Cinema
Godzilla
(PG, selected cinemas)
Loser lizard
Mark Steyn
Afew weeks ago in the New Yorker, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jnr noted that what America calls `globalisation' the rest of the world calls 'Americanisation'. That may be, but, at least as far as motion pictures are concerned, the American term is the correct one. Americans crank out most of this so-called global culture, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's very American. Indeed, you could argue that, rather than Americanising Europe and Asia, this stuff is actually de-Americanising America.
Take Godzilla. They began showing the trailer last summer — the usual brilliant two minutes, built around one of the film's better vignettes: some old coot, fishing off the end of a rickety wharf, suddenly gets a nibble on his line; as he struggles to hold on to his rod, the sea swells and the jetty begins to vibrate; Japan's most famous movie monster is about to arrive in Man- Me and your mum think it's about time you learnt about the bees and the bees.' hattan: `Godzilla. Size Does Matter. Com- ing in Summer 1998.' Audiences whooped and cheered and roared their approval. The studio, having spent $140 million mak- ing the film, spent not much less on the campaign: absolutely everyone — accord- ing to the newspapers, magazines, radio hosts and TV shows — was dying to see what Godzilla looked like, but the studio was keeping him under wraps; there were stories about people close to the produc- tion trying to sneak out designs, and some fellows leaked models of the action toy tie- in which proved to be false. Kodak built its summer ad campaign about a guy trying to get souvenir snaps of the stompin' lizard. And then the film opened. And everyone who went on that opening weekend said actually, you know, it was kinda boring. By the second weekend, it was dead. Godzilla came ashore and fell flat on his face.
Given that he's the biggest dudsville loser lizard of the summer, you'd figure Hollywood would think twice about blow- ing any more 140 million buck budgets on rampaging monsters, right? After all, you could make a hundred Full Montys for the cost of this thing. But that's not the way Hollywood runs the numbers anymore. Kevin Costner's $200 million Waterworld was a busted flush at the US box-office, but in the rest of the world they loved it. Godzilla will be the same. That's why they're already planning next year's sum- mer blockbusters with the same old mon- sters and the same old explosions, and why they'll continue to inflict them on the American public no matter how many of them stiff. Americans are now the first vic- tims of 'Americanisation', of Hollywood's dominant position as purveyors of enter- tainment to the world. Size does matter: the movie business has gotten too big for the domestic market. In fact, if it's any con- solation to the multicultural crowd, the most important demographic these days or anyway the most reliable demographic is young Asian men. And in that market all Godzilla's defects — no story, no charac- ters, cookie-cutter dialogue — become strengths.
In the old low-budget days, when Godzil- la was just a bit of eight inch Jap Plasticine, the post-nuclear mutant sea monster was seen — by Tokyo audiences anyway — as a metaphor for the American occupation and submission of Japan. In his first Hollywood film, from Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin (creators of Independence Day), metaphors of any kind seem to have been lost at sea. But, as Godzilla sets about trashing Wall Street, the Chrysler Building, Grand Central, the Plaza Hotel, Madison Square Garden, the Brooklyn Bridge and every other New York landmark, it's possi- ble to see the old nuclear lizard as the embodiment of monster global culture that threatens to engulf the authentic American experience. Yes, I know it's a bit of a stretch, but the alternative is being bored to death — yawn, there goes the Flat Iron Building; didn't we see that last year in Independence Day?
In what passes for a humorous moment, the French secret service agents are hand- ed sticks of chewing-gum to make them appear more American. But the film-mak- ers themselves seem little better informed. There are aspects of Godzilla so bewilder- ing as to make you doubt whether it was made by Americans at all: for example, no- one in the film, including the mayor, seems aware that New York City extends beyond the island of Manhattan. As for the French, we know they're French because they like ... croissants.
Speaking of the Plaza Hotel, before Godzilla smashed it up, it was home to Eloise, in the children's stories by Kay Thompson. Miss Thompson, who died last week, had a zillion careers: she was a droll comedienne, a successful designer of woman's pants and one of the best vocal arrangers popular music's ever had (check out her killer 'Jingle Bells' on The Andy Williams Christmas Album). But she also did a bit of acting. Treat yourself to a video of Funny Face, Stanley Donen's valentine to Astaire, Paris, the Gershwins and Audrey Hepburn, in which Miss Thompson is a hoot as a Diana Vreeland-like maga- zine editor. It's the kind of film that will never be made again, trampled into the dust by computer-generated reptiles.
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