Where are the promising filmmakers of the 1990s? Sharon Waxman wants to know:

Mr. Aronofsky, the director of “Pi” and “Requiem for a Dream,” released his latest film, “The Fountain,” in November after working on it for seven years. It quickly sank from sight. Mr. Russell, widely admired for his original mix of comedy and seriousness in “Flirting With Disaster” and “Three Kings,” has dropped from view since his disastrous “I Heart Huckabees” in 2004, and is not close to making a new film. The delightfully absurdist Mr. Jonze, of “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” fame, has spent the last several years making music videos and finally settled on a feature film based on the Maurice Sendak book “Where the Wild Things Are,” planned for release in 2008.

It’s not zero productivity, perhaps, but it is a far cry from the deluge of creative output from young directors in the 1970s, when Hal Ashby fired off seven movies in nine years, including “Shampoo” in 1975, “Bound for Glory” in 1976 and “Coming Home” in 1978. Robert Altman made six films in five years, including “MASH” and “Brewster McCloud” in 1970 and “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” in 1971. And Francis Ford Coppola had a similarly fertile run, with “The Godfather” in 1972, along with “The Conversation” and “The Godfather: Part II” in 1974.

Well, that’s an unfair comparison. But still, she’s got a point. And she floats some possible explanations:

Mr. di Bonaventura suggested that this diminished output had something to do with the extreme scrutiny the filmmakers’ every step receives. … Some mentioned money in discussing the drought: successful writer-directors can make huge fees rewriting other people’s scripts, …

But it is possible that the self-indulgent American culture that shaped these filmmakers and made them so successful in the 1990s has left them ill equipped to take on the weightier questions facing society in the new millennium.

That last one gets my vote.

On the other hand, Manohla Dargis, also writing in the New York Times—in the “Weekend in Review,” which is supposed to give her movie critics’ words more weight or something—writes about the kinds of films (fictional and documentary) that are taking on big quesions and finds them—or us, the audience—wanting.

Most American films about Africa mean well, at least those without Bruce Willis, and even openly commercial studio fare like “Blood Diamond” wears its bleeding, thudding heart on its sleeve. But what, exactly, are we meant to do with all their images, I wonder? Like “The Constant Gardener” and “Catch a Fire,” two other thrillers set in Africa, “Blood Diamond” was designed to make money, not instigate change. Watching Leonardo DiCaprio share the screen with genuine handless black Africans or Ralph Fiennes’s gardener learn a lesson in postcolonial realpolitik while I munch my popcorn doesn’t rouse me to action; it stirs horror, pity, sometimes repulsion, sentiments that linger uneasily until the action starts up again to sweep away that empathy with another explosion, gunfight or rousing chase.

It is exhausting having your conscience pricked so regularly. It may also be counterproductive to the stated aims of the people who make these films. It’s an article of faith that social-issue movies are worthwhile, important, even brave, as people in Hollywood like to insist. But it is naïve to think that these films, including a fair share of the documentaries, are being made on behalf of Africa and its people; they are made for us. They provide us a night’s entertainment and perhaps, for a couple of hours, they may make us think outside the multiplex box. They serve as balm for our media-saturated, fatigued hearts and minds. Like one of those Gap (Product) RED cashmere sweaters, they temporarily wrap us in their fuzzy goodness, shielding us from the chilling world outside.

Well, yes. If they were good films, perhaps we’d feel differently. But good films are rare. And as Cameron Crowe says, there’s no feeling of community:

Hollywood veterans cite the absence of the kind of creative ferment that coursed through the Hollywood of the 1970s, the challenge that one cinematic triumph posed to other artists.

At least that’s what Cameron Crowe, the writer and director of “Jerry Maguire,” “Almost Famous” and the more recent critical disaster “Elizabethtown” suggested, as he was leaving a recent tribute to his hero, Billy Wilder.

“There’s no community,” he said. “We need to encourage one another.” He cited the rivalry between the Beach Boys and the Beatles in the ’60s, when one group’s innovative album spurred the other to do it one better. “It’s like ‘Pet Sounds’ and ‘Sgt. Pepper’s,’ ” Mr. Crowe said. “It becomes a cycle that feeds on itself. One great work leads to another.”

It’s all part of a post-9/11 and post-Internet-bubble-bursting and post-Clinton cultural correction. Or, alternatively, we could just blame it on Bush. But I think it’s the former.

Rosie versus Trump, it’s not. But Fox versus CNN is sorta fun.

from TVNewser.com via Eat the Press
For the benefit of those of you who haven’t been following along, let me take you back to the olden days, two whole years ago, when CNN’s new head honcho was promising to change the landscape of cable news with a special brand of “storytelling.”

