Movies were the barometers of the American psyche. A big movie like “The Godfather,” “Titanic” or “Lord of the Rings” entered the national conversation and changed the national consciousness. Movie stars have been our brightest icons. During the 1920s, nearly the entire population of the country attended the movies weekly, but even when attendance sank in the 1950s under the assault of television and the industry was virtually on life support, the movies still managed to occupy the center of American life. Virtually from their inception, the movies have been America’s primary popular art, the “Democratic Art,” as they were once called, managing to strike the American nerve continuously for decades. What is happening may be a matter of metaphysics. The long, long romance may finally be losing its bloom, and that is why Hollywood should be concerned. Eighty-three percent of its respondents said they were satisfied with the content of the films they saw, but 60% nevertheless expected to spend less of their income on moviegoing in the future, citing dissatisfaction with the moviegoing experience and the emergence of better alternatives for their time and money.īy this reckoning, no matter how much films may improve, their prospects are not likely to - which suggests that something has fundamentally changed in our relationship to the movies. of America, reached an even more chilling conclusion. The two most-cited reasons for seeing fewer movies were rising ticket prices and the quality of the films (a perpetual culprit).Īnother survey, this one conducted by PA Consulting for the Motion Picture Assn. A recent Zogby survey found that 45% of American moviegoers had decreased their attendance over the last five years, with the highest percentage of that decrease in the coveted 18- to 24-year-old bracket at the same time, 21% of respondents said they never went to the movies. In short, the overall trends remain discouraging.Įven more worrisome than what could be just a cyclical dip is how people are regarding motion pictures and the moviegoing experience.
And though defenders of the industry protest that foreign markets account for 40% of a film’s revenue and that those proceeds are compensating for falling domestic box office, foreign receipts have been down too, and even DVD sales are plateauing. Though by some accounts attendance was slightly up in 2006 over the previous year, the box-office tracking firm Exhibitors Relations reported that attendance actually declined yet again, reaching its lowest point in 10 years. It is hardly news that for years now the American motion picture industry has been in a slow downward spiral. But for all the outward celebration, the truth is that the industry is in a state of ongoing disquiet. TONIGHT’S Oscars will be awarded, most likely, in the usual atmosphere of solemn self-congratulation and decorous chest-thumping.
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