May 30, 1999

“Kids These Days”

By

Josh Becker

       I imagine this same discussion going on between two men walking along the Appian Way 2000 years ago in ancient Rome or between two women standing on Ishtar Avenue in Babylon 4000 years ago, shaking their heads and sighing, “What’s with kids these days?  They’re lazy, rebellious and they don’t listen.”  I only bring this up because it’s in the news with kids shooting everybody in their high schools and it’s on the cover of Time Magazine this week.  But I would like to relate it to a bigger issue which is that I feel that our present culture is a repetitive, regurgitated bore.
       When I made my film “Lunatics: A Love Story” in 1989 I had to give serious consideration to the idea of including a rap song (“The Reynolds Rap”) in the movie because I thought it might quickly date the film.  What if rap went out in the next year or two and I still hadn’t gotten the film released?  I mean, rap had already been around for five or six years at that point, why would it possibly last much longer?
       Slow dissolve to now, ten years later, and it’s still rap or hip-hop which is simply a slight variation.  Isn’t there supposed to be something new?
       What’s the big film right now? “Star Wars.”  Hey, wait a minute, that’s a movie from when I was young (or younger anyway), 22 years ago.  It seemed kind of new then, but I’ve got news for you, there’s nothing new about a “Star Wars” movie now.
       Let’s face facts, there’s inherently nothing new about any sequel.  That’s the point!  The same, of course, goes for any remake, whether it’s a movie remake of a movie, a movie remake of a TV show, or TV show remake of a movie.
       It’s also been the same two big TV shows for years, “ER” and “NYPD Blue.”  They’re both good shows, but there’s nothing new about either one.  There’s always going to be a cop show and a medical show on the air.  Nor is there anything new about any of the sit-coms.  In fact, I’m kind of surprised that there still are sit-coms after all these years because, with their insulting, inane laugh-tracks and stupid, obvious jokes, they really seem like a completely dated form.
       Nothing’s new.
       When I was twelve years old in 1969 everything seemed new.  Hippies, draft-dodgers, heavy metal, electronic music, drugs, riots, civil rights, women’s rights, a man on the moon, Woodstock, Altamont.  Hollywood was in complete turmoil.  An X-rated movie, “Midnight Cowboy,” won Best Picture.  They were taking off all of their clothes on Broadway in “Hair” and singing about sodomy and fellatio.  One of the biggest money-making movies of that year, “Easy Rider,” was also one of the lowest-budget and all about buying and selling cocaine set to contemporary rock songs.  I was a different person coming out of that movie than I was going in.  I went right out and sewed an American flag on the back of my jacket.
       Anything was possible and everything was new.
       When I was twelve I didn’t give a crap about anything for twelve year olds.  If it was aimed at kids, I wasn’t interested.  My favorite movie at that time was “Becket,” the story of the friendship between King Henry the 2nd and Thomas á Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.  It’s a bright movie and it wasn’t the slightest bit over my head, and I don’t think that I was all that exceptional of a twelve year old.
       Except that maybe I was exceptional in that I was focused on wanting to know about and see as many movies as humanly possible.  This was not all that easy of thing to do in Detroit in 1969-70.  There was no Museum of Modern Art like in New York or all the revival theaters in L.A.  I had to stay up and watch the late show and the late, late show or hitch-hike up to the college town of Ann Arbor and see 16mm prints.  However, by the time I got to Hollywood in 1976 I had seen a lot more movies than most people.
       But now if you’re interested in movies they’re on TV 24 hours a day, no commercials and in their proper formats.  It seems to me that there ought to be kids running around all over the place that have seen more movies than me by the time they are fifteen.  Except that there aren’t.
       I could grab the next 100 people 25 years old and younger that walk by my front door and ask them if they’ve ever heard of “A Man For All Seasons,” winner of Best Picture in 1966, and I don’t think a single one of them would know what the hell I was talking about, let alone having seen it.
       By the time I was 25 I had seen all the Oscar winners for Best Picture (most in the theater) -- I mean, it’s not really a very big deal, there’s only 71 one of them now, for God’s sake.  It’s not like learning how to play an instrument well enough to be in a classical orchestra.  You’re just sitting through movies, but hopefully paying attention.
       Kids could be studying the entire history of cinema without leaving their houses, however no kids seem to be doing it.  Instead they watch the new movies that they’re supposed to watch, “Star Wars 4” and “Batman 4” and “Lethal Weapon 4” and “Bullshit 4” and “Horseshit 4” and “Dogshit 4.”
