Jumpin said:
Perhaps if you didn't edit stuff out of my post, you'd have known my main point is that horseshoe theory has proven true, and there are a lot of puritanical leftists now on top of the puritanical right. You also would have caught which elements of Verhoeven films I was referring to. Instead, you made this about me somehow thinking that Paul Verhoeven films couldn't be done today, which isn't what I said. You'd have also picked up that I was exaggerating when I said they aren't being made today if you (again) didn't edit that part out of my post before responding, this line: "I don't generally fashion myself a slippery slope thinker, so five to ten years down the road, I don't want to ask the question of how long until new films featuring nudity and sex will only be viewable on sites like pornhub?" The trends of less sex and nudity are obvious (outside of horror and indie dark comedy flicks). Streaming picked up the slack and had a golden age in the 2010s, but in the past few years there has been a rapid decline of all these things. I wouldn't say the points your trying to make about Verhoeven vs today's cinema are accurate either. Paul Verhoeven is hyperbolic, yes; visceral, yes. But saying he's cartoony and this isn't around anymore, and that films today are all about realism, doesn't reflect reality. The current top 4 films are a Ghostbusters film, a Dune film, a Godzilla vs King Kong film, and Kung Fu Panda. OK, I'll give you the Mars atmosphere (from Total Recall) and the Ed 209 scenes :D Still fun :D His inspiration is the childhood experiences of wandering around during WW2 and the aftermath, where he saw a lot of sexual stuff and extreme violence. |
I read the rest of your post, I just trimmed it to make it clear what I was responding to. If you didn't mean Verhoeven films couldn't be made today, then perhaps I misunderstood the meaning of sentences like "controversial media was permitted, and widely distributed without having to worry about being extinguished by the puritanical movements". Make of that what you will.
Again, I just fail to see much proof that the changes in cinema are due to puritanical pressures. Art changes. It always has. It seems to me that money and expanding audiences is the primary driver for much of these changes, not loud puritans.
I also want to talk real quick about realism in film, though this is mostly just a tangent. This doesn't mean that there is no sci-fi or fantasy, it largely speaks to how these types of things are done. Think of the opposite of "realism" something like "cartoonishness", not "fantasy". The predominant form of acting nowadays is very naturalistic. Emotions are more subtle and they aren't as blown up and inherently readable. Same with line delivery. You often hear people speaking more like they would in regular conversation (often mumbling or talking over each other or just using ever day vocabulary and speaking styles), and less like they would on a stage or in golden age cinema. The only movie that I've seen of those four is Dune, but I would argue that it is pretty realistic in the sense I am speaking. It is much more grounded and naturalistic than Dune 1984 (and also a much, much better movie). While the setting is unique and there are fantasy elements, how people interact is much more in line with how I'd expect people to act in a Noah Baumbach movie than a Verhoeven movie.
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