Screens, Streams and Creativity

In my last post I posed the question, “Is creativity in jeopardy of diminishing or dying altogether?”  It was inspired by Amy Nicholson’s comments on the Raiders of the Lost Ark episode of Unspooled, a podcast devoted to discussing the AFI’s top 100 American films of all-time.  She remarked, “I feel like something in us is just stuck because we’re not using our imaginations anymore, we’re just hitting rewind.”

While few would claim that there aren’t still amazingly creative things happening in the arts, if recent successful films are any indication Amy’s observation isn’t entirely unwarranted.  One need look no further than Disney’s recent output to conclude that original content isn’t always a major priority of film studios.  According to film critic William Bibbiani of @WilliamBibbiani, “35 of the top 50 films domestically (in 2019) were sequels, remakes, reboots, spinoffs or other films based on pre-existing blockbuster multimedia franchises.” 

That’s a staggering statistic.  Gone are the days when the most celebrated films were also the most-watched (think Forrest Gump, Silence of the Lambs, Rain Man, etc.).  Broadway has also fallen into the reboot trap.  I wrote about this seven years ago, and its sorry state certainly hasn’t improved in the ensuing years (think Mean Girls, Frozen, Moulin Rouge, Shrek, Tootsie, Dirty Dancing, and on and on…)

So why the devotion to reboots?  For film, the obvious game-changer has been streaming, which has dropped the average theatrical run to only four weeks.  Given this, it’s no wonder that studios are devoting fewer funds to riskier ventures.  But just when you think that all is lost, you hear the flip side of the same coin.  Yes, streaming may have shortened theatrical runs which has directly led to studios relying on well-established franchises, but it’s also opened up a world that heretofore was difficult to enter. 

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio recently appeared on Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF, and they both discussed how as producers they are being given the green light to make films that wouldn’t have gotten financed years ago.  Streaming services are now making smaller films viable options (to hear this particular segment of the interview, go to the one-hour mark, though the whole interview is worth a listen). DiCaprio goes on to say that in the past these films would have to win an Academy Award to get any viewership at all, but now “millions and millions of people watch these documentaries as opposed to having to go through a theatrical system.”

Isn’t this exciting? 

And from my limited experience DiCaprio is correct.  I’ve watched more documentaries in the last ten years than in the previous forty years combined, and more and more of my friends are recommending documentaries, small films, and of course dozens and dozens of TV shows (some of them even worth watching).  Add to this the accessibility of short films that would never have been viewable prior to the Age of Streaming, and we’ve got so much wonderful output right at our fingertips, no one will ever be able to check the box that says, “All caught up.”

So it’s not all doom and gloom.  Creativity is alive and well, but like much of art these days, it may be fragmented.  You may not be hearing about a film or a book or a TV show by viewing the best-seller or highest-grossing lists, but with a little word-of-mouth and targeted searches you can find the original content that appears to be lacking in mainstream theaters.  I would argue that even theatrical runs have shown signs of life recently.  I’ve watched eight out of the nine Best Picture nominees and there’s not a dud among them.  2019 may be one of the best years of film in recently memory.  And it’s very likely that films like Roma and The Irishman, both of which appeared in theaters just long enough to qualify for the Oscars, have done far better with the new business model than they would have with the old one.

Yes, things are changing.  I imagine Walt Disney himself would be disappointed in his company if he were alive today.  But others are taking that creative torch and carrying it boldly in this century. Some things may be lost along the way, but creativity and human originality won’t be among them.

Freedom and Creativity

In Frank Capra’s film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the idealistic young senator says to Miss Saunders:

Men should hold (liberty) up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: "I'm free... to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn't - I can... and my children will."

Liberty has taken on an expanded meaning these days as we have access to virtually any piece of knowledge ever conceived of by the human race – good, bad or otherwise.  And it begs the question: can you have too much freedom?  Can having the freedom to do everything keep you from doing anything?

I thought of this while listening a while back to the podcast Unspooled, a fine series in which actor Paul Scheer and film critic Amy Nicholson spend an hour discussing each film of the AFI’s top 100 movies compiled in 2007.  It isn’t a perfect podcast, but I like that the two hosts lack pretension and are often watching movies for the first time, enabling them to see through some of the hype. 

Scheer and Nicholson also make astute observations about society from time to time, and no more so than during their podcast for the film Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Near the end of the episode, Nicholson reveals her concerns about human creativity, and whether its been stunted since this movie’s release, when VHS tapes allowed for cheap home viewing.  She says: “What changed in our generation when we were able to make Raiders the number one VHS tape and watch Raiders non-stop…are we stunting our imagination?  It worries me not because I don’t like this movie, it just worries me on my larger scale of somebody who wants more random creativity in the world.”  She goes on to share a story about Quentin Tarantino coming of age just before the VCR became ubiquitous, when after seeing a movie he’d buy the film score on LP and imagine the scenes while the music played, eventually coming up with his own scenes, reimagining the movie over and over again.  Similarly, Scheer said that after watching Return of the Jedi, he’d go back home and write down everything he could remember in chronological order so he could read it back and get to experience the movie again.  Viewing it at home wasn’t an option. Had Tarantino and Scheer grown up in the home movie era, perhaps they wouldn’t have become filmmakers or actors.

