The film was... sorry, I can't tell you
I saw Inglourious Basterds last week. And that's all I'm allowed to say.
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Thursday, 06, Aug 2009 11:09
By Lewis Bazley.
(Follow me on Twitter @lewisbazley)
I saw Inglourious Basterds last week. And that's all I'm allowed to say.
Signing embargo forms is an irritating but commonplace part of modern film criticism. A studio's desire to manage a film's marketing campaign is perfectly understandable and if it means we critics get to see an eagerly-anticipated movie weeks before its release, we're generally only too happy to oblige.
But a recent trend in the industry, which seems tightly wound with the rise of social networking, has rather called the practice into question. For two recent major releases - one a ribald comedy, the other a war epic from an iconic director in need of a hit - I've been required to sign forms pledging my willingness to refrain from reviewing or discussing the film until a specified date, even on my personal Facebook and Twitter accounts. The rules also applied to my guest for both screenings; one a civil servant, the other a care worker. And it's not a matter for discussion; don't sign the form - don't see the film.
Ignoring for a moment the insult of being told I cannot even tweet "Saw [insert movie here] - it was good/bad/an insult to cinema", the liberty in studios and PR companies instructing non-journalists in how to behave seems particularly concerning. Is there a really genuine threat that, if my civil servant friend makes an off-the-cuff negative remark about a film, an entire government department will amass in opposition to the movie, perhaps even disseminating a press release that sees our nation's seven to 11-year-olds warned off the blockbuster? Even as a critic, could my ambivalent reaction in a Facebook status update to, say, Terminator: Salvation, really be expected to affect the film's box office performance? The inexplicably high earnings of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, one of the most critically derided films of the year, have recently proved just how little effect we writers have on the public's choosing of which film to splurge £10 on. If people really want to see Megan Fox running interminably and Michael Bay revealing he has no understanding of robotics, they will, regardless of this or many more eminent critics' complaints about the film.
Attempting to control the reviewing of films as high-profile and populist as these is ludicrous whatever the situation, with any publicity certainly being good publicity in this industry. Calls for Antichrist to be banned from writers with the temerity to admit they haven't seen it won't result in the film sinking without a trace; if anything, Lars von Trier is likely to have the biggest commercial hit of his career.
Cannes is in France
But where the biscuit is certainly being taken, where the studio's attempt to manage a PR campaign instead becomes an insidious, nonsensical, attempt to quell the free press, is in the enforcement of films that have already been reviewed, in some cases months before.
The insult, the evident lack of balance and respect in the relationship between press and publicity machine is revealed in the acknowledgement of those who are permitted to ignore the embargoes. Should the BBC, or the Sun, break the embargo - as they both blatantly and dramatically did during the campaign for a recent controversial mockumentary - the threat of recourse is so minimal as to not exist. Should I, or any young critic, dare to do the same... well, blacklisting awaits.
The injury to the press is amplified when publicity about a film - both positive and adverse - has been freely available for weeks, months on end. When I inquired why I was being forced to wait to review a film that had been widely reviewed after its screening in Cannes, I was informed by a PR assistant - towing the party line, to her credit - that this embargo applied to the film's UK release, whereas Cannes was in France. Is it really? Well, thank you for aiding my - admittedly dodgy at times - geography and simultaneously reneging the reputation of the greatest film festival around. How directors will now breathe a sigh of relief as they realise that a Cannes debut is nowhere near as crucial and stressful as once believed - apparently only the French are aware of the festival's existence!
'I want those mother-f*****g snakes off this mother-f*****g plane'
The problem seems less that of studios losing all logic when it comes to the treatment of the press and more a knee-jerk, delayed reaction to the power the press has gained through being able to instantly make its opinions known online. A reaction to a film can be posted on Twitter, a blog or in an official review within minutes of a screening's conclusion, and before you know it, whispers of a dreadful blockbuster or misfiring comedy are worming their way across the internet. Again - distributors' efforts to manage this spread of opinion is understandable enough. But surely something's rotten when a film has its own Twitter and Facebook pages yet those whose daily grind is relating their reaction to the movie aren't permitted to even write 140 characters in praise or criticism of it?
The illogic of the whole embargo approach is maddening enough - a Guardian journalist was recently asked to sign a document promising not to review a film he'd already critiqued a week previously - but the heavy-handed attempt to quash any potential for negative criticism smacks of a worrying desire to prevent accredited journalists from voicing the opinions for which they're paid.
Not to repeat myself more than is strictly necessary but the management of a marketing drive is perfectly reasonable and an important part of the film industry. But the threat of withdrawing screening invitations at the tiniest whiff of a mention of a film on a writer's personal social networking pages - which the studio and PR company has no business visiting in any case - is crude and unnecessary. You're a multinational corporation with much bigger fish to fry - don't treat individuals who've made a living out of loving your product like badly behaved children.
By the way: I liked Inglourious Basterds.
Lewis Bazley