At the cancellation of the very fine Prime Suspect (the US version, not the wildly overrated UK version.  That’s right, someone finally said it out loud), I wonder what it’s like to make something great and not have anyone notice.  Certainly everyone who works in TV knows about this, but I think in particular of all the films, like Vertigo, Blade Runner, Husbands and Wives, Naked Lunch, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Big Lebowski, and even Citizen Kane and how they affected the careers of their various filmmakers.  These are, all of them, not great, but exceptional, and were, well, either ignored at the time, or praised and damned by the lightness of it.  They were not understood as the genre-defining and recreating films that they were.  My theory that the various careers of these filmmakers were sent off course by their masterwork’s reception may be a case of cum hoc ergo propter hoc.  This is only natural; when you see the headline Brett Ratner To Helm Red Dragon right next to World Comes To End, what else are you supposed to think?

But whether this is causal or correlative, it can be said that the filmmakers in question began a decline soon after their most complete and personal work, some of whom (Mr. Cronenberg in particular) never recovered.  I acknowledge that what with all the money involved, it’s much easier to give the Longbowman’s Salute to the critics if you’re a painter, or some idiot writing a blog.  But we do this to be liked, and it hurts bad enough when people don’t like your Legend’s or Topaz’s, but you when you do something amazing, and no one really notices, it’s like when the horrible girlboyfriend breaks up with you.  And it leads to the same place: maybe I should just give up, dress schumpy, get some cats and make Hollywood Ending.

It could happen to anyone. Continue reading →