Mickey Kaus had this to say:

Lost Remote on the genius of Jonathan Klein’s “on track” CNN strategy. … I know when I sit down at my computer for five minutes with a cup of coffee what I really want is to click on some great storytellin’! How about you?

And Greg Djerejian (also quoting the New York Observer) had this to add:

CNN’s new President, Jonathan Klein, moving the network towards the brave new world of “emo-anchors” and news-readers metamorphosing into poets:

Invigorated by CNN’s coverage of the tsunami disaster, Mr. Klein dissolved the network’s trademark political talk show, Crossfire, while proclaiming a healthy future for “storytelling”—old-fashioned news, soaped up with reality-TV drama and delivered by emo-anchors like Anderson Cooper, the gray-ghost newsman who is becoming the embodiment of the new CNN. It seemed to be Mr. Cooper that Mr. Klein considered the exemplar of what CNN now stood for: a reality-TV “authenticity,” with human dimensions, rather than the stentorian, scripted authority of the network era…Anchor-poet Aaron Brown’s first-person commentary seemed to be another model of the kind, with Mr. Klein describing his reporting on the tsunami as having “almost reached the level of literature.” [emphasis added]

The dumbing down of CNN domestic (CNN international remains tolerable) is truly staggering. The hoisting up of anchors uber-theatrically rippling forth with fake notions of Heideggerian authenticity is risible and part of the problem, of course. So is the conceit that reading the news has anything to do with literature or poetry. Do media executives really believe the American people have become so dumb so that they might, with credulity, imbibe such nakedly self-aggrandizing B.S.?

I dunno. All day long yesterday, over and over and over and over and over again, CNN played the 911 tapes from the devastating storms that hit central Florida.

So: is it called journalism?

Which is more effective—hate-speech laws or the race-tinged animosities broadcast across the Sceptr’ed Isle in Celebrity Big Brother? The Sun tabloid isn’t waiting around for anyone to pass a law or do a study. It addresses race and class issues head-on, if shockingly.

Graham Dudman, the Sun’s managing editor, writes:

We all need to take a stand against racism, which is why we at the Sun have put the issue on the front page.

The idea of this front page was that it was intended to shock. We knew some people would find it offensive that we had used these words. But we had the permission of the children concerned, and their parents, and went ahead after full consultation with Trevor Phillips and the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR).

The point is that, whether we like it or not, this language is in our playgrounds and on the street every day. And it is absolutely wrong. What starts with this kind of racist name-calling is that people are getting marginalised. And that breeds extremism, which leads ultimately, as we saw with 7/7, to young people being willing to cause mayhem and kill innocents by blowing themselves up.

Not everyone is buying, of course:

What then, to make of today’s Sun front-page? On one level, it deserves to be welcomed and applauded. Any message which points out the values and life that we share, that prejudice based both on background and on the colour of our skin is completely unacceptable, and that children especially are often the ones that suffer the most from the unkindness and closed-minds of their peers ought to be celebrated, especially coming from a paper with such a poor history both of promoting forgiveness and tolerance. It’s just that I don’t believe the Sun means it, and there are also far more sinister undertones beneath its apparent road to Damascus-type conversion.

Such as?

[T]he very reason for the Sun running this on their front page has to be related in no small measure to the decision of Shilpa Shetty to sell her story to [the Sun's rival] the Mirror.

Ah, the pressures the free market.

Except: there is something to be said for it, of course. And for pop culture as well, as the brilliant Charles Paul Freund noted in 2003:

A different sort of conflict broke out this summer in the Middle East — one involving reality TV [an Arab American Idol clone called Superstar]. While it offers more evidence that the region is in the grip of a liberationist pop culture frenzy (see “Look Who’s Rocking the Casbah,” June), it also demonstrates that even the region’s pop fandom can fall prey to conspiracy theories and divisiveness. …

Supposedly, the entire Jordanian army had been ordered to vote for Jordan’s contestant. Supposedly, Lebanese leaders had failed the nation by not mobilizing support for Zein. Supposedly, Syria, which controls Lebanon [not anymore, of course --ed.], had exerted itself to control Superstar as well.

And that was a good thing, said Freund, because:

as fan-based cultural identity grows in the region, it expresses itself in terms of the area’s traditional nationalist or sectarian divisions, engendering group enmity and suspicion. The effect of commercial culture, however, is to dissipate conflict by lowering the stakes. Modernist identities (drawing on such influences as fandom) are fluid and changeable; the resulting communities of interest are numerous and temporary. Zein’s fans have now contented themselves with creating a Web site in his honor.

