Category: Cinema

I just watched a very interesting interview on C-Span with American film director Cydney Pollack. It was very interesting to watch the points of view of an American Liberal Democrat. One interesting point in his talks was his consistent opposition to any regulation on art. He totally believes that there is a democratic process in the entertainment industry of America which is based on the "taste of the common man". He believes that the Entertainment Industry ,like many other industries, has very large number of individuals as players and it is almost impossible to fully control it. The bottom line is business and how successful you can sell and he believed that this is not ideal, but works better than any other method which might want to regulate the content for the sake of opinion. He believes that in the current setting of US Entertainment Industry if you have valuable content which is presented in interesting and attractive form (vs. propaganda product), you still have a good chance to reach your audience.

I am quite unhappy with the current state of entertainment industry and the dominance of the American capitol which is killing many of the creative ideas both inside and outside US. But Pollack believes that regulation is not the answer at all. He suggested some sort of taxation of the pop culture industry which could subsidize the progressive art production inside and outside US. What I really liked about his speech was his commitment to freedom of speech and his respect for people's taste and the fact that he's very pragmatic about issues and does not blame random things for the problems. That's one of the differences that I have seen in America comparing with Iran and maybe other third world states, that people try to look at the problem from a focused perspective rather than conspiring all sorts of global problems and relating things to each other without proposing a real solution.