edited by Jonathan Doyle

Mafioso (The Criterion Collection, 3.18.2008) Nino Badalamenti is a supervisor in a car manufacturing plant who hasn't taken a vacation in over two years. On his way out the door to visit his beloved childhood hometown of Sicily -- with his blonde wife and daughters -- Nino is handed a package by his boss and asked to deliver it to a powerful and influential Sicilian gangster named Don Vincenzo. Once in Sicily, Nino has a hoot seeing friends and family, but his wife has trouble fitting in and is unfairly dismissed as a snob by Nino's family. Even more worrisome, Nino finds himself entangled in an intricate web of secret mafioso dealings and is eventually sent on an unexpectedly... elaborate errand. (continued)

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Diller vs. idiot savants

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"I'm not damning content by ordinary folk," says Barry Diller on this Financial Times q & a, as posted by Nikki Finke. "I'm just saying, if you want to reach large audiences then rely on professionals, meaning people who are in the industry and are trained for it, rather than just idiot savants.

Barry Diller

"If you have your little photos of your really darling tiny children, they're interesting to you and your family and a few others, but not that interesting to that many people. Things that resonate widely -- that make successful television shows, successful movies and like that -- will be done by people who are really good at it."

Reaction: This statement is basically true, but it's also one of the first seriously- behind-the-curve views attributed to Diller that I've ever read. The era of the passive viewer doing nothing but soaking up the genius of elite artists is over, and idiot savants -- cyber douchebags, jackasses, chatroom big-mouths, YouTube mashers, and various obnoxious mamas and braying babas -- are as big as the professionals in our entertainment universe these days.

Sometimes I think that the dribblings and droppings of idiot savants might one day constitute the bulk of the ballgame. I shudder at the thought -- who wants to live in a world undefined and unmarked by impassioned artist-confessors and gifted ivory- tower iconoclasts? -- but Diller's statement makes it sound like he's not seeing what's really going on these days. We are living right now in an age of file-shar- ing, opinion-sharing democracy like nothing this country has ever seen or dreamt of. Honed creations and practiced performances will always provide the greatest nutritional benefits, but one good result of the general downward swirl of things is that the inmates are running the asylum, and Bedlam Is Us.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 30, 2007 at 11:34 AM

comment #1

cjKennedy says ...

Call me behind the curve but I think Diller is right. I have no more interest in the average homemade YouTube video than I do the macrame fern holders made by the crazy lady next door or the output of Koko the scribbling gorilla.

There's no room for democracy in my old-fashioned, elitist view of art and that's the way I like it. You can keep your mashups and clips of people getting hit in the crotch.

Posted by cjKennedy at March 30, 2007 12:36 PM

comment #2

Rich S. says ...

Diller's statement may be true, as far as it goes, but you can bet your last dime that if he could figure out how to make the same amount of coin off those "idiot savants" that he has off the "industry professionals," this whole thing goes right out the window.

Posted by Rich S. at March 30, 2007 12:43 PM

comment #3

buckzollo says ...

Well said Jeffrey. The "People who are really good at it" of the future are not going to necessarily have to make a pilgrimage to Hollywood, kiss ass, copy scripts, schmooze and 'get discovered' or whatever. Today, it is easier to not only create content but get it distributed, even if only from youtube. Presumably, the people who are really better at it will rise above, but they are not necessarily going to need to have the gatekeepers grease the skids for them. Just because the barriers to entry are lowered as technology evolves, enabling more to create and distribute, does not insure that said content can't be really good.

Posted by buckzollo at March 30, 2007 01:19 PM

comment #4

buckzollo says ...

Well said Jeffrey. The "people who are really good at it" of the future are not going to necessarily have to make a pilgrimage to Hollywood, kiss ass, copy scripts, schmooze and 'get discovered' or whatever. Today, it is easier to not only create content but get it distributed, even if only from youtube. Presumably, the people who are really better at it will rise above, but they are not necessarily going to need to have the gatekeepers grease the skids for them. Just because the barriers to entry are lowered as technology evolves, enabling more to create and distribute, does not insure that said content can't or won't be really good.

Posted by buckzollo at March 30, 2007 01:20 PM

comment #5

christian says ...

read diller's playboy interview to get an example of someone with nary a creative bone in his body.

he's the ultimate hollywood ceo and apologist for crap.

Posted by christian at March 30, 2007 02:02 PM

comment #6

Joshua Mooney says ...

So easy, even a caveman can do it. That pretty much sums it up, and I assume that in the near future, me and you and a dog named Boo will be reaping the insanely generous rewards. That's the up-side, and fairly obvious. The down-side will manifest itself in the fullness of time. I expect it will be horrible.

Posted by Joshua Mooney at March 30, 2007 02:05 PM

comment #7

Mgmax says ...

Good item but why is it illustrated with a picture of an evil gnome reaching to grab children?

Posted by Mgmax at March 30, 2007 07:36 PM

comment #8

Mgmax says ...

Here's my question.

All YouTube has basically done so far is make America's Funniest Home Videos irrelevant. Not a big achievement.

But soon someone with a significant track record will raise money independently to make a TV series-- but not for TV. Sell their own ads, play it online, sell the DVDs, then sell it into syndication. (Imagine Joss Whedon doing The Return of Firefly that way, say.)

The first time a professional shows you can distribute professional material without the distributors, Diller's world crumbles.

Posted by Mgmax at March 30, 2007 07:40 PM

comment #9