The night before the megadud Last Action Hero was officially released last summer, one of my best friends called the house around 10:30 p.m. and asked if I would like to attend a midnight preview of the film.
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"Do I look like the kind of person who goes to Arnold Schwarzenegger movies?" I replied, somewhat piqued.
"It's a John McTiernan film," my friend corrected me. "His movies are pretty good. He made Die Hard."
Oh. Oh, now I understood. A John McTiernan movie. A film by John McTiernan. A cinematic project that utilizes the inexhaustible thespian resources of a semiarticulate Austrian weightlifter who's a bosom buddy of Kurt Waldheim to delineate the personal vision of one John McTiernan. Oh, now that was different.
My friend, who has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University, and who once studied with the famed film critic Mark Miller, is the only person of my acquaintance who has the faintest idea who John McTiernan is, much less knows that he directed Last Action Hero. Virtually everyone I know--and virtually everyone you know--is the sort of person who could care less who directed the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood or Tom Cruise movie. Americans are intelligent, sophisticated people who intuitively understand that the motion picture industry is a glorified form of manufacturing, not unlike the canning industry, where a bunch of interchangeable packagers with interchangeable skills compete to see who can produce the most serviceable, durable merchandise, and who can do it in the most timely, cost-effective fashion.
The American people do not know or care who Ridley Scott or Adrian Lyne is, and they haven't the faintest idea which one of them directed Indecent Proposal. The American people also do not know or care whether it was Susan Sarandon playing Thelma or Geena Davis playing Louise. They have better things to do with their time than to keep movie trivia straight. They've got kids to raise, lawns to mow, guns to clean, wives to beat.
Or am I just imagining this? Hey, it's all well and good for me to sit here in the refined comfort of my quiet, suburban home and disparage the cinematic efforts of Messers. Scott, Lyne and McTiernan, and act like anyone could have directed Last Action Hero or Flashdance. But is my sneering contempt for most directors actually shared by the vast American public? And can that contempt or indifference be calibrated in an empirical, statistically meaningful way?
Obviously, the average American does not care who directed the latest Ernest movie, nor does he care who directed Ghoulies Go to College. But what about serious movies, like, oh, I don't know, Falling Down? Think about it. If it is true that Americans only go to the picture show to see movie stars they enjoy, or to see the latest installments in series that they have come to love and trust (Alien, Star Wars, A Nightmare on Elm Street), and couldn't care less who directed the most recent episodes, then why do studios insist on taking out big, splashy advertisements that read:
"Dave: An Ivan Reitman Film"
or
"A Mario Van Peebles Film: Posse"
Surely, the studios do not pay for such advertisements merely to stroke the egos of directors, merely to make them believe that someone, somewhere actually cares who directed the latest Kevin Kline movie or gives a hoot who was behind the camera when the latest sociopathic Boyz-N-the-Zeitgeist film was being midwifed into existence by some surly film school asshole in a tight-fitting baseball cap. Surely they pay for these extravagant, attention-getting directorial kudos because it helps to sell tickets, because it helps to create product loyalty, because all across America, tired, hard-working people come home every night and say, "Hey, toots, how about loading the kids into the Voyager and checking out that new John Singleton movie?" or "Look, honey, drop everything and let's go see what John McTiernan's been up to lately. You know, John McTiernan? The guy who directed Die Hard . . ."
To establish once and for all whether the average filmgoer knows or cares who directed a movie, I spent four days standing outside theaters in New York City asking people pointed questions as they emerged. I attempted, as scientifically as was humanly possible, to construct my sample in a demographically meaningful fashion, including substantial numbers of teenagers, Hispanics, blacks and senior citizens, while avoiding obvious scum-sucking pigs, people who looked like movie critics, and retards.
Generally speaking, I asked the first 10 plausible-looking people coming out of the theater if they could tell me the name of the man or woman who had directed the film they had just seen. Occasionally, when I elicited particularly unexpected responses, I would expand my sample to as many as 25, just to make sure I had not stumbled upon some sort of demographic Bermuda Triangle that would unfairly skew the results and make people like John McTiernan (who directed Die Hard) seem even less important than they actually are.
