Fantasy
films now exert a stranglehold on the world's cinemas in a way
no genre has ever done before. Around the world, Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets and The Two Towers, the second in the
Lord of the Rings trilogy (which opened in Australia this week),
are dominating cinema screenings and reaping millions at the box
office.
This
blanketing of our movie houses may seem excessive, but it is justified
by economic logic: fantasy films are the motor that drives the
movie industry in much of the world. The first Harry Potter film,
The Philosopher's Stone, took $US967 million ($A1.7 billion) worldwide,
making it the second biggest box-office success in history after
Titanic. The second Potter film may well emulate that figure,
and there are five more to come. This year, the first Lord of
the Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, has brought in revenues
of $US860 million; its two successors are expected to do comparable
business.
And
let us not forget the Star Wars series, the granddaddy of the
fantasy genre, which is now 25 years old. When The Phantom Menace
opened in 1999 after a 16-year gap in the series, critics deemed
it a disappointing anti-climax. But the audience ignored them;
the tills jingled to the tune of $US925 million, making it the
third most popular movie ever. This year's Star Wars film Attack
of the Clones has notched up $US638 million; hardly loose change.
Such
dizzying figures look more like the gross national products of
small countries than cinema revenues. But why do films about imaginary
worlds dominate the world's box office?
In
part, it is because of their main target audience. Ask cinema
chain executives to describe their ideal customer and unhesitatingly
they will answer: boys aged between 10 and 14. Why? Because many
boys of this age so love the dense detail of the fantasy worlds
these films depict, they return to see them many times over. They
embrace both major and minor characters, plot minutiae, the arcane
rules that govern these imagined universes, and eagerly learn
more about them on websites, in books, on DVDs and at fan conventions.
As the American critic A.O. Scott has noted, there may be millions
of people "whose grasp of the history, politics and mythological
traditions of entirely imaginary places could surely qualify them
for an advanced degree". A surprising number of these obsessives
are young boys. Of course, there are girls of the same age equally
devoted to fantasy, not to mention adults whose interest goes
back to the first Star Wars film and the Star Trek television
series. But when it comes to repeat visits to fantasy films, it
is the boys who count. This is hardly surprising, for when they
watch these fantasies, they are gazing at idealised versions of
themselves.
The
heroes of the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars series
appeal strongly to boys caught awkwardly between childhood and
adulthood - too old for Dungeons and Dragons, yet too young to
feel at ease around girls. (Sex rarely intrudes in these tales.)
Such boys may feel marginalised at school, overlooked by the adult
world, and generally anonymous and misunderstood. Now consider
where their young heroes started out: Frodo Baggins in a tediously
tranquil enclave of the Shires; Luke Skywalker in a distant outpost
of the Empire; Harry Potter, cowering unhappily in his cupboard
beneath the stairs at the horrid Dursleys.
We
must not forget comic book fantasy, a sub-genre offering heavily
coded morality tales about adolescent rites of passage. Superman
and Batman both enjoyed multi-sequel runs in cinemas, while next
summer promises big-screen re-workings of The Hulk (directed by
Ang Lee) and Wonder Woman. But this year's big winner was Spider-Man,
which grossed more than $US800 million and looks certain to become
another long-running franchise.
Of
course, all these stories conform to the narrative arc of the
ancient, archetypal myths outlined by the scholar Joseph Campbell,
author of The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Such boy heroes begin
in unremarkable places, discover they possess extraordinary gifts,
and set out on voyages, using their gifts to combat evil, overcoming
several obstacles on the way and learning profound truths about
their inner selves. Thus the appeal of these stories seems to
be that they address an innocent desire on the part of young audiences
for untainted heroism. Yet that desire has always been present
in generations of adolescents; so why is it now almost the exclusive
province of fantasy films to fulfil it?
To
a large extent, it is because heroism in other film genres no
longer fits the bill. In the 1950s, sword-and-sandals epics set
during the Roman Empire were all the rage, but looked dated and
irrelevant by the 1960s; it will take more than Russell Crowe
in Gladiator to revive them. Westerns enjoyed a long run of popularity
in cinemas, but since the 1970s, when the brutal treatment meted
out to American Indians by white settlers became an item on American
schools' curricula, cowboy heroism has looked distinctly tarnished.
Around the same time, war movies came under similar scrutiny.
The widespread unpopularity of the Vietnam conflict (especially
among younger people) made it impossible for films to depict cheerful,
gung-ho military heroes. Since then, landmark films from Apocalypse
Now to Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan have
acknowledged the brutality, horror and often the futility of war.
So
where are bright-eyed adolescents to look for heroes? Not in any
of those tainted genres or in real life: it is surely no coincidence
that the upsurge of fantasy films corresponds to the modern world's
tendency to root out faults, weaknesses and scandalous behaviour
in those public figures who aspire to be heroic.
Fantasy
is the one genre that offers up heroism with no reservations.
Harry, Frodo and Luke are forever struggling with dark forces,
and always with the purest of intentions. They seem immutable,
and because they are imaginary creations, stand far beyond the
reach of the carping that can dethrone real-life heroes. As such,
they are hugely reassuring figures for a young adolescent audience;
in their modest way, they offer a way through the thorny thicket
of growing up.
-
Telegraph
Source:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/12/27/1040511174693.html
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