Cinema: The New Hollywood: Dead or Alive?

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The biggest turkey arrived just in time for last Thanksgiving. Michael Cimino, fresh from his Oscar for The Deer Hunter, blew $36.5 million on Heaven's Gate, a handsome, incoherent western that United Artists withdrew from release after New York critics gave it—and the profligate artist at its helm—a sound drubbing. Heaven's Gate opens in an abridged version next month, but in its initial release, about 8,000 moviegoers paid to see it: U.A. had spent $4,500 for every ticket sold. At the premature burial of Heaven's Gate—and, many thought, of the New Hollywood—the pallbearers could be seen dancing on the grave.

Hollywood is an industry built on the suspension of disbelief and the eternal attraction of melodrama; no wonder its denizens believe their press clippings—even the obits. But before moviegoers queue up for the wake, or make plans to go bowling for the rest of their Saturday nights, or draft David Stockman as a cost-slashing cinema czar, a note of caution should be sounded. These are not the best of times; these are not the worst of times. The theatrical film is unlikely ever to regain its standing as America's most popular art form: the 1 billion tickets sold in the U.S. last year amounted to only a quarter of the number of admissions in 1946, the industry's best year. But the 1980 count represented a 25% increase over 1971, and though ticket sales and profit margins dipped in 1979 and 1980, the decade was Hollywood's healthiest since the '40s. All but two of the alltime top 25 moneymaking movies have been released since 1970, and three films—Star Wars, Jaws and The Empire Strikes Back—have earned their producers and distributors around $200 million each.

Undoubtedly, these hefty "rentals" (gross profits returned to the studios) are distorted by inflation; in real-dollar terms, Gone With the Wind remains the alltime box-office champ (see chart). But inflation has also bloated the budgets of recent movies. During an earlier spending spree in the '60s, Hollywood produced ten films with $20 million-plus budgets. Considering a dozen years of the incredible shrinking dollar, even Heaven's Gate cost less than Tor a, Tora, Tora (1970) or Hello, Dolly! (1969). If the Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra ($44 million in 1963) were made today, it would cost $110.6 million.

Like most of the runaway-budget movies of Old or New Hollywood, Cleopatra was a producer's—not a director's —folly. But then, producers are supposed to spend money on movies, yachts and beautiful women; directors are supposed to toil in their ateliers creating works of art that make other people money. The legend of the wastrel director has its root in this assumption. The Young Punks have earned far more money for their employers than they have wasted; and like most overpriced movies, theirs have eventually broken even or turned a profit. But the price in frayed emotions and aborted careers can be high. In the words of Ned Tanen, president of Universal Pictures (1941, The Blues Brothers): "Life is too short to pray every night for a smash hit just to get your money back."