For the sake of methodological equilibrium, statistical relevance and overall journalistic fairness, I confined my research to directors with a certain reputation and stature in Hollywood. I did this to avoid needlessly rigging the results of my study by requesting the identities of hopelessly unimportant directors or of directors of hopelessly unimportant films. Thus, I did not ask anyone who had directed Dennis the Menace or What's Love Got To Do With It or Life With Mikey. I did not want to turn my study into a complete joke.
Instead, I confined my study to major films by major directors (Sidney Lumet, Sydney Pollack, Steven Spielberg), major films by individuals who would like to be thought of as major directors (Nora Ephron, Renny Harlin, Neil Jordan, Adrian Lyne, John McTiernan, Ivan Reitman, Mario Van Peebles), and James Ivory. Then, as a sort of control, I threw in a trio of highly praised foreign films (Orlando, The Story of Qiu Ju, Un Coeur en Hiver) whose aficionados would be familiar with the auteur theory, and thus would be more likely to know the identity of the director of this or that film.
Finally, I included a movie by a pair of up-and-coming directors (the Hughes brothers) who were taking Hollywood by storm with their new film Menace II Society, and were getting written up almost daily in The New York Times and other important publications.
The results of my study are presented herewith.
Last Action Hero by John McTiernan. I spent an hour outside the Loews Orpheum Theatre VII at Third Avenue and 86th Street in Manhattan the Monday after the film opened, and asked the first 10 people coming out if they knew who had directed the movie. None knew or cared. One man volunteered, "Renny Harlin," then said, "I work in this business and I don't know who directed it. I own six movie theaters. But nobody knows who directs these things."
Actually, Renny Harlin, who directed Die Hard 2, was a pretty good guess, since John McTiernan had directed Die Hard. What's more, Cliffhanger, which Renny Harlin did direct, was playing in the same theater as Last Action Hero. Determined to give McTiernan the benefit of the doubt, I hung around and asked 15 more people, including a half-dozen Chinese-American high school students, if they could identify the director, but they mostly looked at me as if the question were incredibly stupid. Incidentally, most of the people I polled did feel that the film sucked, so in the long run, the lack of a high profile is probably going to work in John McTiernan's favor in terms of his directing career. Result: 0/25.
The Crying Game by Neil Jordan. This artsy affair had gotten lots of attention in New York City, drawing on the huge transvestite audience, and had won tremendous praise for its director. It was playing in a snotty, cigar box theater across from Bloomingdale's in midtown Manhattan, and a lot of the people coming out after seeing it looked like your typical art-house crowd. But none of the 10 people I polled had any idea who directed it. "Michael Jordan," was the closest I came to getting an accurate identification. Result: 0.5/10.
Guilty As Sin. This was the one instance in which even I didn't know who had directed the film I was asking questions about. Because the movie featured an actor who has married Melanie Griffith twice, I naively assumed that the director must be somebody with a name like Nick Castle or Shlomo Gildermeister. So did my polling group. People emerging from the City Cinemas/Cinema I on Third Avenue at 60th Street in the middle of that sweltering afternoon were amazed that anyone could possibly have the chutzpa to ask who had directed a Don Johnson movie, much less a film with Rebecca De Mornay in it. The typical reaction was that of two smarmy yuppies bulging out of wide-lapelled suits, their huge porcine visages adorned by gleaming Ray-Bans. They cracked up when I asked the question.
"Get out of here," said one, good-naturedly.
"What kind of question is that?" guffawed the other.
I didn't find out until I read an article in The New Republic the next day that the director was the revered Sidney Lumet. Jesus, was I embarrassed. Result: 0/10.
Dave. "An Ivan Reitman Film." You know, like, "a film by Federico Fellini." Or Ran, "a film by Akira Kurosawa." Obviously, none of the 10 people I quizzed outside the Loews Columbus Circle theater in Manhattan had any idea who had directed this lame political satire. The closest anyone came to a positive ID was the thin, middle-aged man who said, "I know he's got a Russian name. Is it Ivan or something?"
"That's right," I replied. "It's Ivan..."
"I don't know the last name."
"Lendl?" I volunteered. "Ivan Lendl? Does that sound about right?"
"Yes," he said. The very next afternoon, the aging Czech tennis player got eliminated in the second round at Wimbledon. Result: 0/10.
