***Minor Chinatown spoilers but the move is over 40 and often both boycotted and quoted and I'm not giving a lot of context to the spoilers. You'll live***
My brother asked me if I had a copy of Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) a few days ago, I told him no but last time I checked it was available on Netflix (apparently it isn't anymore). This got me thinking about something that comes up every so often for movie goers (and pretty much all consumers of art), whether casual watchers or studiers like me: what are the ethics of consuming something created by someone you don't like?
To start with, my basic answer, just for me personally, is I will only study a film made by someone I'd prefer to boycott (Polanski, Woody Allen, etc). I do not watch those movies for fun (although Polanski films in my experience are there to make you think, not to enjoy...). I do not spend money directly on the film. For instance, I do not own Chinatown. I've seen it twice, both times were for classes and both times I managed to not have to rent a DVD (thank you, Netflix and professors with big DVD collections). I will not buy it, at least not in a store. If I ever come across it used at a garage sale or something, maybe, but I don't want to be in the statistics of people buying the movie. I also will not stream it illegally. I have my morals and just won't do it. I do not want to support Roman Polanski. It's very simple. But I also don't want to steal from him.
Before I get too far into this, I want to make something clear: I do not have an answer to this question. I am incredibly glad that I've never been a big Cosby Show watcher so now I don't have to decide if I can still watch it. I've managed to never have a chance to study any Woody Allen movies so I've been able to stand by my boycott.
Polanski is the hard one for me. I hated Chinatown. The ending frustrated me. The good guys all end up sad or confused and the bad guys get away with everything. I get that that was the point, given the "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" thing but it still bothers me.
The second time I watched it was in a summer course while I was also taking a Shakespeare class. In the Shakespeare class, we summed up the endings to Shakespeare plays quite succinctly: they end with a slide to ever after. Either they all get married or they die. The good guys will mostly die in the tragedies, but you don't leave frustrated because the bad guys die too.
I'm going to say that again: THE BAD GUYS DIE TOO.
In classic Hollywood, when you're dealing with the Hays Production Code, there was a rule that characters couldn't get away with murder (possibly other crimes too, but I've gotten into too many online debates lately and don't feel like looking up the exact rule. That's why I'm not referencing specific things in this post. I looked up what year Chinatown came out. That's the best I can do today. All my info here is coming out of the many many film courses I've taken). Thus, murderers get arrested or killed (self defense is okay though I guess, since swash buckling heroes get to survive even though they always kill Basil Rathbone. Or Rasil Bathbone, if you prefer).
In the '60s-ish, the Code starts to switch to the rating system we have now, which means suddenly, you can blatantly admit that your not married characters are having sex and you can have your bad guys get away with whatever they did. And suddenly, we can have frustrating movies where people do terrible things and there isn't a comeuppance. Like in Chinatown.
So yes, Polanski has a really great example of 1970s movie freedom. It's a good film to study.
But no art is created in a vacuum. There are important things to remember:
Like how Roman Polanski survived the Holocaust. How his wife, Sharon Tate, was one of the Manson family murders (and while you can probably name a bunch of murderers and serial killers, she is probably one of the only victims you can name. Food for thought). That's a lot of trauma for a person. But he also was convicted of the rape of an underage girl and fled to France before he could be sentenced.
I think it's possible to make good art and be a good person. These things are not mutually exclusive (John Green and JK Rowling make pretty decent stuff and are pretty good people....). We cannot excuse someone from being decent just because they're an artist.
But what do we do with the stuff they've already made?
I really have no idea. Personally, in my own life, I avoid them. I don't buy their stuff, I don't watch their stuff. If I'm in a class, I watch what I'm told to watch (and I make damn sure that everyone knows what the issues with them are).
The film I have the most trouble with, however, isn't Chinatown. It's The Pianist (2002). It's the best Holocaust movie I've ever seen. It's also Roman Polanski and it doesn't frustrate me, even if it made me cry. It's the only movie that challenges my "don't buy the DVD" rule. Keep your eyes open for further ethics discussion re The Pianist. This deserves more than one post.
And all this is just the question of the filmmakers. What about when the film itself advocates something? Stay tuned for when I finally turn my notes from 50 Shades of Grey into a post...