       So kids have nothing new they can call their own.  Then, just to prove that they’re unique individuals, they do exactly what the media tells them to do.  They go see “Dogshit 4” the week it opens, then try to kid themselves they’ve seen something new, which they clearly know they haven’t.  What truly amuses me is people being disappointed with “Star Wars 4.”  It’s as though they just purchased a Pet Rock, brought it home and realized that it doesn’t do anything.  The point was you spending your money, not you enjoying the product.
       If I was 25 or younger, instead of 40 years old and perpetually pissed-off, I’d be angry, too.
       However, as opposed to getting a machine gun and shooting people in my high school, or just getting depressed, isn’t it our job to attempt to make things better?  That’s what I think, but I sure as hell don’t run into other people with this same attitude very often.  The only ambition I encounter at all these days is of the mercenary variety, the “I-want-to-be-rich” kind, which I must say bores me to tears.
       This is the attitude behind people defending “Star Wars 4” or “Titanic” with “Sure it sucked, but look how much money it’s making,” as though that elevates it above the level of regurgitated shit.  It doesn’t.
       So why is there all this apathy and laziness and angst in young folks?  Why are kids now regularly put on anti-depressants when they’re five and six and seven years old?  Why are kids taking weapons and shooting apart their high schools?  What’s to be depressed about?
       We’re not in a world war or a depression or the Dark Ages or the black plague.  What’s the big bummer?
       My sister ventures that part of the problem may be that there is no discipline anymore, meaning, ultimately, you can’t hit kids.  I’m single and have no kids so this isn’t my problem, other than having to live in the world right now.
       But this is the very first generation of kids ever that it was illegal to hit for any reason.  Thus, perhaps, there is no discipline, or so my sister proffers.  And possibly the lack of discipline has led to apathy.
       This may be the reason for all of these cases of ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, a malady that didn’t exist when I was a kid.  Actually, ADD doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world except the U.S.A.  France and England don’t even accept it as a legitimate ailment.  If anyone would have been diagnosed with ADD 30 years ago it would have been me.  I hated school, hated authority of all kinds, got lousy grades, talked back constantly and was always in trouble.  Had they put me on anti-depressants (which didn’t exist then, either) or Ritalin (which did) or whatever, would I have become the person that I presently am?
       This has always been something of a shameful family secret, but it totally relates, so what the hell.  This may well have also been a crucial turning point in my young life.  When I was 7 or 8 years old my father, who was a bit of a hothead anyway, got so pissed-off at me for not paying attention that he conceived and initiated “The Awareness Game.”  The way this “game” worked was that my dad and I would drive down a residential street (in his Ford Falcon) and he would ask me, as an example, “How many stop signs did we pass?”  If I said three and he saw four he’d smack me and command me to “Pay attention!”  These were not pats, either.  Nor were they punches, but they were meant to make me cry.  Then we’d drive down the next street and he’d ask, “How many green houses did we pass?”  Etc.
       Once after playing The Awareness Game we stopped at a restaurant for breakfast and my dad ordered me to write 100 times on the back of paper placemats, “I will be more aware.”  I printed it out the first time and he promptly smacked me -- in a restaurant, mind you -- and yelled, “I said write it, not print it!”
       I replied in my quavering little 7 or 8 year old voice, “But dad, they haven’t taught us how to write yet.”
       He then wrote it out for me in script and I copied it 100 times.  I now realize that this might account for the fact that I never write anything in script and never have.  I either print or type.
       Although this story is generally brought up as an example of my father’s insanity, he may well have done me a favor.  I do pay attention and I can focus my thoughts.  Perhaps I would not have this ability were it not for my dear old dad smacking the importance of it into me.
       I would sincerely hope, however, that there is some better way to achieve this result than “The Awareness Game.”
       All I know is that the young people I come into contact with, in the film business, on film crews, living in my building and through my website, seem to be, for the most part, befuddled and clueless.  And in a way I don’t blame them, either.  If one’s desire is to get into the film business, for instance, there’s no logical route to achieve it anymore.  I’ve personally thrown in the towel as far as making Hollywood films go.  I accept the fact that I’m an independent filmmaker and I’m proud of it.  But I didn’t choose it, it chose me.
       I was just a speaker at a Writer’s Guild weekend at Lake Arrowhead (I am not a Writer’s Guild member, by the way).  The two other speakers were David Milch, executive producer of “NYPD Blue,” and Ted Elliot, co-writer of “Mark of Zorro,” “Godzilla” and “Little Monsters.”  I missed David Milch, but I hear he braved the 22 miles of hairpin turns scaling the San Bernadino Mountains to Lake Arrowhead in a stretch limousine.  Ted Elliot, who was very amusing, began his presentation with, “Why does my resume suck so bad?”  The reason being, as he presented it, is that everything he’s ever worked on was taken out of his hands and rewritten before it was shot.  Mr. Elliot called the development process the “dissection” process, where the story is picked to pieces.  He concluded sadly that, “Nothing comes out of dissection process alive.”
