Great film, but no market for it: Sorry...

[audadvnc]

Now I and all my worker friends own the means of production, but we're still broke. So much for Marx...

[MovieStuff]

Now I and all my worker friends own the means of production, but we're still broke. So much for Marx...

Groucho, Harpo or Chico?

Roger

[steve hyde]

Free Market ideology is founded on the assumption that individual freedoms are guaranteed by freedom in the Market.....

No it isn't. A free market was never founded in the literal sense. There was never a group of business people that got together long ago and signed some sort of declaration-of-independence-type-magna-carta-thingy that established rules of order for operating the market place that guaranteed anything to anyone, Steve. The market we see today is simply an evolution of the same market that has existed for thousands of years, since the time that someone first traded water for yak meat. As I noted before, a free market is to benefit the buyer, not the seller. The idea that a free market somehow offers guarantees for the seller is a myth, ironically, older than the notion of supply and demand that you feel is so antiquated.

Roger

....I really don't follow your logic and I probably haven't done a very good job of explaining my own views. In the interest of transparency and free exchange of ideas I will say that this book offers a very insightful history of the current neo-liberal moment. Starting from the CIA supported overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government in Chile in 1973 to increasing liberalization under the Thatcher and Reagan governments, to the rise of inflation and decline of Real Wages in the United States and the growing gap between the rich and poor and accumulation through dispossession world wide in the globalized economy.
It clearly shows how free trade adds up.

I recommend it.



Source:
http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/genera ... 0199283279

EDIT: Also consider listening to some critical discussions on neoliberalism on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?u ... Speech&p=r


Do you have any reading suggestions for me? I'd like to understand where you are coming from..

Thanks for discussing.

Steve

[MovieStuff]

....I really don't follow your logic and I probably haven't done a very good job of explaining my own views. In the interest of transparency and free exchange of ideas I will say that this book offers a very insightful history of the current neo-liberal moment. Starting from the CIA supported overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government in Chile in 1973 to increasing liberalization under the Thatcher and Reagan governments, to the rise of inflation and decline of Real Wages in the United States and the growing gap between the rich and poor and accumulation through dispossession world wide in the globalized economy.
It clearly shows how free trade adds up.


Do you have any reading suggestions for me?

Nothing beyond what I have already written in this thread. Respectfully, I have no idea where you are going with this. We were talking about your perception that a free marketplace is suppposed to equal a fair market and how that relates to people trying to hawk their films in a market dominated by corporate values. Now you are talking about free trade. The "free marketplace" and "free trade" aren't even remotely related. One is conceptual and everchanging and the other is based on international trade agreements across borders. So you've lost me there, Steve.

Your original beef was how this director had made a doc that wasn't getting the success it deserved and how the powers that be were in confluence to prevent little guys like him from succeeding. My position is that everyone that is successful now was a "little guy" at one time. It is human nature to not be satisfied with what you have. The free marketplace doesn't stand for "fair trade". The free marketplace benefits the consumer because it encourages competition at all levels. But there was never anything fair about it in my lifetime. It has always been and will always be that people with the power (as I described before) will have a leg up on those that don't. But, make no mistake, those that don't have the power want it. What they do with it is hard to legislate.

Roger

[steve hyde]

Thanks Roger. I wanted to highlight the film because it is so remarkable and I also wanted to speculate about why major distributors didn't pick it up. I thought that would be interesting to discuss. I think it was.

No grand conclusions of course. Speculation is speculation. Also an opportunity to discuss some ideas that I think are really important and problematize neo-classical economic theory.

Anyway, probably the wrong forum for all that. You seem to enjoy it though.

all the best,

Steve


And read that book I suggested and let's discuss.

[ccortez]

Thanks to all for an energetic and considered discussion.

My only addition:

It is true that the public shows preference in the marketplace by choosing one product over another. And it is also true that the public chooses from among the things that are put in front of them.

I believe that there are indeed amazing films being made and distributed these days that might be preferred over much of the dreck that is bought and sold by Hollywood. It's very hard to be heard above the advertising noise that scores of millions of dollars can generate. Hollywood is probably more inclined to fund the production of a fairly expensive indy film to the tune of 10 million than they are to fund the promotion of an indy film at the same level as Shrek 9 which probably ranges into the hundreds of millions.

I guess it's the same reason neither Mike Gravel nor Ron Paul will ever be president. The public might choose them if they didn't get 5 minutes during a 90 minute debate while the "top tier" candidates get 3 or 4 times that. ;-)

[Nigel]

You know what??

Being able to get your film seen via Netflix nationwide is pretty damn good.

With the publicity the film has gotten it should rent very well. No need to cry in your beer over that.

Lets put the economics to rest.

Good Luck

[npcoombs]

I think an interesting and unexplored angle in this debate is the extent to which postmodern, liberal-democracies have increasingly tended towards infantalisation of the individual and the invocation of fear.

