Love is what you make it at the movies
Love is what you make it at the movies
By Sunaryono Basuki Ks
DENPASAR (JP): Love has become a dominant theme not only in novels but also in films. People are interested in love stories however it comes wrapped. The success of famous novels and films, such as Gone with the Wind, The English Patient and Titanic lies not only in the setting of the stories, but basically in the stories themselves, which are love stories.
People are attracted to love stories because they can identify with them and can sometimes project their own experiences in the films they see.
Many love stories are set against antagonistic situations, such as Romeo and Juliet which pits the two lovers' families in a dispute that hangs dangerously over the romance.
Gone with the Wind has the backdrop of the brutal American Civil War, while The English Patient takes place during World War II and Titanic bears the name of the infamous shipwreck. In all these settings, the characters are thrust into difficult situations to win their love.
Cowboy films or Westerns also frequently use love as a main theme. The rural struggle for life in This Earth is Mine in the 1960s is basically a love story.
The popularity with Chinese kung fu films in the 1970s shifted audience interests to action, heroism and even sadism, although romance was still part of these films' plots.
Indonesian audiences were first introduced to such violent films, dubbed here as "Jango" films, in the late 1960s after such American and European films had been banned for several years. Once they got a taste of films like The Great Escape, they were eager for more of these imported films.
These years saw cheap Italian B films of the "Jango" type circulating widely in Indonesia. From Hong Kong, the name of Wang Yu became very popular, and any theater showing his films was flooded by enthusiastic audiences.
A new type of film had become popular: hard, brutal, sadistic. The demand for more exciting films increased. Initially audiences were satisfied with watching Wang Yu dressed in white running in slow motion and then jumping into the sea. In later films, audiences enjoyed watching characters jump up to rooftops, while 15 years later, action in kung fu films had developed into fast- paced scenes in which characters flew like birds. Romance became minor themes in such movies.
Eventually people got bored and a new formula was created in which humor played a major part. Whether it was because they needed entertainment or because they felt fed up with their daily problems, audiences turned out to see this new type of film.
Beverly Hill's Cop type of films came to Indonesian cinemas, followed by Jumping Jack Flash, which told about a funny computer technician communicating with a government spy in another country. Action films were now mixed with humor. This new formula was then also applied in Hong Kong kung fu films.
New formulas included science fiction. The Planet of the Apes and ET impressed moviegoers in the 1970s, followed by Jurrasic Park in the early 1990s.
What seems to have disappeared from theaters are musicals such as The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady which were once very successful. But not many people are attracted to such a formula anymore, it seems. Evita wasn't very popular here, with all its history, singing and insufficient suspense.
Whatever the formula, a love plot, or a touch of it, seems to be here to stay as a sure way to attract audiences to movie theaters.