Does having immediate access to so much information at our fingertips hamper creativity?  Do we – in effect – have too much freedom?  Freedom to see almost any movie at any time at any place.  Freedom to look up almost any fact about science or human history with a few keystrokes.  To read any piece of junk written by morons.  To watch gangs of people fornicating.   In the Age of the Internet and constant connectivity, do we have the ability to say no to what’s available to us and proactively pursue an original thought?

In the aforementioned Unspooled episode, Scheer concludes, rightly so, that “we’re always living in a culture that adapts to what we have.”  After all, were it not for recorded music, we’d have to rely on performances or hearing music in our own mental jukeboxes.  Were it not for the written word, we’d have to remember stories our grandparents told us so that we could then tell them to our children and grandchildren.  The written word has given us much, but it would be foolish to say that it hasn’t hampered some of our capacity to tell stories verbally.  Likewise, being able to look up facts on Google at any time has probably hampered some of our ability to remember, and studies have shown that the Internet has most assuredly shortened our attention span.

Nicholson concludes, “I feel like something in us is just stuck because we’re not using our imagination anymore, we’re just hitting rewind.”

Next week I’d like to look at films in particular and how it’s not all doom and gloom. Creativity survives.

Stay tuned…

A Death Poem

Death has been on my mind lately because there’s been a lot of it, some of it personal, some of it the public figure variety, most recently that of Neil Peart of Rush who I’d seen perform live numerous times.  The outer circles insulating my charmed life have been breached by the passing of those around the same age as me or just a few years down the line, so mortality has taken on new resonance.  I’m not depressed about it nor am I fatalistic, but I can’t pretend it’s not there.  It has to be reckoned with.  So, time for some poetry!

WHEN DEATH IS ALL AROUND

When death is all around
not even breath can be assumed.
Hyper-conscious.  Present. Aware.
It’s what you’ve been aiming for all along.
Yet the privilege shared by
witnessing others’ passing
falls flat upon weary ears
like a stone on the sunken earth.
Whether it’s “wrapped in the cradle of His bosom”
or “a dot of light in the sky’s sphere,”
there is no comfort in words of comfort.
Because lately it’s been friends
and friends of friends,
and mothers and lovers and brothers and sons,
wives and husbands
and old acquaintances.
No, not even breath can be assumed,
nor the sunrise,
nor lilac’s bloom,
nor pangs of hunger,
nor sated desires,
nor sacred moments.
For in another’s absence 
beckon those final empty seconds,
when all we hold dear
will be loosed into the ether
of God’s hollow embrace.

The "Best" Movies of the Decade

There were over 6000 movies released in U.S. theaters in the last decade – a staggering number – and anyone claiming to list the “best” of the decade first has to provide a disclaimer that they can only rate what they’ve seen.  For me, I watched approximately 240 films released within the last ten years, and I’ll undoubtedly add another 20 or so soon as I catch up on movies I’ve missed.  Case in point: I haven’t yet seen “Bohemian Rhapsody” or the Paddington movies because they’re not yet available for rental on Prime, so there they sit in my watchlist.  I’ll get to them eventually.

In the meantime, I’d like to share what I think are the best movies of the decade out of the 240 I’ve seen.  The word “best” is open to interpretation, of course.  Do we mean the movies we enjoyed the most?  Those films that moved us the most?  Those that we consider the most important?  For my list, I chose films from all three categories.  Some I just enjoyed the hell out of, some brought me to tears or gave me chills, and others resonated with me for days or weeks or months as I pondered their impact.  All are worthy movie-going experiences.  As a society, we tend not to reward the first category enough and tend to reward the middle category too much.  We’re suckers for sentimentality.  I’ve tried not to lean too far forward in any one direction.

First, my top ten, in order of release date:

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Beginners
Searching for Sugar Man
Silver Linings Playbook
Argo
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Birdman
The Big Short
Arrival
First Reformed

“Beginners” gets my favorite film of the decade vote.  I’ve already watched it four times, and for reasons I can’t entirely explain, I love everything about it: the characters, the pacing, the dry wit, the melancholic aura, and of course the inimitable Christopher Plummer’s first Oscar-winning performance.  But if I have to pick one film as the best of the decade, I’ll go with “The Big Short.”  It exposes the insanity of capitalism and human behavior in such an entertaining way, and it’s one of those films that I think we’ll look back on in decades to come as an unheeded warning sign for the future.  (The same could be said of “First Reformed,” but this is a tougher movie to watch.)  It’s worth noting that when my three children and I made our choices independent of each other and compared notes, only one film made all of our top-ten lists: “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”  It’s a rip-roaring good time with such humor and creativity, along with a good heart, that it’s tough not to like.

