‘Where any view of Money exists, Art cannot be carried on, but War only’
— William Blake
‘I so hate the rich. I really cannot bear their company... but to raise dosh [to make films] I would have to court the rich.’
— John Berger on why he decided not to pursue a career in filmmaking
Name a radical film.
And now name another.
Now name a few more.
You can’t name many
Because there are very few.
Films cost a fortune
And to produce them
You have to spend time with rich
People with money.
They aren’t radical,
On the whole. That’s why they’re rich.
So, you eat their food,
You gulp down their drinks,
Laugh at their jokes then maybe
Get driven about
In plush SUVs.
Fly to Cannes in their Lear Jets
Then laugh at their jokes.
Again and again.
‘I didn’t tell you that one
Before?’ ‘Oh, no. No…’
‘Right. Shoot. Let’s hear it.
Give me the log-line. The pitch.
One sentence will do.’
The attention span
Of the rich is very short.
They have distractions.
A radical film
Might be an amusing thought
But they’ll draw the line
At paying for
Their world to be destroyed.
Hollywood’s algae,
That clouds the human psyche
And exudes a poisonous gas
Is spawned by tainted cash:
Money that’s laundered
From stocks and shares
In Third World Labour
By beady-eyed gamblers
On commodities;
In other words, on people’s food.
Then bloated by profits
From oil and from arms
The rich think that it might be fun
To sink millions into films:
To buy some glamour,
To acquire some reflected stardust
To sprinkle on their trophy wives.
Why do films portray
The lives of the privileged
Disporting their wealth,
Looking alluring,
Physically immaculate,
All bought by money?
Why are criminals
So romanticized in films –
Bonnie and Clyde, and Capone?
Because they’re screen projections
Of the feral rich who are
Backing the business.
‘Let’s see the money
On the screen,’ industry
Bosses boorishly demand,
‘Plus lots of weapons…’
For film bloodbaths
Are PR for the arms trade —
For the MIC, the Military
Industrial Complex.
Which has fingers in every pie,
And he who pays the piper
Calls a profitable tune –
A tune whose repetitious hook-line
Drips blood in perfect time:
‘So let’s please see lashings
Of bone-crushing, flesh-tearing
State-of-the-art long-distance
Thermobaric splatter-guns
And lots of them. Repeat.
Lots and lots and lots of them.
If it bleeds, it leads!’ – Just as
In the newspaper business,
War always trumps peace
And no anti-war film
Gets made unless it can provide
The juiciest gore-fest.
Films serve the system.
Watch the extras on a set,
They’re treated like slaves.
Those in the business
Speak in hushed tones of ‘players’ —
Influential elites,
Hard-nosed bean-counters
Who may ‘play’ but aren’t much fun,
As their antennae
Are tuned to wealth, and
To snorting up the souls
Of those they can exploit
In La La Land’s Californian HQ
Where goodness is no good.
‘Okay, so what’s your pitch –
‘The love lives of the homeless
‘Shot in some tent city?
‘Who’s gonna watch that…?
‘And who are you gonna go to
‘For backing? Campesinos?
‘Peasant farmers? Janitors?
‘Maybe my Mexican gardener?
‘Or my Filipino housemaid?
‘Or my Puerto Rican driver?
‘Or my Haitian bodyguard?
‘Maybe they’ll all back you?
‘Get lost you limey schmuck.’
The stifling algae blooms and
Epiphany fades…
Time spent with the rich
Always means losing your edge,
Somehow or other.
When the Lumière
Brothers produced their first films
In 1895
‘La Poste’ in Paris
Foresaw that, ‘When this device
‘Is available
‘To the French public
‘Everyone will be able
‘To photograph those
‘Who are dear to them.
‘Not just in their immobile
‘Form but also in
‘Their movements, and with
‘Speech on their lips. Then death
‘Will no longer be absolute.’
The very first films of all
Were instantaneously
Latched onto by people
As being something hopeful –
A way of dealing with pain
By assuaging grief
And bettering things.
Instead, millions have been killed
For cinema’s spectator sport
And those in the dark
Like mushrooms, quietly curfewed,
Watch death after death
Whilst La La Land’s territorial,
Egomaniac and bully-boy values
Are judged to be sacrosanct:
‘That’s mine! I’m armed.’
‘This woman is mine.’
‘We’re tooled up and dangerous!’
‘You are history.’
‘Give me the money.’
‘Get your sorry ass out of here.’
‘You’re dead meat.’
Vicious and vengeful scenarios
Devised by dysfunctional nerds
Whom no one would play with at school.
Try to quote any dialogue
That says, ‘Why don’t we share this?’
It’s not how the system works.
Name a radical film
That anaesthetizes war,
Sends money packing,
Has real trees growing
Out of the cinema screen
Bearing tasty fruit
So audiences strip
And become possessed by Pan
Then turn into fauns
Leap into the air…
No, they slink out, glazed and drained,
Blinking like mole rats,
Then shake the dust off their feet,
As if the cinema they’ve just attended
Has sick building syndrome.
What if screens were to vanish?
Everyone would still
See what needed to be done
Without the media
Mediating stuff
Twenty-four frames a second —
Or digitally mincing it all up
Into baby food —
Digestible images
That can usurp life
So that people feel like
They’ve done something
If they’ve just watched
A film about something…
When Lee Harvey Oswald
Shot Kennedy he escaped
From reality
To a movie-house…
He hid in a cinema
To feel more unreal.