Professor Elam

Friday April 15, 2011

Yesterday I did  a post on why Scream 4 is likely to be a success. I noted that it is in synch with the current mood which is about to be down again. 

Now consider this comment on Sidney Lumet, the director who just died. This appeared today in the San Francisco Chronicle. 

IN the 1970s there was a sense in the air of a world gone made, of a society on the edge of an abyss. Until Scorcese with Taxi Driver, 1976,  no one capturedthat desapairing chaotic and hopeless feeling quite like Lumet in his two classic films with Al Pacino, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. 

Network upped the ante. It was  a farce nightmare of a society in  which everyone is angry and in which corporations  are more powerful than governments. 

The dates tell the whole story. Society was half way through an 18 year period of stagnation.  The downbeat theme of the films matched the downbeat mood of the public. Bingo box office success!