But there is a problem with Costner the actor. He’s basicly a lightweight. An agreeable enough Hollywood leading man and action hero but nevertheless a lightweight. He has an annoying nasal tone to his voice and has a range of emotions from A to B. But this is not so different from many Hollywood leading men. His character usually struggles when acting alongside more heavyweight actors such as Duvall, Sean Connery, Alan Rickman. But, in the 1980’s and early 1990s he had a purple patch when he could do no wrong – as actor, producer or director.

Costner seems to be a very clever guy though and keeps on working between the duds and the diamonds. Just look at his track record.

First major appearance in a starring role was in Brian dePalma’s “The Untouchables” in 1987. Playing the boring, decent but driven Elliot Ness opposite Sean Connery’s streetwise Irish Cop (complete with hideous accent) and a powerhouse cameo by Robert de Niro as Al Capone seemed to work and opened up a lot of doors in Hollywood for Costner. His next three films, the pentagon thriller “No Way Out”, the baseball movie “Bull Durham” and the well-loved but schmaltzy “Field of Dreams” all fared well both critically and at the box office. This provided him with a lot of leverage and in 1990 he was allowed to not only star in but produce and direct his film “Dances With Wolves” a tale of the expansion of the western frontier through the eyes of a disaffected soldier who meets and lives with the Plains Indians. This is really Costner’s zenith, his career high point where he produced a truly memorable film which was acknowledged by the industry with Oscars. His standing as a Hollywood player was cemented by this film.

Over the next five years he performed in the likeable “Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves” but was outperformed by Alan Rickman. He also got the production credits. The interminably long conspiracy theory film “JFK” seemed to bring back a little gravitas or weight to his reputation. “The BodyGuard” did well at the box office but was not exactly one of his finest moments. He tried to kick the leading man/ hero image a little in “A Perfect World” but he was shortly to enter into a slump which was difficult to get out of.

His next three major films “Wyatt Earp”, “Waterworld” and “The Postman” showed that power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Hollywood gave him such artistic freedom at this point in his career which can be a blessing or a curse. “Wyatt Earp” is a ponderous western that people stayed away from. That should have been a warning sign.

For his next effort, Costner acquired the rights to the greatest unfilmable script in Hollywood – “The Mariner”. He turned it into “Waterworld” in 1995. This was nearly Costner’s “Heaven’s Gate”. There were production problems with filming mostly on water; the budget spiralled out of control; and the film-going public didn’t particularly like it. Costner had no chemistry with the love interest, Jeanne Tripplehorn (known from Basic Instinct) and Dennis Hopper’s pantomime villain didn’t help matters. In hindsight and with the passage of time,”Waterworld” is actually a superior action movie with some tremendous set pieces on the water but its weaknesses weigh it down.

The buck had to stop with Costner who as the leading actor, producer and director had total control over the finished product. His career started to nosedive. This downward plunge was helpd along by “The Postman” in 1997 ,a post apocalyptic tale that did not hit any buttons with the film-going public.

Since that time he has had a checkered career. Whilst he has continued producing several moderately successful films, critically and at the box office, including the romantic “Message in a Bottle” and “Thirteen Days” a political thriller about the Cuban missile crisis, his directing career appeared to have finished until “Open Range” in 2003.

He clearly has an instinct for survival in Hollywood and maybe he will mature as director later as did Clint Eastwood. Until then I am sure he will continue to produce successful movies and maybe act in them.

Well, it is even easier than that, because any one with a mobile phone (with camera that can take video) can make a short film clip and display it all over the world via YouTube in a matter of seconds. This is an incredible phenomenon.

In essence, it’s almost like we have been transported back to the late 1970s. Rock music had become overblown and self indulgent and entrance into the music industry had become quite difficult for up and coming bands. What happened? Punk. Kids getting together and forming bands in garages, learning instruments, rehearsing, and playing any venue they could get into. They maybe didn’t have the musical skills of the older, more established bands but they made up for it in raw energy. Pubs and clubs opened up to showcase this new breed of rock. There was an punk explosion of talent that gave the music industry a shot in the arm.

This is what I see with YouTube. People who previously had not thought about making films are now making their own films and clips and sharing with their friends and the rest of the world via this incredible conduit – YouTube. There is a lot of rubbish on YouTube granted but you can also see the work of fledgling film makers in their mini epics that have been cleverly realized.

You see fantastic ideas put on screen in 10 minute format. One clip that hit the UK national news was a film taken on their mobile phone by a person whilst they were skiing down an escalator in a London Underground station. Interesting but dangerous. I looked on YouTube today and found two contrasting but very interesting presentations. The first one was the latest in a series called “Cube News”. Basically, “Cube News” is news for “cube dwellers” ie the office workers of today and is a humorous and irreverent look at life in today’s offices presented by a good-looking and feisty female. It is presented in a news programme format inside a “cube” and deals with all of the annoyances and frustrations surrounding working in a “cube”. The second was more of a documentary called “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” filmed using only a hand held video camera. In a series of films, the story traces the progress of two independent music executives trying to film Iraq’s only heavy metal band. But what you get is an insight into what life is actually like in Baghdad at the moment, something you would never get from traditional news publishers. A real eye opener!

YouTube also provides the ability for you to search through videos. For instance, I am a Scunthorpe United follower. So, I can search for all of the videos posted about Scunthorpe United. You can keep up to date with clips from terrestrial TV, camera phone and video at the press of a button.

