Foreign Movie Director, Not Always Genius Filmmaker
Foreign film directors and movies are cool, don't get me wrong. I love watching a world other than my own in a film where things are the same but different. I love movies filled with the rhythm of foreign tongues and the visual experience of watching and reading dialogue. That being said, most foreign film directors are no better than any American director.
I abhor those that worship at the throne of the foreign director. Foreign filmmakers' work is different in kind and this is often taken as meaning higher quality. Different doesn't mean better. The problem is you can't properly compare movie directors from the USA with those of a foreign tongue without at least knowing that language intimately, if not also the culture. So most of the praise for foreign directors is based on hope, not facts.
Translation Wittier Than Original
The movie you are seeing has been changed from the original form that the director oversaw production of. If Cinderella's slipper was made of fur in French but glass in English, we can see that translation can change things drastically. Not every single word translates precisely. Many funny expressions in one language fall flat in another. The subtitles you are reading might be funny not only because of the original script. Often they have to substitute a funny expression in one language for a similar one in English. This new expression might seem like genius but it shouldn't be attributed to the director since he or she likely didn't do the translation.
Acting Not Judged Accurately
It's difficult to impossible to know whether foreign language actors are good. We don't know what people are like over there, so the stiff performance might be perfectly natural. If you can't accurately judge acting, how can you be sure of the director's ability to properly cast the film. We don't even consider the acting because we have no frame of reference and thus a foreign director gets a pass on something American directors would be scrutinized on.
Mesmerized By Exotic Locales
Foreign movies are often made in foreign lands. These far-off places have captivating landscapes and breathtaking views. They may be photographed well but they also may be a cliche in that culture. We may be thinking "that forest is beautiful" while the people of that culture may see the location as overused. We don't know if that same image was used in TV commercials and brochures for hotels all over that country. Aside from not knowing the value of a location, we also can become transfixed by them where we become more lenient in areas.
Foreign Director Mystique
There's a foreign director worship problem among film people in general. There's a lot written about foreign directors. They often do make difficult films, but many get government financing whereas Americans have to find our own money. Their countries also might mandate a certain percentage of movies shown in theaters to be homegrown. So they have an unfair advantage in their country to get the film made in the first place. Then we can't understand it fully so we call it genius and close the inquiry.
Often Well-Reviewed, Critic-Championed
Certain critics like to dump on American movies, picking apart the most minute details. These are the same critics that will find an obscure European film and proclaim the sun shines from its director's nether region. Since these films can't be accurately judged by us, it seems we just don't judge them at all. We want there to be genius in the world, so we make it up. Just because a critic thinks something is awesome doesn't make it so, they are just another opinion.
Foreign directors are just like any director. They make movies the best they can and what you see is the culmination of that. They aren't any better than you no matter what the prevailing opinion posits. Don't worry about competing with foreign directors, these things all even out in the end. If you're lucky some foreign country will glom onto your work even though it's flawed.
Interesting article! When I was in film school, it seemed that every French film was given instant "art cred" simply because it was in French. Although I will say that foreign directors are often (but not always) at an advantage because most countries are much older than the US of A, and have a longer cultural/artistic history. In my experience, most other countries seem to have a greater appreciation for art and more of a stomach for risk-taking than Hollywood.
But overall, I agree with your point that many US filmmakers have every bit as talent as some guy whose name we can't pronounce.
Hey Joe, you make a good point. Another advantage foreign directors have is not having such easy access to selling out so they have to do something different...
There is no multi-billion dollar machine like the US film business that demands more and more content. It's like the art cred you were speaking of, they seem counter-cultural by being outside of Hollywood even though it's their circumstances not necessarily their directing prowess that makes them so.
I agree with the sentiment of the article, but I would like to back up foreign films with one point; the USA's predominant culture is that of capitalism and making money, whereas in many other countries culture encompasses more avenues, such as history, religion or artistic creations. And what I have noticed living out of the US and studying film and making films, is that outside of the US the other countries treat film like an art form, namely cinema, and in the US, there is the fear of losing money, or drive for making money, which plays a big part in the filmmaking process. And I'm not criticizing filmmakers here, but I do think the quality of what we do can suffer when we are pressured to make money. I have made two features. I live in the US again, and after a couple years working in jobs that weren't film (being a wedding videographer/editor and then working in retail selling clothes,) my next project is specifically so the producer and I can make a little money off it. It is a horror film, and we made it because my producer pointed out, horror sells. So we have some financing (my first feature was a nobudget which had one backer, and my second was made with even less money and no backers, just from my pocket.) I wrote the best, scariest script I could, but I'm for sure not doing this because I was compelled to make a horror. I was actually wanting to make a western next. I am making this because we'll recoup our costs and maybe make a grand each on this one, and by recouping the costs to our investors we'll be solid to get more investors for our next one and so on. It's driven by a long term goal to support myself making films, not by wanting to make art. And so I think that our culture of money does interfere with what we could be making.
You do make excellent points. Many other countries have government and other types of subsidies for filmmakers and they do treat it as an art.
But subsidies and capitalism can both bring about bad movies.
I, too, have found myself doing certain types of filmmaking (that shall remain nameless) in hopes of gaining a return and moving on to the stuff I really want to do (dark comedy). I, too, would rather work in an environment where profit is not a concern.
Without foreign films cinema would not have grown to what it is today, that is certain. Alot of the more interesting filmmakers today cite European, Chinese, and Japanese film as influences.
But foreign films do get a pass because most of us can't accurately judge them, I stand by that statement.
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