Are movies getting better?
It's the Oscars on Sunday, and the betting markets favor Roma for Best Picture. Set in Mexico City in the 1970s, Roma is a gorgeous and evocative film about the joys and struggles of an indigenous housemaid named Cleo. It's also a film that doesn't quite fit the typical Hollywood mold. Shot in black and white, it's a slow-burn, foreign-language flick that lacks A-list stars and a big budget.
But what really sets Roma apart is it went almost directly to streaming on Netflix, which bought the rights to distribute the film. It had a short stint in theaters in order to qualify for awards. Yet, basically, it's an internet film and a perfect symbol of Hollywood's dramatic transformation over the last twenty years. It's part of a broad media revolution--in music, in books, in TV, and, yes, movies--that economist Joel Waldfogel calls a "digital renaissance," which is also the title of his new book.
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Don't see the graphic above? Click here: Growth of U.S.-Origin Movies
"Nobody Knows Anything"
The famous screenwriter William Goldman had a saying about the ability of the movie studios to predict what would be a critical or commercial success: "Nobody knows anything." Waldfogel calls this "Goldman's Law," and he thinks it's important in understanding why opening the floodgates of new content hasn't left us only with a sea of duds.
Yes, the tripling of annual cinema output has brought us more awful movies like Father Of The Year, Future World, and Speed Kills, which all got a whopping 0% on Rotten Tomatoes this year. But the lower cost of making and distributing films with digital technology has also given the industry the ability to take more shots at greatness and reach niche audiences that they couldn't profitably reach before. Most importantly, digital filmmaking has lowered barriers to entry and given birth to a growing "minor league" of indie filmmakers, who can either go it alone with cheap digital production and distribution or prove themselves to the big studios as worthy of investment down the road. The result, Waldfogel argues, is many more cinematic gems.
Also, by the way, our money's on Roma.