"Just imagine how good The Godfather could have been, if only it had been part-funded by the government."I was going to write a post about the UK Film Council, but the Mash piece covers it so well that I'm going to redirect you there.
What Were We Ever Worried About?
8 hours ago
Indeed. That's probably why Hollywood movies are the best - they don't get any govt funding.
ReplyDeleteThe only counter-example I can think of is Top Gun where they were allowed to use those ships very cheaply - and it was probably a worse film as a result.
That's a really interesting example, because the US Military won't co-operate in any movie that isn't basically a pro-military film. Crimson Tide had to have help from the French Navy because the US Navy wouldn't (despite it not being an anti-war film).
ReplyDeleteBut I really don't see why anyone can't just make a movie for themselves now. The gear and the number of people you need is so small now, what with digital video and computer editing. Ken Loach's crappy movies cost about £3-4m, which is just nuts (Soderbergh makes the odd low-budget experimental movie that costs $1m)
The US military also let the Village People use their facilities to record the video for "In the Navy" for reasons I'm guessing they didn't entirely think through.
ReplyDeleteRoss,
ReplyDeleteThere's a rumour that the Village People and the song were going to be used for a campaign for the Navy, until someone pointed out that it might not be a great idea.
Ironically, it was recently discovered that only one of the Village People was actually gay.