The Value of Films

Brit

As I read Working-Class Hollywood, I began to wonder what how movies are interpreted today.  Movies throughout the ages have been used in various ways, but today I feel that with such a wide range of genres, movies can be virtually anything to anyone.  During the Second World War many movies were used as propaganda, such as Saboteur, showing a man’s struggle to bring the real culprits to justice.  After the war movies depicted soldiers coming home and what that meant for them and America as a whole, as seen in films like The Best Years of Our Lives.  Each successive era has shown films that have some bearing on the social issues at hand, but as I think about it, not that I have a vast knowledge of film history, there do not seem to be many working-class struggle type films. 

Even today, with all the different types of films being created, the most socially conscious are documentaries.  Just as Kruse and others attempted to use documentaries as a way to show social issues as they happened, directors today use documentaries to raise awareness of many of the social issues at hand.  Documentaries are far more successful today in terms of availability, most notably being available through Netflix and other venues, they still lack the broad appeal of feature films.  They generally have limited release in theaters and are not shown nearly as often, but I do believe that films have value, beyond the monetary value production companies place on them.

Beyond the idea that films are entertainment or a form of escape, films often can and often do say something about a social issue.  There are countless films available for people to watch and learn from either by going to the theater or watching movies at home.  With new ways of watching films, either through Redbox, Netflix, Amazon, or any of the other various resources, people can watch virtually anything.  While there are movies out there that are virtually made for entertainment’s sake, take for example Sucker Punch, there are also films being made that say something about the state of society right now.  The Company Men focuses on three men who have to face corporate downsizing and how that affects their lives and the lives of their families.  This film shows the affects of unemployment, which is a crisis we are facing today, and it does it as a feature film with big name actors like Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones.  Films say something, whether they are made-for-television, documentaries, foreign, or feature films, they are valuable as more than just works of art or entertainment.