       I then got up and harangued these timid writers, all struggling to discover some clue as to how to make a living as screenwriters, that they ought to have a low-low budget agreement in their guild so that they can work on super-low-budget films.  Since the least a WGA writer can receive is something like $48,000 for a script, they are entirely excluded from all films under a million dollars, like my films -- not that it much matters to me, I write my own scripts.  Anyway, one scared little kitten of a writer asked in a frightened voice, “But what if we get exploited?”  I replied, “Isn’t it better to be exploited and get something made, and maybe even make a little money, then not get exploited and not get anything made and get no money?”  I could see that they didn’t understand me, as though I was suddenly speaking Swedish.  The idea of making their own movies was clearly intriguing, but much too scary to actually pursue.
       I then excoriated them for their audacity in believing that they were artists.  I told them that screenwriting isn’t art and never would be, even at it’s very best.  It’s a craft, like building tables, and that they were all craftspeople.  A script is a blueprint and there are no blueprints in the Louvre.  I recommended that they try building sturdier tables.  At this point I may as well have been speaking Swahili and shaking a rattle.
       So I’m dealing with a number of young writers and filmmakers mainly through the internet, but a few in real life, and they all have variations of this same timid apathy.  All of them have said in their own ways, “I’ll shoot some stupid story just so I can get something shot.”
       Guess what?  Shit in, shit out.  Start with shit and you will most assuredly end up with shit.
       If you begin the process of idea exploration with, “I’m not going to put myself to any trouble here, I’ll just make something that’s just like something else,” you’ll most certainly end up with a piece of shit.
       And that’s where I think we are at the moment.  Our art is being created by lazy, timid, undisciplined people who have nothing to say, are only in it for the money, and even still can’t get their simple-minded, utterly mercenary visions up on the screen.  It’s a sad state of affairs.
       But why bother paying attention if there’s nothing new and nothing seems worth paying attention to anyway?  Sadly, one thing feeds right back into the other.  Ultimately, you are the person making shit for you to watch.  If you won’t exert yourself and try to do better, you’ll never get anything better.
       My films may not be anything special, but I am trying to set an example -- I’m attempting to make good films for the sake of good films.  Not for money, not for fame, not because I think “they” might like them, “they” being the masses or the critics or whomever.
       The key to all of this, I think, is the old adage,  “The point of life is not the destination, but the journey.”  I have come to the conclusion that there is no goal out there that’s good enough.  Fame and money seem like nonsense.  It reminds me of when I was 15 years old and thought, “If only I had my driver’s license everything would be great.”  I got my license and realized that I didn’t have a car.  I got a car and realized I didn’t really have anywhere to go.
       A friend of mine -- who is a few years older than me, but I’ve known him for 22 years, since we were both kind of young -- cannot sit for five seconds without doing something to amuse himself.  If I stand up to change the CD, he’ll grab anything and start reading or pull out his pen and begin doodling or making diagrams or lists.  He seemingly cannot sit for a single moment with his own thoughts.  This seems to me like a variation on ADD - Amusement Deficit Disorder.  It’s not that he can’t pay attention, I think he’s petrified of being bored.  If he’s not being amused then he must be bored.
       I think that there is a whole wonderful world between amusement and boredom.  This is where all of my stories come from, that magical fugue state in the middle.  I guess it takes discipline to go there, just as it takes discipline to go to the gym and work out, but come on, neither one is really difficult.  We’re not talking about brain surgery here.
       And this gets back to yet another thing that bugs me -- and it’s a big list, believe me -- which I still feel is part of this whole rambling mess, and that is that most people that sit down to write think that all of the writing occurs at the keyboard.  Once again, afraid of not being amused, they must have their glowing monitors and clicky keyboards or they’re bored.  The crucial element in writing is not the computer or the software, it’s your thoughts.  You can use lipstick on a mirror if that facilitates the process for you.
       As there are seemingly more and more amusements out there, though, people seem to be more and more bored.  There may well be more and more amusements, but none of them seem new.  Fifty channels can become a hundred channels, but if there was nothing to watch on the fifty, there still won’t be anything to watch on a hundred.
       If you need amusement, but you don’t want to think, you get “Star Wars” and “Batman” and “Die Hard.”  And the big problem with living on nothing but amusement is that it’s like trying to sustain life on nothing but popcorn; there’s just not enough vitamins, minerals and protein to do the job.  Eventually you will wither up and die.