Why Hollywood can't reach this level in cinema?

Good directors? Yes, great even.

Hollywood directors? Some of them are. For several of them, it would be tough to make a case that they are Hollywood directors, or that the small number of movies they did in Hollywood were outstanding efforts, much less sublime works of cinema.


Persian Cinema: http://www.imdb.com/list/O_W_YAxSHQk/

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All great directors! Artists, in fact. The point here, though, is the same as in recording studios in the 50s and 60s. In the old days, many studios - film and music - were fully staffed, but were essentially run by one or two people. The number(s) of "decision makers" were limited. Decisions were made quicker, and with differing solutions. Look at the credits in modern movies. Yes, hundreds of people are working, but the number of people and the requirements of selection, design, writing, and production are not congruent. It's just harder to make truly stunning, focused, and realized movies, when there are too many people in the decision process. Many hands make light work; to many cooks spoil the broth.

smipypr

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Foreign filmmakers produce plenty of crap, too, but we never see it because it's not good enough for export.

Yes, not all "foreign cinema" is good. But it's nice when Americans get outside their comfort zone -- although I guess that sounds a little smuggy.

Because no one in their right mind would plunk down $9.50 and buy popcorn and a soda to sit and watch a movie that is less than 30 minutes long, complete with the most boring (english) narration ever.

Well, I don't like the recent english narration either, as it takes LE JETEE out of its era and changes the wording of several passages (and not for the better) in the translation unnecessarily.

Although there's no reason an avant garde film of this sort can't be commercial and can't be a full-length picture (and, obviously, doesn't have to be done in photographic stills).

But the American studios have a rigid way they anticipate and define "commerciality" which isn't always based on objective reality: when a film is made in the low-brow, artless way the studios often demand, then little attention is generated if it bombs; if a truly artistic movie bombs, then those artistic merits are blamed for its bombing; and if an artistic film is a hit, the studios call it a "fluke" and move on.

So that's not good.

But for sheer haunting imagery, a lot of LA JETEE's appeal is the period in which it was made. You can't quite match that end-of-the-world/PSYCHO/TwilightZone/JFK era of the early-'60s --- when virtually all you had to do was turn a camera on in order to capture a mood of eternal creepy. We really were at a crossroads then, when The Bomb was new and the politics seemed to be heading the planet into oblivion. And everyone, however consciously or subconsciously, knew it.

Nothing quite compares to it. It's why most famous cinematic murder (the shower scene in PSYCHO) or American political murder (JFK) occurred in the early-'60s, as did the two films generally regarded as the best ghost films ever made (THE HAUNTING from 1963 and THE INNOCENTS from 1961) and many other such projects, well-crafted or crass, of a macabre and eerily simple nature.

LA JETEE simply couldn't have been made at any other time -- and certainly not work as well.

ONIBABA (1964) is another "foreign" film of the same era which is nearly as creepy.

--
LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA

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