East Coast, West Coast

EAST COAST, WEST COAST: FILM AS CULTURE

Commentary by Ron Schaefer

If you’ve watched movies – Hollywood movies – long enough, you may notice that there are (at least) two distinct cultures going on within the movie industry that produces two different types of product, similar in many ways but also different enough to tap into the mindset that produces them. And I’m not talking about genre, or budget size, or independent versus corporate; although all of that plays an influence. Just like Billy Joel will sing about a "New York State of Mind," so too there is a California state of mind that permeates the film industry as a cultural entity that's different from the rest of the country and the rest of the world. It doesn't matter where the writer/director was born: they could be from Dearborn, Michigan, graduated from Princeton, and did a doctorate at Oxford -- when they come to LA they become part of the system, a cog in the machine. And they start turning out product that looks like what everybody else does. This is partially due to marketing, and partially to tradition. Outsiders as well as natives lose their identity and produce work that looks like they've never been outside the Hollywood bubble at any point in their lives. And to guys like me -- that's very noticeable in the work that appears on the screen.

Such product sameness tends to rule out innovation, especially if the power centers – the money – is of a single mindset. It becomes disturbing when the newer producers, the ones most likely to pick up on new writers, new directors, new talent, and new scripts, all looking to make their mark in the industry, think in the old "tried and true" way. Even among independents. Film festivals have really not cured this issue (if indeed we label it a problem) despite their profligacy. New technology (you can now make a movie on your cellphone) and an endless supply of festivals haven’t changed this mindset, only increased the size of the slush pile. And that is because distribution is sky-high (even if production costs in all but the biggest extravaganzas) have come down. And the big guys have the most influence here over the little guys and the multitude of festivals. So what still saturates our lives is whatever Disney, or Netflix, or whoever, is hustling now. A lot of this is based in California, ergo, a California state of mind.

As there is a distinct cultural difference between American and British films, though they both use the same language; as there is a cultural difference between American and French films (ignore the language difference for a moment) as well as between English and French movies; so there is also a distinct cultural difference (generally speaking) between and within American films; mostly noticeable in east and west coast styles and subjects.

And it doesn't, necessarily refer to when/where the writer/director/ or producer was born/raised. It's where the movie was completed now. I may be echoing Woody Allen's depictions here, where New Yorkers are seen to overthink everything, and west-coasters (LA) don't think much at all; but you can see the results on screen. West-coasters tend to initiate/resolve dramatic situations with guns and car-crashes. East-coasters tend to do it with psychological trauma. West-coaster projects tend to be more simple-minded, wanting to spread to the biggest audience and therefore the lowest common denominator in the marketplace. East-coast projects may not have as big of budgets or audience, but are more complex.

Here in the midwest, where I'm from, there is another culture that doesn't get noticed as much (okay, there's all those Chicago TV shows). When represented organically, it offers a different take on things. If that same midwestern project gets financed and built on the westcoast, it becomes Hollywoodized, and the change is noticeable. Like the campaign staff in Jon Stewart's "Irresistable," where an east coast crowd tries to find out what midwestern voters want, and ends up talking down to them, rather than listening. Tyler Perry's Atlanta group may add yet another dimension here as something to watch in the future. None of this is necessarily bad, it just is. Nor is it true for every type of project and every movie-maker. Swedish turned American director, Lasse Hallstrom, for example, is particularly good at doing small-town stories that feel organically rooted in the places the tale is based. Having come from outside the country and starting with small-town stories in his homeland, his adaptability to the American scene is remarkable and seems less pulled by the numbing forces of corporate America. But he is, for the most part an outsider, his movies are small: small budgets and small audiences; and is the exception to the rule.

The problem, as I’m defining it, is, so much of financing and distribution of film still is LA based after nearly a century, that decisions are made as to what the market is, what it will buy, and how it will be made, that such commercial thinking tends dominate, and create stasis. Hollywood loves technical innovation, but not in other ways -- fields. So if you want to write to get movies funded and made -- unless you fundraise yourself -- you join the system and create what they do. The solution to such overwhelming force is simply to have more methods and more ways of financing from other places besides southern California, so that film art and the industry itself is not so static. At the moment there is too much money in too few hands. Disney alone might as well declare nationhood.

Styles and cultures are just that. In classic pop, the Beach Boys represent a west coast form of rock-n’roll; Lou Reed, an east coast version; Ike and Tina Turner, or the Motown groups, a Detroit version; and the Beatles, an English version. It’s all just rock’n’roll, but there are noticeable differences. Same in film. And I believe geography plays a crucial role in establishing it.

When the movies moved out to California they had all this open space at their disposal, cheap land, and no seasons; unlike New Jersey where the industry was born. So they had all this space for westerns and their chase scenes (then the rage) which was limited in NJ. If you look at some of the old silents of Chaplin or Mack Sennet, where they are doing car chases, even down Hollywood and Vine, it looks like a farm field with telephone poles. So the industry grew up around the thinking of big open spaces, action scenes, and chases, and stories were told that way. Unlike NY in which everybody lives on top of each other, and is the home of commercial theater, where stories were told more with character interaction and dialogue, than physical bravado. I believe that remains true. The TV show, Saturday Night Live could not have been born in LA, nor could The Fast & The Furious have been incubated in NY.

For east coast examples, Woody Allen is almost too obvious; but Martin Scorsese is certainly an east coaster. Not just because he is from there and a lot of his movies are set there, but because stylistically, his movies have an east coast cultural feel to them. Steven Spielberg, on the other hand, is obviously a west coaster, despite his diverse catalog. Ready Player One, one of the few Spielberg movies I hated, and I’m a big fan, is pure west coast, with its rapid editing, mish-mash of borrowed material from other movies and sources, fast ADHD pacing, and aim at a 12 year old audience. Michael Bay is pure west coast. So too Shrek, even with its self-deprecating humor to show the filmmakers are in on the joke, is a very west coast culture kind of product. I don’t mean to make it sound that all west coast movies are only for kids, I’m just giving examples.

You can even tell with actors. Actors in the LA system, either because that is where they are placed or because that is how they choose to portray things, are geared more towards stereotypes and looks than actors in NY or Boston who fight their way through little theaters. The “problem,” as I see it, is not this style versus that style, it’s market domination. The heart and soul of the film industry is still LA, despite the “democratization of video” since YouTube. Marketing is still in the hands of the very few and the very big, and they are west coast based, and all of what the rest have created are just bigger and bigger slush piles of everything else. When one group swallows up all the screens with their product because they have the money and influence, you have a domination problem. This is what happens in an age of hyper-capitalism, which is what we are in, when too much money is in too few pots, and these are the ones who decide what everybody else sees (buys). And these deciders decide in favor of what they think the market takes based on their research; and the research is based on what people think they want based on what they have already seen (enter sequel-itis). And that stifles innovation. Movies aren’t the first industry to have this problem, just the most visible. So one has to keep that in mind when one writes a script or makes a film.