***obligatory special shout out to my brother, who has listened to my Polanski rant more than once, and Poof, who made my preposition sentence structure issues better***
My brother asked me if I had a copy of Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) a few days ago, I told him no but last time I checked it was available on Netflix (apparently it isn't anymore). This got me thinking about something that comes up every so often for movie goers (and pretty much all consumers of art), whether casual watchers or studiers like me: what are the ethics of consuming something created by someone you don't like?
To start with, my basic answer, just for me personally, is I will only study a film made by someone I'd prefer to boycott (Polanski, Woody Allen, etc). I do not watch those movies for fun (although Polanski films in my experience are there to make you think, not to enjoy...). I do not spend money directly on the film. For instance, I do not own Chinatown. I've seen it twice, both times were for classes and both times I managed to not have to rent a DVD (thank you, Netflix and professors with big DVD collections). I will not buy it, at least not in a store. If I ever come across it used at a garage sale or something, maybe, but I don't want to be in the statistics of people buying the movie. I also will not stream it illegally. I have my morals and just won't do it. I do not want to support Roman Polanski. It's very simple. But I also don't want to steal from him.
Before I get too far into this, I want to make something clear: I do not have an answer to this question. I am incredibly glad that I've never been a big Cosby Show watcher so now I don't have to decide if I can still watch it. I've managed to never have a chance to study any Woody Allen movies so I've been able to stand by my boycott.
Polanski is the hard one for me. I hated Chinatown. The ending frustrated me. The good guys all end up sad or confused and the bad guys get away with everything. I get that that was the point, given the "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" thing but it still bothers me.
The second time I watched it was in a summer course while I was also taking a Shakespeare class. In the Shakespeare class, we summed up the endings to Shakespeare plays quite succinctly: they end with a slide to ever after. Either they all get married or they die. The good guys will mostly die in the tragedies, but you don't leave frustrated because the bad guys die too.
I'm going to say that again: THE BAD GUYS DIE TOO.
In classic Hollywood, when you're dealing with the Hays Production Code, there was a rule that characters couldn't get away with murder (possibly other crimes too, but I've gotten into too many online debates lately and don't feel like looking up the exact rule. That's why I'm not referencing specific things in this post. I looked up what year Chinatown came out. That's the best I can do today. All my info here is coming out of the many many film courses I've taken). Thus, murderers get arrested or killed (self defense is okay though I guess, since swash buckling heroes get to survive even though they always kill Basil Rathbone. Or Rasil Bathbone, if you prefer).
In the '60s-ish, the Code starts to switch to the rating system we have now, which means suddenly, you can blatantly admit that your not married characters are having sex and you can have your bad guys get away with whatever they did. And suddenly, we can have frustrating movies where people do terrible things and there isn't a comeuppance. Like in Chinatown.
So yes, Polanski has a really great example of 1970s movie freedom. It's a good film to study.
But no art is created in a vacuum. There are important things to remember:
Like how Roman Polanski survived the Holocaust. How his wife, Sharon Tate, was one of the Manson family murders (and while you can probably name a bunch of murderers and serial killers, she is probably one of the only victims you can name. Food for thought). That's a lot of trauma for a person. But he also was convicted of the rape of an underage girl and fled to France before he could be sentenced.
I think it's possible to make good art and be a good person. These things are not mutually exclusive (John Green and JK Rowling make pretty decent stuff and are pretty good people....). We cannot excuse someone from being decent just because they're an artist.
But what do we do with the stuff they've already made?
I really have no idea. Personally, in my own life, I avoid them. I don't buy their stuff, I don't watch their stuff. If I'm in a class, I watch what I'm told to watch (and I make damn sure that everyone knows what the issues with them are).
The film I have the most trouble with, however, isn't Chinatown. It's The Pianist (2002). It's the best Holocaust movie I've ever seen. It's also Roman Polanski and it doesn't frustrate me, even if it made me cry. It's the only movie that challenges my "don't buy the DVD" rule. Keep your eyes open for further ethics discussion re The Pianist. This deserves more than one post.
And all this is just the question of the filmmakers. What about when the film itself advocates something? Stay tuned for when I finally turn my notes from 50 Shades of Grey into a post...
***obligatory special shout out to my brother, who has listened to my Polanski rant more than once, and Poof, who made my preposition sentence structure issues better***
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