Rationale (June)

 

The title that I have chosen for my project blog is ‘Film for film’s sake’ as my research will be about auteurs and their disappearance from Hollywood. My focus would be directors as they can choose if the movie will truly reflect them or they will create whatever the producers demand of them in order to make the most profit.

My focus film will be Last Action Hero as many critics have said that the premise of the film was very interesting and should have been a success but due to the involvement of the wrong people with the wrong intensions it has been called the biggest flop in cinema history. Interviews form the people involved in all the stages of the production have agreed that the involvement of the studio and their obsession with the idea that a big and loud will make them rich.

Similarly I have chosen John Carter and Aloha as support films as they have not been received very well even though their plot was good to begin with.

John Carter was based on a comic series which means that there was plenty of material to work with to get the best characterisation. Unfortunately they let the fans down which created a chain reaction of unsatisfied spectators.

Aloha is another original film which had a good starting plot, but it upset the audience as the casting was based on star power. This resulted in controversy as a partially Chinese character was played by a white American causing it to flop.

These films show that more and more everyday producers, directors and actor make the wrong decisions in order to maximise profit and sometimes this backfires costing them a lot of money and bad representation.

Primary Research:

As evidence I would use scenes such as the main fight scenes in Last Action Hero full of unnecessary ‘bad-ass’ dialogue, explosions and special effects , all to attract a male audience by creating excitement . Instead these scenes are hard to follow and not very interesting to watch.

For John Carter the scene I chose was the one where we first get introduced to the protagonist as it can be argues that the characterisation of the main character is unsatisfactory and not up to the expectations of the fans. 

Similarly for Aloha the scene I chose was the introductory scene for the character of Captain Allison Ng as she has been the reason for the whitewashing controversy as she was portrayed by Emma Stone.

Secondary research:

Many magazines such as Empire magazine or Forbes have mentioned these films alongside comments that they could have been great if they were not compromised by the greed of the makers. Additionally, many websites have questioned the intensions of these producers the same way and wonder whether they care about the product anymore, or just the money.

Additionally I will look into interviews directly from the directors on their own work and the responses from other critics as well as other director expressing their opinions on the intentions of the makers.