"Moviegoers, God bless them, do continue to look out for lost cinematic waifs" Donald Clarkeon cult film con jobs
HAS the notion of cult entertainment become totally devalued? Glancing at RTÉ's website the other day, I was interested to read that the network was set to screen a double bill of the "cult cartoon" series The Simpsons. The majority of our readers, unacquainted with this obscure programme, will, presumably, be grateful to the national broadcaster for rescuing it from the cul-de-sac of midnight screenings and fuzzy samizdat videos.
Elsewhere on the net, we read that an up-and-coming "cult director" named - I think I have this right - Quentin Tarantino is putting the final touches to something called Grindhouse. Let's hope this low-key film gets some sort of release.
Talk of Grindhouse, in which Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez pay tribute to the low-budget horror films of the 1970s, reminds us that there was a time when the C-word really meant something.
Defining a cult film was difficult, but you knew one when you saw one. Harold and Maude, Eraserhead, El Topo, Pink Flamingos: all once had the honour - will this do as a definition? - of being liked to an unusually large degree by an unusually small amount of people. The archetypal cult film is a peculiar-looking orphan, unloved by its studio parents, which, after a period of neglect, gets adopted by caring, if demented, film enthusiasts.
The eventual, belated success of, say, Withnail and I was not a triumph of marketing. It had little to do with the support of evangelists in the film press. It was members of the public who gained Bruce Robinson's boozy film the respect it is now deservedly accorded. It is, to paraphrase Tony Blair on some princess or other, The People's Film (or one of them, at least).
Sadly, this being an ugly world, cynical men in braces, desperate for the next marketing strategy, have long since appropriated the concept of the cult film for their own sinister purposes. In the same way that the abbreviation "indie" now refers to a style of music, rather than to the circumstances of its production, the C-word is thrown at all films whose subject matter recalls that of earlier, bona fide People's Films.
And yet. Moviegoers, God bless them, do continue to look out for lost cinematic waifs. Earlier this month, Into Great Silence, a formidably austere documentary concerning French monks, sold out a second run in the Irish Film Institute after being brought back by popular demand. Last year, V for Vendetta, an adaptation of Alan Moore's dystopian graphic novel, opened to lukewarm reviews and modest box-office, but still managed to develop a fanatical following in cyberspace. The Shawshank Redemption and Donnie Darko, neither of which was a smash on first release, both owe their continuing reputation to the loyalty of stubborn fans.
There is good news here. Despite being repeatedly told what they should like by materialistic movie executives and (hem, hem!) self-important critics, audiences are still quite capable of making up their own minds. More power to The People's Film.
