The book was better. A common saying. Though the sentiment that books are better than movies is inherently unverifiable, it does seem like movies have a much greater propensity for spectacular failure. If you Google why are books better than movies, you will get explanations like books require imagination, and movies can’t tell the whole story in two hours. Though these statements may be true, I would like to examine the issue from a different angle. In this post I want to examine the subject of how the quality of movies (and public policies) are influenced/undermined by the constellation of interests that surround them.
The movie industry and the book industry differ in a number of ways, but none may be as significant as the fact that books are almost universally the product of a single author, while movies are collaborative art projects. Most successful authors have a hugely important support team behind them (e.g. editors and proofreaders, a marketing team, publishers, etc.), but ultimately it is the name of the author that goes on the book. A movie, however, is produced by a team. Blockbuster movies, in particular, can have hundreds if not thousands of people involved in their production (Iron Man 3 apparently had a crew of over 3000 people!), as well as the financial backing of large studios. This has two consequences.
First, it can significantly spread out responsibility for the creative direction of a film. Consider Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. A significant portion of the film’s success has been attributed to Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Jack Sparrow, the character of whom was largely developed by Depp himself. However, though the dissemination of creative responsibility can be beneficial, it also makes it much more challenging to deliver a consistent and coherent artistic whole.
The second consequence is that producing movies involves a great deal more money. This is not, of course, wholly, attributable to the cast and crew. Movies require special affects, costumes, and a host of resources. The ‘cost’ of money is risk. The bigger a project is, the more pressure there is for it to succeed. Risk mitigation in movies distorts the creative landscape in several ways. Known IP with an established following, for example, is favoured over new IP. Remakes are often considered a safe bet, because they have a pre-established fan base. Risk also creates pressure for movies to be formulaic. The bigger the budget, the more a movie must appeal to the ‘average’ person. Authors can target their books to niche audiences, producing content that will be highly popular among a smaller population. Blockbuster movies, on the other hand, must prioritize broad appeal. As an aside, this also likely contributes to the slow progress of blockbusters on issues such as gender representation.
To summarize: books are often ‘better’ because: it is easier for a single author to produce a coherent piece of art; authors are better positioned to take artistic risks, particularly regarding the production of original content; and authors can more easily appeal to niche audiences, while a movie’s capacity to target niche audiences is inversely related to its budget.
This all ties into public policy because public policy is a lot more like making a blockbuster movie than it is like an author writing a book. Public policy has high stakes, both for politicians and for the public. Policy is also produced by large teams of people and involves significant quantities of money. Prominent pieces of public policy therefore seem like they may be bound by similar limitations to movies: the coherence of policy can be undermined by the number of people involved; solutions that are familiar to the public may be favoured over novel ones; and broad appeal may be prioritized over other qualities.
I would like to expand on this last point in particular. Public policy is an unusual product because it is pulled in two different directions. One the one hand, public policy is supposed to be produced to better the lives of citizens. On the other hand, citizens can only reward the appearance of effectiveness. The actual impact of public policy can be difficult to discern, which incentivizes politicians to favour grandiose policies that align with laymen understandings of complex problems. To give an example, as I have previously touched on in this article, if crime in a city increases there is a strong incentive to take highly visible action such as increasing police presence, whether or not that actually constitutes an effective and proportionate response.
There are many who lament both the state of movies and the state of public policy, in line with the issues I have described above. While I am dissatisfied with many of these issues myself, I think it is important to understand the systems through which these products are produced.
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