Movies are changing all the time. But as soon as the new ways work, they become institutionalised. In fact, audiences prefer the familiar, writes David Thomson.
Six out of Hollywood's 12 biggest hits last year were sequels. This year, the proportion could be higher. A part of us is expected to nod at this news and say: "Business as usual." Another part is asked to sigh at the falling back on old habits.
Whatever view you care to hold, there are so-called laws waiting to serve you - that every sequel earns less than the original; or: if you've got something that works, why throw it away? But no one in Hollywood trusts anything, and that's why they like to talk in rules - it's a protection against insecurity.
I have a friend, a retired projectionist - not that they really use projectionists any longer. But he projected pictures in the 1940s, in packed houses, in the days when people went to the pictures, and not to see a particular movie. Anyway, my friend used to read the things I wrote about the movies and he told me I was complicating the matter.
"All this fancy commentary on a picture. Let me tell you what happens: I turn the house lights out; I turn the projector on; the story starts; people see something they never saw before; but they see a story just like all the others they ever saw. They are moved. They laugh. They are scared. I turn the projector off. I put the house lights on. They go home. Next week they come back."
I like that idea. The movies are a habit, and a big part of us just wants them to be like they were before. Surprise me, we ask, show me something new - but let me recognise it.
Jean Renoir said that a film-maker made the same film over and over again. He tried to change, but he couldn't help it. He had his story. Orson Welles shocked everyone with Citizen Kane so they said they'd never seen a film like it. But then over the years, he used the same images - the way painters do - and he had this recurring situation of a powerful man being investigated and found out - The Stranger, Mr Arkadin, Touch of Evil.
When the old studios had people under contract that the public loved, they made vehicles for those stars. So a Joan Crawford might curse the system and beg for something fresh, but the studios said: "Joan, dear, you're always best as Joan." And in the end, she was "Joan Crawford" with those big staring, lost eyes, and every real person she'd ever tried to be had faded away. And you don't put Lassie in a Crawford picture, or vice versa.
It's a business, and if the public like a personality, you tell the stories that make the personality look good. A mythology develops, a whole set of legends - we call it the star system and the code of genres. And we enjoy these rules because they are the schemes by which we know we should be wary of Peter Lorre or Sydney Greenstreet but trust Bogart and Bergman.
You see, we say we go to the movies to hear stories we never heard before. But in practice we like it when the whole thing is close to déjà vu, because then it seems to confirm the old dream. It's fun at the movies because it used to be.
Of course, the movies are changing. Many of the old rules are crumbling. And there are artists ready to test us in new ways. But as soon as the new ways work, they become institutionalised. No one thought The Godfather would do well. It became the most successful film made in 1972. So they let Coppola make The Godfather: Part II. It did far less well, but it's a better film because in doing part one Coppola had learned new ways of doing a story, and the uneasy possibility that at the end a villain could be left in charge. That was new for a moment. Now everyone does it.
David Thomson is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
