In the early 90’s, the world of cinema exploded with the distribution of many small independent films which some now consider classic. Well it wasn’t long before major studios started to gobble up these smaller studios and claim that they would maintain the vision of the filmmaker. One of the first indie studios to be bought was Miramax. The Walt Disney Corporation purchased Miramax and made the vow to not interfere with the artists’ visions, but instead they would serve as a distributor of these films. To their credit, this has pretty much been true. However this does not mean that the director’s visions have remained intact. It would seem that the Weinstien brothers are now purchasing up films, or screenplays and tailoring them to run for Academy Award campaigns. I recently viewed Chocolat, and to its credit it was pretty good, but it seemed a little familiar: a free spirit in a small provincial French village, fine gourmet food that causes the consumers to explode with a passion for life, and a handsome stranger who is of less than noble social status, but he is the only one to recognize the good in our heroine. Each of these have been elements in past Academy nominees, and it occurs to me that Miramax is now mass producing art films… if that is possible. Although some of their films are still cutting edge, the studio seems to have lost their cojones. In addition to producing pretentious Oscar fodder, they also distribute crap like She’s All That. It seems that once the studio tasted Oscar glory, they wanted to repeat it and possibly become synonymous with high art names like Merchant-Ivory. While it is true that they do produce some good oscar worthy films, they do not take the chances they used to. Last year when Dogma was ready for release, the Weinstiens convinced director Kevin Smith to search for a new distributor, claiming that Disney would take offense to the Mooby boardroom scene. If the Weinstiens were truly advocates of their artists integrity, they would have defended it, and with Buena Vista’s distribution power, possibly allowed Smith to enjoy bigger success. When Smith directed the more consumer friendly, yet less cerebral Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Miramax was more than willing to push it to over 2500 screens. To remain at the vanguard of film, Miramax should welcome more risky films like Dogma, or even American Psycho, both of which were distributed by Lion’s Gate. Bottom line: Miramax needs to take more risks to remain in front of the competition.

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