@Nathanatos22

2 years ago

Among cinephiles, the topic of stagnation of innovation in film in has certainly been at the forefront for at least the past decade. Interestingly enough, the theme of tension between art and commerce is central in Birdman, the film that won best picture in 2014, the same year Ghosts of my Life was published. It’s easy to be cynical in a society where highly derivative films like The Avengers and its prolific sequels dominate the box office; but even in this environment, innovation persists. For example, in Nomadland, Chloe Zhang combines Italian neorealist themes with a Malickean aesthetic to produce an entirely unique vision that could very well influence this decade’s directors. Even Birdman itself combines the theatricality of Hitchcock’s Rope with the magical realism popularized by Latin-American literature and their subsequent films to unique effect. Such films are not niche; I point these out specifically because they are the ones garnering enough attention to win Oscars. The same could be argued, perhaps even more strongly, for other mediums like television where recent shows like Breaking Bad have elevated the medium to a level not known in the previous century. I feel compelled to say all this because it’s easy to succumb to the malaise that appears to be omnipresent on the surface—but below that surface is an abundance of artistic novelty that I believe provides us ample reason for optimism.

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