing. Free. Gratis. Paid for by the tax-payer dollars which here would have paid for the tiling on the tailfin of a single Patriot missile.

The only cloud on the horizon was what I was going to do when I returned to the US. Would my wife's insurance cover me? She'd just started a new job: would they exclude my kidney disease as a pre-existing condition? I began to wonder whether I would even be able to return at all, without being bankrupted by the medical bills. Eventually we found out that for the next few months at least, the bills would be covered, but it was not easy getting to see a specialist; after a round of calling, precisely zero called back. After much faxing, petitioning, auditioning and tap-dancing, we finally convinced one of these mythological creatures to take a look at me, but the fact remains: If I had not been married, and if my wife had not had a job, I would have been unable to return to the US, period.

As my old editor Andrew Neil argues in this week's Daily Beast:

The NHS is regularly dismissed by U.S. critics of American reform as "socialized medicine." This is strange to trans-Atlantic ears. Most Brits don't think there's anything "socialist" about the NHS—it enjoys all-party support, including all right-of-center parties. The British Conservatives, who gave the world privatization under Margaret Thatcher, are totally committed to a national health service, tax-funded and free at the point of use (and Mrs. T never challenged these principles either). The parties disagree about how to run it—the Conservatives and the Blairites want less central control, more patient choice, less bureaucratic distribution of resources—but all are agreed on the basic principle behind it.

And that's not just true of Britain. The fact is that all mainstream right-of-center parties across continental Europe regard some kind of national health service covering everybody and largely free at the point of use as not particularly "socialist." There is broad consensus on the left, right and center about this. Most people don't think of it as socialized medicine—just a key feature of a modern, rich, civilized society. When you try to explain this to those opposing a health-care overhaul in America, either they don't believe you or think you're making it up. It is striking just how far apart America's Republicans (and anti-reform Blue Dog Democrats) are from what should be their natural European allies, like the British Conservatives, the French Gaullists, and the German Christian Democrats on this issue.

The fact is health care on both sides of the Atlantic is rationed: in Britain, it is rationed by queue (though with the billions of pounds thrown at the NHS in recent years the queues are diminishing) and in America by price (no health insurance, no right to health care). Americans might like to ponder that it is better to be in a queue for health care that not qualify for any at all—which is the plight of those 47 million Americans who have no health insurance.

In England, Ive seen a sister treated for cancer, a grandfather receive a hip replacement, a mother hospitalized with a slipped disc. Ive been treated for a corneal ulcer and kidney sclerosis. And I can't remember anyone having to wait for any of it. I didn't once encounter a bureaucrat or feel the government inserting itself between me and my doctor. In America, however, I spent a full year trying to get reimbursing for my medical expenses by a company whose primary purpose in life, it seemed, was to give a no answer. By the end of that year, I had both my medical expenses and my insurance costs. One was bad enough but both? And yet this is the system that has Republicans beaming with pride — what they call "the best healthcare system in the world". Everything else is "socialism." They remind me of Plato's cave-dwellers, convinced that nothing lies outside their cave, openly mocking all this hearsay about "sunlight" and so-called "fresh air."

Where is the Situation Room?

The Situation Room is a show on CNN, hosted by Wolf Blitzer, named after the room in the white house where the president goes to huddle with advisors and make important foreign policy decisions. Beyond that, all is confusion. On some occasions, Blitzer invites viewers to join him in the Situation Room, thereby implying that it is the studio in which he stands, boasting an impressive bank of TV screens. Very Situation Roomish. But on other occasions he will say to viewers "You're in the situation room," implying that the viewer is in the Situation Room, or maybe that the room is more a state of mind than an actual place. So which is it? The room in which Wolf is talking or the room in which I am watching Wolf talk?