Creativity Killer

George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars universe and the director of the first six films in the franchise, said that he retired to make experimental movies in his garage. That was the ultimate criticism on commercial film-making and its constraining effect on artists' creativity.

Films actually don't have to be good, as long as they attract enough people to the cinema. That's a key component in modern, commercial film-making. Ironically, George Lucas has been instrumental in ushering in the "blockbuster", he was, to my knowledge, the first film maker who secured the rights to all the merchandise related to his films, and he was the first to completely own the complete production process, from writing to directing, and from sound design (Skywalker Sound, THX) to special effects (Industrial Light & Magic). In short, Lucas has taken the commercialization of Hollywood to the next level, single-handedly. But he started with a dream, made up the story he wanted to tell, imagined the pictures with which to tell it, and had the creative muscles to make it real. And I for one will forever be grateful for the experience he gave me, watching the first Star Wars film as a young teenager; it has changed me forever.

In recent interviews Lucas rails against the commercialization of film-making. In the below linked video you can hear him refer to film makers from the U.S.S.R. as having much more freedom in their creativity than western film makers have due to the tight constraints they have to work under. These constraints are of course determined by the end-product's profitability. It's often said, and unfortunately believed as well, that capitalism incentivizes creativity and innovation, but Hollywood serves as yet another example of how the opposite is true. While the old fairy tale says that capitalists get rewarded for taking risks, creative risks in the case of Hollywood, modern films show that the opposite is true. Why do you think every successful movie becomes a "franchise" that's milked with sequels as long as they're profitable? Hollywood plays it safe, invests in known success stories that are certain to draw in an audience.

And new titles are made according to known recipes, with three acts, the right number of explosions, the mandatory love interest and lovemaking scene, the right dosage of comic relief in between the build-up of tension... To make something truly original, to stray away from the known path to financial success, now that would constitute taking a risk. But those movies are few and far between, because "the bottom line" takes precedence over everything else. And that, my friends, is the iron law of capitalism. It's a lie that capitalism incentivizes innovation or creativity: it kills them. True innovation and true creativity do not grow from the desire to make a profit. One of the best examples of this is the best selling video game ever, by far: Tetris. Its creator, Alexey Pajitnov, made the game while working at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre under the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (now the Russian Academy of Sciences). It was originally released in 1984, and he didn't see a dime from his work; the game was the property of the Sovjet State after all. Only from 1996 onwards, after he moved to America, he began receiving royalties.

But this has always been true, and it will stay true; innovation and creativity come from minds that are not preoccupied by making a buck. It's done by people who have a genuine interest and obsessively pursue that interest. And, most importantly, by people who have the time, the means and the freedom to pursue their interests. All these preconditions are being eradicated for 99 percent of us in the 24-hour economy in which we have to keep our heads above water. Capitalism kills creativity and innovation. That should be obvious to anyone, but unfortunately it still isn't.

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