Movies – Page 10 – artdiamondblog.com

American Gangster as Destructive Entrepreneur

Source of image: http://celebritywonder.ugo.com/wp/Denzel_Washington_in_American_Gangster_Wallpaper_12_1280.jpg

William Baumol famously categorized entrepreneurs as productive, unproductive, or destructive. (Somewhat similarly, Burt Folsom distinguished market entrepreneurs from political entrepreneurs.) Baumol’s view is that we cannot much influence the supply of entrepreneurs, but good policies can increase the percent of entrepreneurs who are productive.
Frank Lucas, at least as portrayed in the 2007 film American Gangster, is an apt example of the destructive entrepreneur. As portrayed by Denzel Washington, the character is intense, willing to take risks, and works hards. There is a scene where Lucas argues that the quality of his product (cocaine) must not be adulterated, because his business depends on his customers knowing that his brand is better than that of competitors. He finds ways of making his supply chain shorter, and his distribution system more trustworthy (by hiring brothers and cousins).
One can easily imagine that with different incentives and constraints, the Denzel Washington character might have brought the world a product that made the world better, rather than worse.

The Baumol article mentioned is:
Baumol, William J. “Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive.” The Journal of Political Economy 98, no. 5, Part 1 (Oct. 1990): 893-921.

The Folsom book mentioned is:
Folsom, Burton W. The Myth of the Robber Barons. 4th ed: Young America’s Foundation, 2003 (1st ed. 1987).

“Mystified by an American Disdain for Its Own Business Culture”

“Paul Holland and Molly Davis, producers of a new documentary, “Something Ventured,” that gives an admiring look at innovators and investors from the past.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B3) The film, “Something Ventured,” is a frankly admiring look at those who went out on a limb to back upstarts like Atari, Cisco Systems, Genentech and Apple.
. . .
But the film’s beating heart is captured by Tom Perkins, whose Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers company backed the gene-splicing technology of Genentech, among other things. “It’s great if you can make money and change the world for the better at the same time,” said Mr. Perkins, . . .
Other stars of “Something Ventured” include Nolan Bushnell of Atari; Sandy Lerner of Cisco; Jimmy Treybig of Tandem Computers; and a string of venture capitalists, among them Don Valentine, Dick Kramlich, and Arthur Rock.
Many who appear joined dozens of other business people to finance the picture’s roughly $700,000 cost with contributions of a few thousand dollars each, Mr. Holland said.
In becoming involved, several participants said they wanted to rekindle an entrepreneurial spirit that had either waned or changed since the rough-and-tumble years when, by the film’s telling, Atari was started with $250 but needed capital to push Pong, and Mr. Bushnell passed up a chance to own a third of Apple, started by his employee Steve Jobs, for $50,000.
. . .
Mr. Valentine, . . . , said entrepreneurship had not ended — his company was a force behind Google — but it is less often coming from those born in the United States.
“You don’t understand what you have here” is a constant refrain, he said, from Southeast Asian and Indian innovators who are sometimes mystified by an American disdain for its own business culture.

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL CIEPLY . “A Film About Capitalism, and (Surprise) It’s a Love Story.” The New York Times, Week in Review Section (Sun., March 8, 2011): 8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story is dated March 7, 2011.)

The Anecdote for Malignant Perfectionism: “I’ll Fix that in My Next Piece”

