Is the "One-Inch Barrier" Falling?
Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 3:18PM by Eric Blume
Since Parasite's historic Best Picture win this past Sunday, the heat surrounding it has not let up. Though the movie is already available on DVD and Blu-Ray, it will expand to 2000 screens this weekend in US theaters and a Criterion Collection release has also been announced (along with Memories of Murder, Bong's original breakthrough title). Given the hoopla, the industry trade magazines are falling over themselves to write stories about the change that may come for international titles. The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting article proclaiming that we'll be seeing many more foreign film titles in the American marketplace in the next few years.
This article gives big credit to Netflix for "global programming" that is helping people get over the "one-inch barrier" (i.e., subtitles) that has plagued marketing of foreign product over the decades. It's an interesting take...
It's true that Netflix now carries both drama and comedy series from all of the globe, and it's not uncommon to talk to someone who watches Scandanavian thrillers or French policiers in series formats.
THR also had an article about the pre-sales hype for Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's next film An Hero, claiming that due to the global success of his two Oscar winners, A Separation and The Salesman, his next film is eagerly awaited by distributors. This in spite of the fact that his last film, Everybody Knows, made less than $3 million here in the United States, even with internationally popular stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. But the article implies that Parasite's win has opened up new doors.
Asghar Farhadi's next film is on the way. Can he win a third Oscar?
It all sounds very exciting for us cinephiles, but are we jumping the gun? Is Parasite a fluke, in that people in Hollywood were peer-pressured into watching it, since everyone was telling them it was a masterpiece? Parasite became a cause celebre -- people who rarely watch foreign films watched it and then got to congratulate themselves on how cultured they were that they loved this "exotic" foreign film.
Luckily, nothing takes away from the fact that a genuine masterpiece actually won the Oscar for Best Picture. Whether or not it opens the floodgates for distribution of more international films here in America remains a big question. Do you have hope that it will?
Asghar Farhadi, Best, Parasite, foreign films
Reader Comments (18)
Very exited About farhadi’s upcoming film in iran but I just hope shahab hosseini does not star in it! Although he was great in all of their pervious collaborations , his recent comments supporting governments of iran led to extreme decrease of his popularity in the country
Very exited about farhadi’s upcoming film in iran but I just hope shahab hosseini does not star in it! Although he was great in all of their pervious collaborations , his recent comments supporting the government of iran led to extreme decrease of his popularity in the country
The pressure to watch foreign films in Hollywood couldn't be much greater than in the past, when everyone from Bergman to Kurosawa to Fellini to Almodovar failed to ever do what Parasite did. I do wonder if the strong Korean presence in the LA area was a factor.
On nomination day, the presence of the four big ones who dealt with white men in a context of violence seemed like a failure of the efforts to diversify AMPAS-membership. But maybe this massive presence was what led Parasite to victory. It was just overkill and the four films stole votes from each other, so that all the "minorities" could be successful in championing the exotic little one. We'll never know by how many votes Parasite won, but it just could be that it was all a matter of constellation in the year 2019 and not a breakthrough of some kind. Remember: after the exciting changes in 1967 ("The Graduate", "Bonnie and Clyde", "In the Heat of the Night"), the next year was very old-fashioned ("Oliver!", "The Lion in Winter", "Funny Girl"). Wait and see...
Parasite has the perfect combination of a masterpiece art movie (wins Cannes) that is also a hugely entertaining crowdpleaser. After seeing it, I immediately recommend it to my artsy friends and to my parents (that loved bohemian rhapsody and green book, yuck). They all agreed it was the best movie of the year (for different reasons). I can’t of other foreign movies that have done that.
Just your daily (sporadic) reminder that Renée Zellweger is a two-time Academy Award winning Actress.
It is jumping the gun. The reason for Parasite's success is that it is one of those wildly entertaining films that transcends the language barrier by mixing thrills with comedy and a universal theme. It's a film that I was able to get my dad to watch (whose favorite film is Armageddon to give context) without him complaining about subtitles.
Other films have overcome the 1inch barrier before: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; City of God; Pan's Labyrinth. Parasite just happened to be even more loved than those films.
If there is any uptick in American audiences watching foreign language films, it will be with genre films. As much as I love Asghar Farhadi's work, he does not seem the type of director to overcome the one inch barrier with American Audiences.
How difficult can if be to watch subtitles? Audiences that refuse to are just missing out on great films.
@Edward L.-Agreed.
I think it's really movie-specific. Parasite is a bit of a zeitgeist film, but it has only grossed $36 million in the US and will probably top out at $50 million at most. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon grossed $100 million and that didn't lead to more higher grossing foreign language films.
Film people’s hatred of Netflix is so bizarre to me. It’s like they always want it to be 1977.
Also the crux of this post is “will white people watch” since that’s the only metric that matters on this site. Sorry that Bollywood movies regularly out gross your indie yarns - heaven forbid you check any of those out.
I finally saw 'parasite' and on the big screen and the color version (not the B&W). I found it to be very clever and had some genuine LOL moments. And the cast, screenplay and production design ws first rate. And I agree with other comments about why this FL film managed to win over Academy members and western audiences. It really didn't feel like an "art house" film!. It kinda reminded me of Almodovar's brilliant "women on the verge of a nervous breakdown". My only concern is that Hollywood will remake it AND like almost all remakes ;- stuff it up!
My Green Book/Forrest Gump-loving parents were crazy about Parasite. It’s the first time they ever liked a movie that I dragged them to. They still haven’t stopped talking about it and were thrilled it won best picture. That movie really transcends any norms and assumptions and barriers. The response to it has been unprecedented, and I’ve never quite witnessed anything like it before. That being said, I don’t know how much people are gonna be running to see other nonEnglish films just because of Parasite. It seems like such a once-in-a-lifetime movie experience.
I've never heard anyone express a difficulty with the subtitled stretches of the Godfather films, Dances with Wolves, The French Connection, Inglourious Basterds (which is subtitled for long stretches) or the subtitled dialogue in the Jabba's palace sequence in Return of the Jedi (which kids can follow without thinking about it). People cross the one-inch barrier all the time. So why the big deal?
Parasite is a mainstream film. That's why Roma and Talk to Her, which aren't aimed at large audiences, were not able to win Best Picture.
Cmon everyone. People outside the US (aka most of the world) has been watching subtitled movies all of their lives. It’s not that big an accomplishment and Americans going on about this make them look really ignorant.
Rahul, sorry buddy, but I take umbrage to your post. Trying to claim that the "crux" of my post is about "white people" speaks to your racism, not mine. I clearly state that the INDUSTRY (of Hollywood) is falling over itself about subtitled films due to Parasite's win, and that the industry is wondering if the general population of the US is open to more subtitled films. Please don't make this about race. Also if the "you" in your sentence about checking out other films refers to me (I assume it does), please don't assume you know what kind of movies I watch. Trust me, I'm not a tender snowflake about comments to my writing, but I felt I had to respond to your post, as it has an unkind tone not merited from the content of my article.