Superstar’s winner, by the way, was Diana Karazone, the singer from Jordan.

Commercial culture dissipates conflict by lowering the stakes—that is a brilliant insight on Freund’s part and a useful one when you throw it into the mix with what Aayan Hirsi Ali and David Kilcullen have to say.
And then you start to think about things in a different way: the aura of rock stardom that, for example, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah has created for himself and his movement: he seems to be seeking (and gaining) fans more than converts.

And then you start to think about the description “[r]ising al-Qaeda star Abu Yehya al-Libi” that Abu Aardvark used (with good reason) the other day when describing a propaganda video.

And then you remember back when France was threatening to ban head scarves in the public schools, Jeremy Harding suggested that maybe somehow the French were less culturally evolved than the British when it came to manipulating cultural “signs”:

In Britain, we know how to nurture an ironic infatuation with signs of difference, status and style. Maybe the flummery and camp of our political institutions and our enthusiastic approval of layering and posturing have helped us to achieve our multiculturalism. That we got usefully from Black Rod’s tights to Ali G’s tracksuit (probably via Dad’s Army) is not going to help us understand the French position, whose Jacobin demand for the transparent citizen is something we recoil from.

And then your head explodes.

And this is when the title of the post says it all (sorta):

“Enlightenment fundamentalist” Aayan Hirsi Ali:

Q. Have you seen any ideology coming from within Islam that gives young Muslims a sense of purpose without the overlay of militancy?

A. They have no alternative message. There is no active missionary work among the youth telling them, do not become jihadis. They do not use media means as much as the jihadis. They simply — they’re reactive and they don’t seem to be able to compete with the jihadis. And every time there is a debate between a real jihadi and, say, what we have decided to call moderate Muslims, the jihadis win. Because they come with the Koran and quotes from the Koran. The come with quotes from the Hadith and the Sunnah, and the traditions of the prophet. And every assertion they make, whether it is that women should be veiled, or Jews should be killed, or Americans are our enemies, or any of that, they win. Because what they have to say is so consistent with what is written in the Koran and the Hadith. And what the moderates fail to do is to say, listen, that’s all in there, but that wasn’t meant for this context. And we have moved on. We can change the Koran, we can change the Hadith. That’s what’s missing.

Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen*** (interviewed by George Packer for “Knowing the Enemy“):

When I asked him to outline a counter-propaganda strategy, he described three basic methods. “We’ve got to create resistance to their message,” he said. “We’ve got to co-opt or assist people who have a counter-message. And we might need to consider creating or supporting the creation of rival organizations.” Bruce Hoffman told me that jihadists have posted five thousand Web sites that react quickly and imaginatively to events. In 2004, he said, a jihadist rap video called “Dirty Kuffar” became widely popular with young Muslims in Britain: “It’s like Ali G wearing a balaclava and having a pistol in one hand and a Koran in the other.” Hoffman believes that America must help foreign governments and civil-society groups flood the Internet with persuasively youthful Web sites presenting anti-jihadist messages—but not necessarily pro-American ones, and without leaving American fingerprints.

Kilcullen argues that Western governments should establish competing “trusted networks” in Muslim countries: friendly mosques, professional associations, and labor unions. (A favorite Kilcullen example from the Cold War is left-wing anti-Communist trade unions, which gave the working class in Western Europe an outlet for its grievances without driving it into the arms of the Soviet Union.) The U.S. should also support traditional authority figures—community leaders, father figures, moderate imams—in countries where the destabilizing transition to modernity has inspired Islamist violence. “You’ve got to be quiet about it,” he cautioned. “You don’t go in there like a missionary.” The key is providing a social context for individuals to choose ways other than jihad.

———–

*** I wrote about Kilcullen here.

Once upon a time, commercial entertainers knew how to grab us by the throat with their absorbing confections of no absolutely no redeeming social value and plenty of pathos. The (mostly) pulp writer Sidney Sheldon, who died recently, was one the masters of the practice [the bolded sentences explain why]:

Kitsch was Mr. Sheldon’s friend. “The Other Side of Midnight” became one of the great potboiler movies, still beloved for its hokum. And if its director, Charles Jarrott, also turned his talents to television adaptations of writings by Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz, he made it abundantly clear why Mr. Sheldon’s material worked best. His characters were simply but impressively drawn. They could climb without having to claw.