Sleepless In Seattle by Nora Ephron. Playing at the Loews 84th Street VI at 84th and Broadway in Manhattan. Get real. Result: 0/10.
Posse. "A Mario Van Peebles Film." You know, like "David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia." Or "Dave: An Ivan Reitman film." Given the fact that I was asking people, "Who directed Posse?" while they were standing directly in front of a huge poster reading: "A Mario Van Peebles Film: Posse," you might have expected the results to come out a bit skewed in Mario's favor. But no, only one of my 10 pollees at the Embassy 2, 3, 4 theater at 47th and Broadway in New York City could tell me who'd directed this dimwitted, affirmative-action cowboy flick. Most just shook their heads. A couple of teenagers shrugged. At least one person didn't seem to understand the question. And a belligerent young man of not inconsiderable girth got right into my face and asked, "Who the fuck wants to know?" Well, precisely. Result: 1/10.
Cliffhanger by Renny Harlin. The first nine people I polled outside the Loews Orpheum Theatre VII at Third Avenue and 86th Street seemed to think the question was impertinent. The 10th said: "Renny Harding." Close enough. Result: 0.75/10.
Indecent Proposal by Adrian Lyne. Playing at the Loews 19th Street East VI at 19th and Broadway, not far from Greenwich Village. Yeah, sure. Result: 0/10.
Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg. This was the one phase of the experiment where the results literally blew me away. I'd turned up at the Cineplex Odeon at Park and 86th Street, where the picture was playing in both theaters, convinced at least 90 percent of the people coming out of the theater would know that Jurassic Park was a Steven Spielberg production. No way. The very first person that I asked, a woman in her twenties, confidently said, "Yeah, I know who directed it. Stephen King."
Stephen King was also the answer supplied by a fiftyish, dorky guy. Five obvious Manhattanite women shot back "Steven Spielberg" without missing a beat, but three young males--one white, one black, one Hispanic--all said they had no idea who directed the film. One corpulent woman checked me out carefully after I said, "Excuse me, but I'm doing a study for Movieline magazine. Could you tell me who directed the movie that you just saw?"
She simply sauntered off, ignoring me, sneering over her shoulder, "That's the best pick-up line I've heard in a long time."
I watched her amble down the street. Then I reflected on what she had just said. I thought about classic pickup lines, such as "Do you come here often?" and "Do those legs go all the way up?" and "Excuse me, but aren't you Demi Moore's sister?" Then I compared these lines to "Excuse me, but I'm doing a study for Movieline magazine. Could you tell me who directed the movie that you just saw?" Then I hollered after her: "If that's the best pickup line you've heard in a long time, you're in big trouble." She kept walking. Result: 5/10.
Menace II Society. Directed by the Hughes brothers or the Hughes cousins or something, and playing at the City Cinema 86th Street East Twin, between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan. Yeah, right. Result: 0/10.
Howards End by James Ivory. My experience standing outside the tiny Cineplex Odeon on East 59th Street right up the street from trendy Bloomingdale's was a true epiphany. Everyone coming out of the theater knew who had directed the film. Everyone coming out of the theater knew who had produced it. Everyone coming out of the theater thought the question was stupid. The problem was: Everyone consisted of only four people. This made me realize that there is an inverse relationship between the audience's ability to identify the director of a film and the amount of money the movie will probably take in. A movie with 100 percent directorial recognition is almost certainly going to be a movie with Vanessa Redgrave in it somewhere. This is no way to run a railroad. What Hollywood wants, what Hollywood needs, is an infinite stream of movies that absolutely nobody can tell you the director of. Hollywood doesn't want four people coming out of a movie house knowing that James Ivory directed the film and that Ismail Merchant produced it. It wants 2,000 people coming out of a Renny Harlin movie thinking they've just seen a movie by John McTiernan. You know, the guy who directed Die Hard... ? Result: 4/4.
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Special Artsy-Craftsy Section.
I had launched this undertaking convinced that the only people who really care about directors are pretentious snobs who regularly attend foreign films. Inevitably, this led me to the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, the one-stop multiplex for all your basic show-offish needs.
