Noted film producer talks on the changing face of movies

Sharing his expertise on current films while also emphasizing the importance of a background in the classics, film producer Robert Cort spoke to students last Thursday in Logan Hall about "Hollywood at the Millennium." Having produced such Hollywood hits as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Cocktail and Three Men and a Baby, Cort praised students in Penn's new Film Studies program for having studied the history of film and urged them to "continue watching great movies of the past because it will drive forward better movies of the future." In the talk, sponsored by the Film Studies Department, Cort emphasized five foci of current Hollywood films -- technology, concept, youth, bipolarity and Americans. "Technology has always driven the industry," Cort said. "[But] the development in computer-generated effects really started in '92 with Jurassic Park." Increased use of technology causes a loss of "emotional content and thought content," Cort noted. Even if a special effects-oriented movie does have a large emotional aspect, "there's so much technological stuff up there it provides a screen between you and the movie." Cort then discussed the fact that concept films -- those with easily summarized plots -- are more likely to be made today because screenwriters often have to pitch a film to a movie company in a short amount of time. And movie companies must in turn sell the film to the public in a 30-second commercial, Cort said. "Pure movies about character and the complexities thereof, that's the toughest thing to get made in Hollywood today," Cort told the audience, citing examples such as Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider and his own Mr. Holland's Opus. "The great thing to be able to do is have a high concept and instill really great characters into it," he said. "Really great filmmakers do it." The extreme youth orientation characterizing contemporary films is due to the "bulge in the demographic of under 25-year-olds, an increase in [that group's] disposable income and their tendency to go to the same movie more than one time." The impact of this phenomenon is "a lot of resuscitation of old ideas, such as Pygmalion with She's All That and The Taming of the Shrew with Ten Things I Hate About You," Cort said. Cort assured the audience that youths will become bored with these revivals quickly and that the film industry will respond by beginning to speak to their target audience more intelligently, increasing the level of quality -- but still targeting young people. Referring to the current trend in independent films, Cort addressed the film industry's bipolar nature. "They either go for the home run or only have a couple of bucks in their pocket" and make a more personal movie, Cort said. In addition, the role of independent films is changing. They are becoming "more and more an audition for big companies than about saying something deep," Cort said. Lastly, Cort discussed Hollywood's propensity for making domestically oriented movies. "Hollywood movies are about us, they are set here and they have American actors," he said, adding that this is a break from the past when people like Ingrid Bergman, Brigitte Bardot and Federico Fellini populated the Hollywood movie industry. Offering perhaps a reason for this trend, Cort said that despite the tendency to think in more global terms, Americans often see the U.S. as the center of the world. Most students found the substance of Cort's talk to be interesting. "I don't usually come out of films having learned anything or having anything to think about," College freshman Andrea Zawerczuk said, in agreement with the producer.

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