By and large, Mr. Sheldon actually made them up. Within the gossip-à-clef genre that now dominates his category of fiction, the ability to do this has grown increasingly rare. Sure, he had a calamity-plagued royal family of American politics — “the Winthrops” — in “The Sky Is Falling.” And there was an all-powerful Greek tycoon with his own island in “The Other Side of Midnight.” But he surrounded these characters with legitimately fictitious ones. He invested their struggles with real and dishy emotion. Readers were drawn to Mr. Sheldon’s stories for seamless soap opera, not for tawdry caricatures of recognizable celebrities. He was capable of dreaming up lives more interesting than Paris Hilton’s, and he did. …

Those were the days—when characters had, um, character. Then

… the world began to pass Mr. Sheldon by. As raw greed, sex, violence and voyeurism became pulp-fiction essentials, his once-daring books began to seem positively genteel. They lacked the necessary malice for today’s market. … They were low on schadenfreude too.

The Age of Malice and Schadenfreude: it’s got rather a nice ring to it.

Business books aren’t just for corporate moguls anymore. Some major hiphop artists-turned-entrepreneurs have gravitated toward the 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene, which started out life as a trade book. As I mentioned a while back, it’s

a quirky Swimming with the Sharks-type manual for winning at the game of life [which sythesizes] strategies from famous historical courtiers and warriors and generals—from Sun-Tzu to Machiavelli to Richelieu.

Reviewers scorned it

“By the 36th law, you start to feel unclean and worried about your own morality,” said one. “By the 44th, you have accepted the fact that you are basically immoral and so is the world. By the time you reach No. 48, you are saying: ‘Right, who is my first victim?’“

But enterprising, ambitious, newly wealthy men in the hiphop busines saw in the book some useful lessons for navigating the shark-infested waters they now swam in.

And now MTV News reports that 50 Cent has teamed up with author Greene to collaborate on a new book, The 50th Law:

The book will be a collaborative project by 50 and strategy guru Robert Greene, whose “The 48 Laws of Power” is a popular pick in the hip-hop world. “50 Cent and Robert Greene will focus on how ‘The 48 Laws of Power’ have helped a new generation of successful power brokers achieve today’s version of the American Dream,” Pocket Books Executive Vice President and Publisher Louise Burke said. The book will also highlight 50’s background and his ability to reconcile his street appeal with corporate savvy. ” ‘The 50th Law’ will capture and create a visible parallel between street life and corporate America standard and structure,” 50 said in a statement. The hardcover book, to be published through MTV/ Pocket Books, is due in February 2008. …

Interesting.

The long knives are out in New York as everyone waits for Giuliani to announce. Today’s Times carries a piece detailing the grievances of his many detractors, from a new “oral biography” of the former mayor. For example:

Lillian Barrios-Paoli, who also served under both mayors, was Mr. Giuliani’s welfare commissioner, among other jobs. She offered another perspective. If Mr. Koch said to his advisers that he wanted to kill all 12-year-olds, she said: “I can think of 10 people who would say, ‘Please, get a life! What, are you crazy? No way!’ And there’d be a big argument and at the end of the day, somebody’s judgment would prevail.

“If Rudy would say, ‘Let’s kill 12-year-olds,’ there would be deep silence in the room, and then somebody would say, ‘That’s brilliant!’ And then somebody else would say, ‘Have you thought of 13-year-olds, too?’ ”

Oooooh. Scary.

A couple of supporters spoke up for Giuliani too:

Mr. Giuliani refused to meet with a number of prominent black leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton. Rudy Washington, who as deputy mayor was the highest-ranking black member of the Giuliani administration, explained why:

“Rudy didn’t play that game: You don’t call me a racist, Al Sharpton, and then expect to meet me and work out a deal. You declare me your enemy, fine. I’m going to be your enemy.”

Yep. That certainly was the feature of Giuliani’s personality that stuck with us New Yorkers.

And now the long national nightmare of the 2008 campaign will be accompanied by a long local nightmare, too. Oh goody.

p.s. the other day I proposed that Frank Luntz might want to work for Washington “outsider” Rudy. In fact the Times piece I quote above informs me that Luntz actually worked for Giuliani in his re-election for mayor campaign. Just goes to show you that when I say I’m not a politico, you should believe me.

Here’s what Luntz says:

Frank Luntz, Mr. Giuliani’s second mayoral campaign pollster, offered another perspective on the former mayor’s personality:

“No one in New York, not even Ed Koch, could equal Rudy in the phrase, ‘He says what he means and means what he says.’

“That’s one of the reasons he won so overwhelmingly in that election. It wasn’t about policy or issues. It was about character.”