The afternoon I planted myself at the top of the elevator ferrying audience members out of the bowels of the subterranean cinema (this is what they mean by underground films), the proprietors were screening three snooty films: The Story of Qiu Ju by Zhang Yimou, Un Coeur en Hiver by Claude Sautet, and Orlando by Sally Potter. No one, but no one, could tell me who had directed The Story of Qiu Ju. No one, but no one, could tell me who had directed Un Coeur en Hiver, though one woman did say, "Claude something," always a safe bet when discussing French films.
Amazingly, however, five of the 10 people I polled knew that Sally Potter had directed Orlando. More amazing still, all five people were women accompanied by men who could not identify the director. In retrospect, I realized that because Orlando is a film about transsexualism and transvestism, it is very possible that the five women who could identify Sally Potter as the director were actually men in drag, while their five male companions were females dressed up to look like pretentious, male art-film buffs. All things considered, given the enormous number of transsexual foreign-film buffs based in New York, I do not think we can learn a whole lot from these figures. Result: 5/30.
WHAT THE NUMBERS MEAN.
All told, over a three-day period, I asked 134 moviegoers coming out of 14 different movies if they could tell me who had directed the film they had just seen. (I actually asked 25 different people if they could tell me who had directed Last Action Hero without finding anyone who could, but for purposes of methodological fairness, and out of compassion for John McTiernan, who did, after all, direct Die Hard, only the first 10 responses were used in my final tabulations.) Similarly, I have only included four responses to the question about the director of Howards End because there were only four people in the theater at the time, and it was a really hot day, and I didn't feel like hanging around for almost three hours waiting for the next screening to end. This is the only methodological blemish on what is otherwise a flawless, seamless work of statistical clarity and yes, perhaps even beauty.
The results are not pretty. Of the nine conventional, American-made films that I investigated, only 6.75 out of 90 people could tell me the name of the director. Throw out the universally famous Steven Spielberg and the percentage drops to 1.75 out of 80, or 2 percent. Pathetic. And even in Spielberg's case (50 percent), the rate-of-recognition numbers were much smaller than for James Ivory (100 percent).
Worse still, Spielberg's 50 percent rating put him in exactly the same class as an obscure, English female director of a cross-dressing drama that is only playing in about six movie theaters on the entire planet. The inescapable conclusion that must be drawn from this data is clear: Americans could give a (as in one single) fuck about who directed Posse, and couldn't even give that many fucks about who directed Indecent Proposal, Dave, Sleepless In Seattle, Last Action Hero, Cliffhanger, Menace II Society or Guilty As Sin. Proving, once and for all, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that this is not France.
BUT ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE BEING COMPLETELY FAIR?
As a final test of my hypothesis that even bothering to include a director's name in an American film's credits is a hopeless affectation, if not a huge crock of shit, I decided to wrap up my study by visiting several New York theaters and determining whether any of the theater personnel, as opposed to theater patrons, might be familiar with the auteurs in question and capable of rattling off their names.
"What time does the Ivan Reitman film start?" I asked the cashier at the Loews Columbus Circle theater in New York. The moviehouse, which only has one screen, had been showing Dave for about five weeks.
"Who?" she replied.
"Ivan Reitman. What time does the Ivan Reitman film start?"
"We're showing Dave," she answered, shaking her head. "We're not showing an Ivan Reitman film."
I moseyed uptown to a neighborhood six-plex, the mammoth Loews 84th Street VI at 84th and Broadway.
"Two tickets for the John McTiernan film," I told the cashier.
"Who?" she asked, puzzled.
"John McTiernan. Two tickets for the John McTiernan film."
She consulted her computer screen, visibly confused.
"I don't know the name of that actor. What movie is it?"
"The John McTiernan movie. My girlfriend said to meet her at this moviehouse and get two tickets for the John McTiernan film."
"Well, I don't know the name of that actor."
I got out of line for a few minutes, asked 10 people if they could tell me who had directed The Firm, which had just opened that day, did not get a single "Sydney Pollack" in response, then went back to the cashier's booth.
"Can I have two tickets for the John McTiernan film?" I asked.
The cashier looked at me, a grim glimmer of recognition in her stare.
"I don't know the name of that actor."
"Okay, then let me have two tickets for the Nora Ephron film."
"I don't know the name of that actor either."
I think that says it all.
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Joe Queenan wrote about Hollywood's castration obsession in the September Movieline.