“Jeanne Moreau and Orson Welles in ‘Chimes at Midnight,’ a 1965 Shakespeare-based film that’s recently been restored.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. D8) Every great artist, . . . , strives for perfection. In fact, that’s part of what makes them great: They’re never entirely satisfied with anything that they do. The classical pianist Artur Schnabel once remarked that he was only interested in performing music that was “better than it can be performed…unless a piece of music presents a problem to me, a never-ending problem, it doesn’t interest me too much.” This sums up the plight of all serious artists: They lead lives of endless frustration, struggling to reach the top of the hill, then seeing another, higher hill just beyond it.
. . .
Alas, that kind of suffering goes with the territory. The trick, as every artist knows, is not to let it interfere with getting things done. The wisest artists are the ones who finish a new work, walk away and move on to the next project. Whenever a colleague pointed out a “mistake” in one of Dmitri Shostakovich’s compositions, he invariably responded, “Oh, I’ll fix that in my next piece.”
The road to malignant perfectionism, by contrast, starts with chronic indecision. Jerome Robbins, whose inability to make up his mind was legendary throughout the world of dance, was known for choreographing multiple versions of a variation, then waiting until the last possible minute to decide which one to use. Beyond a certain point, this kind of perfectionism is all but impossible to distinguish from unprofessionalism, and Mr. Welles reached that point early in his career. . . .
. . .
Mr. Welles’s problem was that he wanted it both ways. He was a perfectionist who expected his collaborators to sit around endlessly waiting for him to make up his mind–and to pay for all the overtime that he ran up along the way. Simon Callow, his biographer, has summed up this failing in one devastating sentence: “Any form of limitation, obligation, responsibility or enforced duty was intolerable to him, rendering him claustrophobic and destructive.” That’s the wrong kind of perfectionism, and it led, as it usually does, to disaster.

For the full commentary, see:
TERRY TEACHOUT. “The Snare of Perfectionism: When Artists Aim Too High.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., July 22, 2011): D8.
(Note: ellipsis in Schnabel quote was in original; other ellipses added.)

“A Passion for the Ambition of Walt”

Jon Favreau. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 11) You’ve announced you won’t be doing the third “Iron Man” movie, in order to make “Magic Kingdom,” which is a Disney movie about a family that gets caught inside Disneyland. A movie produced by Disney about a Disney theme park? It sounds a little cynical.

That’s my Rubik’s Cube that I have to solve on this one. I found a writing partner in the novelist Michael Chabon, who shares a passion for the ambition of Walt.

For the full interview, see:
ANDREW GOLDMAN. “TALK; Jon Favreau, From Swingers to Aliens.” The New York Times Magazine (Sun., July 31, 2011): 11.
(Note: bold in original, indicating comments/questions by interviewer Andrew Goldman.)
(Note: the online version of the interview is dated July 29 (sic), 2011.)

Zuckerberg: ”Filmmakers Can’t Get Their Head around the Idea that Someone Might Build Something because They Like Building Things”

Marc Andreessen. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 13) After hearing a story about Foursquare’s co-founder, Dennis Crowley, walking into a press event in athletic wear and eating a banana, I developed a theory that bubbles might be predicted by fashion: when tech founders can’t be bothered to appear businesslike, the power has shifted too much in their favor.

Believe it or not, this goes deep into the interior mentality of the engineer, which is very truth-oriented. When you’re dealing with machines or anything that you build, it either works or it doesn’t, no matter how good of a salesman you are. So engineers not only don’t care about the surface appearance, but they view attempts to kind of be fake on the surface as fundamentally dishonest.

That reminds me of Mark Zuckerberg’s criticism of ”The Social Network.” He said that ”filmmakers can’t get their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.”

Aaron Sorkin was completely unable to understand the actual psychology of Mark or of Facebook. He can’t conceive of a world where social status or getting laid or, for that matter, doing drugs, is not the most important thing.

For the full interview, see:
ANDREW GOLDMAN. “TALK; Bubble? What Bubble? Marc Andreessen, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capitalists, has no fear.” The New York Times Magazine (Sun., July 10, 2011): 13.
(Note: bold in original, indicating comments/questions by interviewer Andrew Goldman.)
(Note: the online version of the interview is dated July 7, 2011 (sic).)

“He Was Cool Before Cool Became Cool”

“Humphrey Bogart starred in “The Maltese Falcon” in 1941.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. C4) He was the very image of the quintessential American hero — loyal, unsentimental, plain-spoken. An idealist wary of causes and ideology. A romantic who hid his deeper feelings beneath a tough veneer. A renegade who subscribed to an unshakeable code of honor.

He was cool before cool became cool.

For the full review, see:
MICHIKO KAKUTANI. “BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Talent Is What Made Him Dangerous.” The New York Times (Fri., February 15, 2011): A18.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 14, 2011.)

