Hit & Run : Reason.com: Director M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, Split, about the horrific machinations of a man with more than 20 personalities living inside his brain, debuted last month to critical acclaim and box office success. That was surely a welcome surprise for Shyamalan, after the director known for crafting twist endings had had become something of a punch line over the past decade as he suffered through a string of commercial and critical failures.
It's a horror story Pennsylvania taxpayers, too, who continue to subsidize the filmmaker's career.
2 comments:
It’s a shame that some production companies feel that they can bully state governments into giving them tax cuts when they are making millions of dollars. There are real problems that the money could be going to. I can understand why the government would want to keep movie and TV shoots in their state. Bringing people does temporarily bring business, but when the shoot is done and the crew leaves, the money disappears. I was shocked that tax credits could be sold by the production companies. The idea that less than 1% of the tax breaks given in Pennsylvania actually were used to offset the Pennsylvania taxes show that this is a problem that needs to be addressed. However, this issue needs to be approached delicately since the companies could easily start filming other places. There needs to be a system in place that supports the people of Pennsylvania rather than production companies that make millions on movies.
I feel very conflicted with drawing up a firm opinion on subsidizing film. I am fully in support of Pennsylvania supporting young or recently emerging artists and film makers (Also tax breaks, since they do draw film to a region – Michigan temporarily cut taxes for film makers and saw a surge of business which disappeared immediately after the taxes resumed). I believe than new and exciting projects should be given the help they need to get themselves off the ground and be given the chance to create a wonderful impact on the lives of viewers. There are some fantastic films that exist only because they got a helping hand from someone along the way (My favorite film – “Swiss Army Man” – only exists because of grants and subsidizes. Also, you should watch “Swiss Army Man”). I really do not think M. Night Shyamalan needs to be subsidized. As the article points out, he lives in a mansion in Georgia. Also he produces typically bad films and the few that are successful play off of ablest themes and the inaccurate or offensive portrayal of mentally ill people (Movies have an effect on real life and most people will never know someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (inaccurately called “Multiple Personality Disorder”) or another “scary” illness and are more likely to draw conclusions and opinions of people with those illnesses based off of films which depict them as the villains of horror movies.)
Post a Comment