Of course, there were a helluva lot more than ten great movies in the 2010s.  Here are another 28 that were in contention for me: The Social Network, The Tree of Life, The Descendants, Moneyball, Hugo, The Impossible, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Zero Dark Thirty, Drinking Buddies, Bad Words, Chef, Spotlight, Bridge of Spies, Manchester by the Sea, Hail Caesar!, Zootopia, Hell or High Water, La La Land, Lion, Wind River, Get Out, The Florida Project, I Tonya, All the Money in the World, Searching, Vice, Parasite, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  

These movies would serve me very well were I to be sent to a desert island with only one decade of movies to choose from.  The last ten years were certainly a source of disruption in the way we view entertainment, but one can’t argue that the quality (and certainly the quantity) suffered as a result.

Identifying Notes without Perfect Pitch

It’s been well-established that if you don’t have perfect pitch as an adult, you can’t develop it.  You might be able to develop a very good educated guess, but it’s not the same as playing a cluster of notes on a piano and being able to identify and sing each note perfectly, as Rick Beato’s son can.  (Beato is a well-known and wonderfully informative musician and vlogger whose YouTube videos I highly recommend not only for musicians but for music fans who want to delve a little more deeply into songcraft.)  Of course, learning relative pitch is an important skill that you can develop.  When I attended Berklee College of Music back in the 80s they had classes devoted to ear training, and while I found these useful at the time, these days anyone can train their ears at home without shelling out gobs of cash.  Just download an app at your favorite store and start learning.

That aside, it does come in handy to be able to identify pitch without first plucking notes on a keyboard.  So what can you do if you don’t have perfect pitch? Once again, Rick Beato comes to the rescue. Part 3 of his video series “How to Develop Perfect Pitch” was an eye-opener for me, even though it shouldn’t have been; sometimes the most obvious pursuits are the least likely to cross one’s mind.  In this video Beato recommends choosing twelve songs – one for each pitch – and using these as references for pitch identification.  I had done this for years for the key of C with REO Speedwagon’s “Roll with the Changes,” and once I found C, I could identify all the other pitches through relative pitch.  But Beato’s method works better because it’s quicker – why identify C first if what you really want to do is identify an A? – and also because if one reference fails you by a half-step – as it sometimes does for me – then having another reference can help correct your error.

Watching Beato’s video, I recognized immediately that I’d be better off choosing songs I know well, that are a part of my DNA.  This is easier said than done, because while there are ample pop/rock songs in the key of E or D or A, finding songs to help identify a C# or Aflat are fewer and farther between.  Even now, I’m not positive that some of my choices are the best, but I’ve been able to employ Beato’s pitch-identification strategy while playing piano at church and it works pretty darn well.  It’s really helpful to look at a piece of music and know what the first note or chord is going to sound like before playing it, as it can be jolting if you’re expecting the pitch to be different.  With Beato’s technique, I can more often than not correctly identify the pitch before the song begins.  This isn’t to say that I can identify a note in the midst of a complicated song whose key I haven’t already identified – Beato’s strategy isn’t a substitute for having perfect pitch and has its limitations – but it is useful.

When identifying songs that work for you, it’s important that the note you’re trying to identify plays at the start of the song. A song might be in the key of E, but if the first note is an A, then pick this song for A, not for E.  This is the case for “All my Loving” by the Beatles, which I’ve chosen as my “A” song.  Another helpful tool is to create a playlist of all twelve songs on Spotify or some other music streaming service so that you can quiz yourself quickly and often.

Without further ado, here are the twelve songs I’ve chosen for my pitch identification.  Some of these may be obscure for you, but there are several lists in the comments section of Beato’s video that might prove helpful. 

• C:  “Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles, and “Roll with the Changes” to confirm.

• C#:  The opening to “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers.  Finding a rock song in C# wasn’t easy!

• D: “We Can Work It Out” by The Beatles.  This one really works well for me for some reason.  “Another Brick in the Wall (part 2)” by Pink Floyd is another good one.

• Eflat:  The second note of “The Long and Winding Road” by The Beatles.  Ideally, I’d pick nothing by Beatles songs – they are so ingrained into my musical memory.

• E: “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles.

• F: The first note of “Goodbye to Love” by The Carpenters.

• F#:  The first note sung in “Oh! Darling” by The Beatles.

• G:  “Christmas” by The Who.

• Aflat:  “Ripples” by Genesis.  This is one that works almost 100% for me.

• A:  The first note of “All My Loving” by The Beatles.

• Bflat:  The first note sung on “Guide Vocal” by Genesis.  The “Star Wars” theme works well here, too.

• B:  The original version of “The Revealing Science of God” by Yes.

There you are!  I just tested myself again for each pitch using the above reference songs (first clearing my hearing palette) and I got 10 of 12 notes correct, with two off by a half-step, which means I probably need to practice some more.  This method may not be a perfect pitch substitute, but it does have value if you’re willing to put a little work into it.