“Gambles on Original Concepts Paid Off”

“One surprise hit was “Inception,” with Leonardo DiCaprio.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

I thought the movie “Inception” was a wonderful, intellectual and adventure thrill ride. And if memory serves, what they were trying to instill in the conflicted inheritor of a monopoly, was that he should become more entrepreneurial.

(p. B1) As Hollywood plowed into 2010, there was plenty of clinging to the tried and true: humdrum remakes like “The Wolfman” and “The A-Team”; star vehicles like “Killers” with Ashton Kutcher and “The Tourist” with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp; and shoddy sequels like “Sex and the City 2.” All arrived at theaters with marketing thunder intended to fill multiplexes on opening weekend, no matter the quality of the film. “Sex and the City 2,” for example, had marketed “girls’ night out” premieres and bottomless stacks of merchandise like thong underwear.

But the audience pushed back. One by one, these expensive yet middle-of-the-road pictures delivered disappointing results or flat-out flopped. Meanwhile, gambles on original concepts paid off. “Inception,” a complicated thriller about dream invaders, racked up more than $825 million in global ticket sales; “The Social Network” has so far delivered $192 million, a stellar result for a highbrow drama.
As a result, studios are finally and fully conceding that moviegoers, armed with Facebook and other networking tools and concerned about escalating ticket prices, are holding them to higher standards. The product has to be good.

For the full story, see:
BROOKS BARNES. “Hollywood Moves Away From Middlebrow.” The New York Times (Mon., December 27, 2010): B1 & B5.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated December 26, 2010 and has the title “Hollywood Moves Away From Middlebrow.”)

Impressions of the Movie Atlas Shrugged, Part 1

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was the most important book of my youth. I still believe that it is an important, and mainly good, novel.
My brother Eric asked me what I thought of the Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 movie that my family went to see on Saturday afternoon (4/16/11). I sent him these first impressions:

I think some of the people making the movie probably meant well—but it turned out pretty wooden.

Rearden is the main male character in the movie, and the range of his facial expressions is between mildly annoyed and mildly amused.
There isn’t anger or passion or joy or fear in the movie, although all of those were in the first part of the book. Watching the movie is like watching a set of dramatized homilies.
The hokey scenes of a shadowy John Galt, kill some of the suspense. (And dressing him in a 1940s fedora seems awkwardly atavistic, given that the movie is supposed to be taking place in 2016.)
It wasn’t all bad. There are some nice scenes of a fast train traveling through Colorado and over a sleek bridge of Rearden metal. And I agree with many of the homilies.
Overall, I wasn’t appalled, but I was disappointed.

Roy E. Disney as a “Real-life Jiminy Cricket”

“Roy E. Disney, shown in 1996, was considered a tough and outspoken critic of top executives at the Walt Disney Company.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B18) LOS ANGELES — Roy E. Disney, who helped revitalize the famed animation division of the company founded by his uncle, Walt Disney, and who at times publicly feuded with top Disney executives, died on Wednesday in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 79.

His death, at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, was caused by stomach cancer, a spokeswoman for the Walt Disney Company said. Mr. Disney, who had homes in Newport Beach and the Toluca Lake district of Los Angeles, was the last member of the Disney family to work at the entertainment conglomerate built by his uncle and his father, Roy O. Disney.
As a boy the younger Roy would play in the halls of his uncle’s studio, where animators often used him as a test audience as they toiled on movies like “Pinocchio.” As an adult he helped bring the animation studio back from the brink, overseeing a creative renaissance that led to “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”
But the soft-spoken Mr. Disney was primarily known for a willingness to question the company’s top managers, aggressively and publicly, when he felt they were mishandling the family empire. Some people in the company referred to him as its real-life Jiminy Cricket: a living conscience who was at times intensely disliked by management for speaking out.
. . .
Returning to the company in 1984, Mr. Disney set about revitalizing the floundering animation division. He obtained financing, for instance, for a computerized postproduction facility, helping to make possible the revolving ballroom scene in “Beauty and the Beast.”