This could have something to do with as the intensity of capitalism increases, so too does the division of labour and hyper specialisation. Add to this the third-way interventionist government (who protects us from the rough edges of the market) and we increasingly have a population unable to look after themselves, always look for safety, protection, voices of authority to protect them, but not challenge them.

This is why I think the era of the grand-modernist works is over. Films like those by Kubrick, Bergman, Antonioni, Tarkovsky appealed to a generation looking to make sense of the world and bring meaning to it. The big questions were not frightening but exhilarating. There were social movements, the Marxist-political project/narrative; all that is over now.

Technology has synergised with these trends too. Quick, instant gratification is what people want. Where we do tend to still see a curiosity on the viewer's part it is usually into other cultures and lifestyles. Thus Zizek put it: multiculturalism as the ideology of late capitalism.

None of this answers Steve's fundamental question of why Iraq in Fragments has received no distribution in the States.

The media is definitely highly responsible, but so too is the passivity of those who uncritically receive it and found their ideology on it.

[MovieStuff]

I think an interesting and unexplored angle in this debate is the extent to which postmodern, liberal-democracies have increasingly tended towards infantalisation of the individual and the invocation of fear.......

I think another interesting and unexplored angle to this debate is how someone without any related point to add feels compelled to drain his thesaurus on a single thread, using 20 words to say what most people would in 10, just to create the illusion of superior intellect.

All I can say is that I believe the USA to be one of the least educated countries in the world (on average) with a population who (again in general) luxuriate in ignorance about all things to do with the rest of the world and intellectual matters.

I'm sure they're smart enough to recognize an insult when they hear one. :roll:

I know there are of course many, many wonderful exceptions to this generalization.

Ooooh. I'm getting the warm fuzzies from your use of the words "wonderful exceptions". I can only imagine the type of greeting cards you would design for Hallmark. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Roger

[npcoombs]

I think an interesting and unexplored angle in this debate is the extent to which postmodern, liberal-democracies have increasingly tended towards infantalisation of the individual and the invocation of fear.......

I think another interesting and unexplored angle to this debate is how someone without any related point to add feels compelled to drain his thesaurus on a single thread, using 20 words to say what most people would in 10, just to create the illusion of superior intellect.

Er, you understood every word I'm sure and I got the point across with the minimal amount of fuss. Exactly which words do you think I would have to pull from the thesaurus?! :? Geez, talk about a paradigmatic example of my main point!

[MovieStuff]

Geez, talk about a paradigmatic example of my main point!

Hilarious.

par·a·dig·mat·ic

1. Of or relating to a paradigm.
2. Linguistics Of or relating to the set of substitutional or oppositional relationships a linguistic unit has with other units, such as the relationship between (n) in not and other sounds that could be substituted for it in the same context, like (t) and (p). Together with the set of syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations describe the identity of a linguistic unit in a given language.

Perhaps you meant the Greek "paradeigmatikos", which means to serve as a model of. But, as it stands, the word "paradigmatic" is meaningless in the context you've used it.

Roger

[npcoombs]

Geez, talk about a paradigmatic example of my main point!

Hilarious.

par·a·dig·mat·ic

1. Of or relating to a paradigm.
2. Linguistics Of or relating to the set of substitutional or oppositional relationships a linguistic unit has with other units, such as the relationship between (n) in not and other sounds that could be substituted for it in the same context, like (t) and (p). Together with the set of syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations describe the identity of a linguistic unit in a given language.

Perhaps you meant the Greek "paradeigmatikos", which means to serve as a model of. But, as it stands, the word "paradigmatic" is meaningless in the context you've used it.

Roger

It was in italics for a reason. Glad you looked it up!

Feel like responding to my point? i.e. the problem with contemporary society is infantilisation and cinema distribution problems are just a symptom of a wider problem, no solely reducible to the the notion of cultural hegemony Steve is advocating.

[MovieStuff]

It was in italics for a reason. Glad you looked it up!

Realizing I don't have the experience that you do in looking up big words, I'll take that as a compliment.

Feel like responding to my point?

Feel like apologizing for being a pompous ass? (look it up if you don't know what it means)

i.e. the problem with contemporary society is infantilisation and cinema distribution problems are just a symptom of a wider problem, no solely reducible to the the notion of cultural hegemony Steve is advocating.

ZZZZZZZZZZ......

Roger

[npcoombs]

Feel like apologizing for being a pompous ass? (look it up if you don't know what it means)

Er, no, if you don't want a discussion, don't post, if you have nothing to add or respond to in my points. Sleep then.

[npcoombs]

All I can say is that I believe the USA to be one of the least educated countries in the world (on average) with a population who (again in general) luxuriate in ignorance about all things to do with the rest of the world and intellectual matters.

I'm sure they're smart enough to recognize an insult when they hear one. :roll:

Yeah well I'm one of the least nationalistic people you will ever meet. Britain is one of the most class-ridden elitist countries in the world. Not an insult - a fact!