This is a breeding ground for the next generation of film makers I’m sure. YouTube has millions of hits every week. Many more people watch clips on this site than go to the cinema. Short films of odd and strange events attract hundreds of thousands of visitors. I suppose the beauty of it is that the audience don’t have to pay for the privilege of seeing these masterpieces to get a couple of hours worth of entertainment.

I have no doubt that there is any army of Hollywood executives watching YouTube scouring for talent, getting ideas for movies and using it as a marketing device for their multi million dollar product. It is already plain to see that major studios plant their trailers on YouTube to gauge market reaction.

YouTube is an incredible facility. It allows any one regardless of whether they have any money, or whether they know the right people to make their own films and have them viewed across the world. Individual expression now has a global outlet.

In the next post I will look at whether YouTube is being abused.

It was not so long ago that fresh-faced graduates of film schools would get on the ladder of major film-making through the auspices of the large production companies. Getting their face known, showing their skills and abilities and eventually climbing the corporate ladder

But there are some trends that are evident now that could cut through all of the traditional ways of making films, marketing, distributing and presenting them.

Digital video is one of the most significant developments that is starting to democratise film-making. In theory, any one can make a film as long as you have a DV recorder and a PC with the right software. True you still need to have talent and vision but it doesn’t cost the earth to get started. The cost of storing and manipulating moving images has plumetted as processing power becomes greater and the price of hard disks and storge media decreases. Special effects are available to all with low cost, chromakey technology. The quality of DV recorders is improving daily and excellent sound capture equipment is within the reach of most budding movie makers. Editing can be done on the PC.

The technical and cost barriers to making your own film have been eroded away. Just get together with a few talented mates, use your imagination and ingenuity, get organised with a script and actors and go and make your film! Just take some inspiration from the original “Evil Dead”, “The Blair Witch Project” and “Napolean Dynamite”. Even major film makers are converting to DV. Mike Figgis has experimented with DV on ”Time Code” (2000) and just recently David Lynch has released “Inland Empire” (2007) to critical acclaim.

So what happens then. Who is going to see your masterpiece? How can you get paid for your efforts? When are you going to be invited to Hollywood?

Apart from your parents and interested friends is any one else likely to see your creation? Well, if you get out there and market it, quite probably. There is a huge audience out there to tap into. Just look at the rise of YouTube. People making small films of themselves or things and events around them and making them available to any one who has a PC across the globe. This site gets millions of hits every day. No surpirise that Google has taken them over. Why not use it as a marketing opportunity to show a trailer of your film? David Lynch did this with “Inland Empire”. Viral marketing and word of mouth could hook you up with thousands of potential viewers and get that precious PR and buzz. All for free!

As video streaming technology improves you could distribute your film yourself over the net. Bypassing the traditional means of film distribution. There are already loads of internet operations that sell films by download. The infrastructure is already there for you to make money.

Going straight to video is usually filmspeak for poor quality films that are likely to do poorly at the box office. Actually you could turn that round and make quality films that will only be seen in the home and not at the cinemas. People will be able to still have a great film experience with all the new Home Cinema technology (50+ inch screens, Dolby Digital sound through a multitude of speakers etc) being sold at the moment.

So in effect you don’t need the big procduction companies, the big distribution companies and the big cinema multiplex chains. Granted if you want to make an enormous epic like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings then it might be a little difficult to do it a home DV recorder but who knows with a little imagination……..

Masterpiece?

• Fantastic cinematography – you get a real sense of size and proportion of the landscape which gives a real epic feel to the film. Scenes on the prairies with the big open sky are breathtaking.
• Authenticity – millions of dollars were spent trying to make the film look representative of the period. Thousands of handmade costumes and many newly built sets.
• Action – when the action does come, it is brutal, bloody and believable
• Experimentation – Cimino clearly borrows techniques and style from the European Cinema to try and give this western a different edge and feel. The use of a circling camera in action scenes is reminiscent of the work of the obscure Hungarian film director Miklos Jansco. In many ways, it is successful in conveying the clash of cultures

Mess!

• No big stars – For a big budget epic it had no bankable star. Of the main stars only Kris Kristofferson had any sort of kudos for a Western as he had taken one of the leads in Peckinpah’s iconic Pat Garret ad Billy the Kid. Isabelle Hupert, as the love interest, was virtually unknown in America although well respected in Europe.
• Film Length – The film is either too long or too short depending on who you talk to. The original cut of the film was over three and a half hours which was cut by the studio by nearly an hour after a week’s performance. This created problems for the narrative and played havoc with the cadence of the film. It became disjointed and difficult to follow. A Director’s Cut was unveiled in 2004 being nearer the original length and addresses some of the narrative problems.
• Characters – It is difficult to identify with the main characters and warm to them. The film revolves around the Kristofferson character. However, the performance isn’t large enough to fill the hole at the centre of the film.
• Problematic subject – a story about genocide planned by the establishment and a storyline with a whiff of communism about it did not endear itself to the American public at that time. The western had all but died after The Wild Bunch so its timing was poor.
• Poor sound quality – you may think I’m nit-picking here but when important developments in the story are missed because you didn’t hear what the characters were saying…
• Out of Control Director – indulgence on a grand scale proving that more can be less

I would definitely recommend you to go and see whatever version of the film you can get to see although I also recommend you take a comfy cushion to sit on. I’m sure you can get it on DVD. I think it is a magnificent, interesting, infuriating mess with the odd touch of masterpiece about it. You don’t always want to see the best films do you? There is a famous book – Final Cut – written by one of the production executives in charge of the film (haha) detailing the progress of the fated production and the downfall of the studio. An interesting read on its own.