For the full obituary, see:
BROOKS BARNES. “Roy E. Disney Dies at 79; Rejuvenated Animation.” The New York Times (Thurs., December 17, 2009): B18.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

The Story of Spielberg’s “World-Changing Movies” Deserves “a Detailed, Impassioned and Insightful Telling”

(p. 20) . . . , LaPorte combines tabloid celebrity worship with an older oddity: the incongruous fact that a free market also produces resentment, especially when a competitor like Spielberg demonstrates leadership, superior achievement and undeniable success. He’s one of the few filmmakers still committed to exploring the human condition — and in popular terms. This is what sets him apart and makes him admired, envied and even inscrutable to those who think only in craven terms of business and royalty.

. . .
So it’s a tabloid book. We can only hope it doesn’t become the historical record. LaPorte undermines her research with a headachy repetition of anonymous informants (“one insider,” “one former executive,” “one source”). She concludes that “inherent in all of it was hubris.” But a story this significant, about world-changing movies, doesn’t need homilies. It needs a detailed, impassioned and insightful telling, one that would help us better appreciate a frequently misunderstood, underinterpreted pop artist whose work connects with the public, defines the complexities of human experience and dwarfs most of contemporary Hollywood’s output. DreamWorks calls for a sensitive sociologist — a Tom Wolfe or a Norman Mailer or a Pauline Kael — who can discern the deep, divided heart of Hollywood.

For the full review, see:
ARMOND WHITE. “The Big Picture.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., July 11, 2010): 20.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review is dated July 9, 2010.)

The book White credibly pans is:
LaPorte, Nicole. The Men Who Would Be King; an Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called Dreamworks. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.

UFT “Trying to Deny Poor Parents Choice for Their Children”

Madeleine Sackler. Source of image: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) ‘What’s funny,” says Madeleine Sackler, “is that I’m not really a political person.” Yet the petite 27-year-old is the force behind “The Lottery”–an explosive new documentary about the battle over the future of public education opening nationwide this Tuesday.

In the spring of 2008, Ms. Sackler, then a freelance film editor, caught a segment on the local news about New York’s biggest lottery. It wasn’t the Powerball. It was a chance for 475 lucky kids to get into one of the city’s best charter schools (publicly funded schools that aren’t subject to union rules).

“I was blown away by the number of parents that were there,” Ms. Sackler tells me over coffee on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, recalling the thousands of people packed into the Harlem Armory that day for the drawing. “I wanted to know why so many parents were entering their kids into the lottery and what it would mean for them.” And so Ms. Sackler did what any aspiring filmmaker would do: She grabbed her camera.
. . .
But on the way to making the film she imagined, she “stumbled on this political mayhem–really like a turf war about the future of public education.” Or more accurately, she happened upon a raucous protest outside of a failing public school in which Harlem Success, already filled to capacity, had requested space.
“We drove by that protest,” Ms. Sackler recalls. “We were on our way to another interview and we jumped out of the van and started filming.” There she discovered that the majority of those protesting the proliferation of charter schools were not even from the neighborhood. They’d come from the Bronx and Queens.
“They all said ‘We’re not allowed to talk to you. We’re just here to support the parents.'” But there were only two parents there, says Ms. Sackler, and both were members of Acorn. And so, “after not a lot of digging,” she discovered that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) had paid Acorn, the controversial community organizing group, “half a million dollars for the year.” (It cost less to make the film.)
Finding out that the teachers union had hired a rent-a-mob to protest on its behalf was “the turn for us in the process.” That story–of self-interested adults trying to deny poor parents choice for their children–provided an answer to Ms. Sackler’s fundamental question: “If there are these high-performing schools that are closing the achievement gap, why aren’t there more of them?”

For the full interview, see:
BARI WEISS. “THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW; Storming the School Barricades; A new documentary by a 27-year-old filmmaker could change the national debate about public education.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., JUNE 5, 2010): A13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the first paragraph quoted above has slightly different wording in the online version than the print version; the second paragraph quoted is the same in both.)