Musing on Movies

The American movie industry inspires mixed feelings. American movies are the most popular, profitable, well-funded and recognizable in the world. Yet there is a perception among the intelligentsia that foreign films, while not as successful, are better. After seeing Ironman, The Dark Knight, and Wall-E this summer, a friend invited me to the Angelika Film Center to see The Counterfeiters, a German film exploring a complex moral landscape marked by choices between stifling the Nazi war effort and saving the lives of a handful of Jews. The movie was subtle, intelligent, just what we expect from a foreign film! I began to think some more about this dichotomy between American and European films; it seemed plausible that they just might be smarter, more refined than us.

Then, recently, I revisited Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola’s film about two Americans, out of place in Tokyo, struggling to find meaning in their lives, from which they felt similarly estranged. This was the sort of movie precluded by our stereotype. Thoughtful, beautiful, American. Clearly Americans are capable of making intelligent, subtle and meaningful films.

Now, in Paris, I am surrounded by posters for those same American movies that were so long on production values yet so short on content. Wall-E, The Dark Knight, Ironman. Walking by the Bastille, I mused on one potential explanation of the general differences between the sorts of movies we send abroad and the sort that we import.

Comparative advantage. It’s an idea in economics that explains circumstances under which trade can be profitable between two nations/agents. The theory explains that a nation need not have an absolute advantage in any product to benefit from trade. As long as the efficiency with which one nation produces product A relative to B is different than that ratio for another nation, specialization is warranted and economically beneficial for both nations. For our model consider one of the two goods being traded to be the over-the-top mind-numbing action-filled thrillers associated with American cinema. The other, the more contemplative, sophisticated films associated with European film-making. Where lies the comparative advantage?

I propose that perhaps we sell short Americans’ ability to produce brilliant films of the more artistic variety. It’s not that they can’t make these films; rather, they’re just so much better than anyone else at producing massive-budget low-brow films with a universality of appeal that comparative advantage has led Americans to specialize accordingly. The French love Batman as well. But when was the last time you saw a movie like Batman made in France? Ok, bad example. Batman is an American creation. But there are plenty of action movie paradigm’s with no overt connection to the United States. In comparison, America has produced many art films which could be placed in the same discussion as Amelie, The Counterfeiters.

Maybe the perceived differences between American and foreign film-making have more to do with economics and less to do with sophistication. Hollywood studios could be put to use to make lower-budget art films but I doubt European film studios would gracefully handle the challenge of producing King Kong.