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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: American movies abroad [was Re: International Language.
Message-ID: <1995Jan12.081935.27907@midway.uchicago.edu>
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References: <3ek5e3$m2n@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1995Jan7.214953.26905@midway.uchicago.edu> <D28A3v.1o3u@austin.ibm.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 08:19:35 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang.translation:641 sci.lang:34231

This is drifting rather far from language issues.  Can anyone suggest
a new home for this thread?

In article <D28A3v.1o3u@austin.ibm.com> olivier@glasnost.austin.ibm.com writes:
>
>In article <1995Jan7.214953.26905@midway.uchicago.edu>, deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) writes:

>> I've never heard the Americans accused of dumping their films.  In
>> fact, the amazing success of American films in Europe contiues *despite*
>> various protectionist measures taken by the national governments
>> (France in particular) and the EC.
>
>When I was in France two months ago, I wanted to go see a movie. I went
>to the local theater. It was showing eight movies. All American ones. Now
>I wonder what are those protectionist measures, but they sure are not
>working very well.

That doesn't mean they don't exist.  Early last year, in fact, there
was an acrimonious debate between the US and France over removing
France's "barriers to free trade" in the film industry.  Articles on
the debate should be easy to come by.  The French authorities even had 
the gall to call the French film industry "the last viable alternative 
to Hollywood."  Apparently they haven't heard of a place called "Asia."

>In fact, you have it backward. The American films are not having an amazing
>success. They are the only one left to see.

By definition, that is amazing success.  They have demolished their
competition.

 So I just went home. The number
>of people going to theaters has steadily declined for years and is now a
>fraction of what it is in the States. 

Do you have figures to back that up?  I know that movie-attendance
figures in the US have been seriously declining for decades.  Just
as the industry was beginning to cope with the competition from 
television, cable and video came along.

>It's a pretty sad circle. Fewer French
>movies, fewer movie-goers, and so on. It's a simple economic matter and there
>is certainly the feeling that American movies are being dumped by the truckload
>all over Europe.

A feeling that is not grounded in fact.  If Europe is being swamped
by American movies, it is the decision of the European movie-viewing
public.  If they don't like the movies playing in the theatres, they
can always stay home and view "Baywatch."

>European film industries are being killed one by one. No, wait a minute,
>there is one which is gaining ground these days, it's the ... British one.
>How convenient that they speak English and can unload some movies
>on the unsuspecting xenophobic American.

Gaining ground?  Again, can you back this up with figures?  According to
_Variety_, out of the top 100 films in Britain for 1993, _two_ were
British (both Merchant-Ivory productions, btw.). 

European film industries may be losing ground, but there is at least one
non-American one that is gaining it seriously:  Honk Kong's.  _Jurassic
Park_ was the first American film since _ET_ to take the #1 spot in
annual HK box office receipts.  For the past decade, about 8 of the
top ten HK films have been locally made.

Add to this the fact that, not only are these films popular all over
Asia, they have boomed in the US in recent years.  I don't have figures
available, but the annual HK filmfests in Chicago, New York, LA, and
San Francisco  are drawing record crowds and theatres around the 
country are adding HK films to their schedules.

Time will tell if this the beginning of a trend or just a fad (and if
China's takeover of HK won't be death to the industry).  In the mean-
time, those moody Europeans can take their cue from the HKers and make
more entertaining films (hey, Besson figured out how to do it; there
were even American and HK remakes of _Nikita_) and fewer touching tales
of childhood and loss that never play out of the art houses.

Oh, one last point:  what is the language of the HK films I've been
going on about?  Despite English's status as an offical language of
HK, they're all in Cantonese and I've never seen a dubbed print in 
this country (although I'm sure they exist).  Who says Americans are 
allergic to subtitles?
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
