"Hollywood's like Egypt, full of crumbled pyramids" with Laura Friedman & Ron Falzone | The Movie Racket

Michael Phillips (0:14)

Hello, you. This is the Movie Racket. I'm the host, Michael Phillips, and you're the listener, your name here. This is program number 11 in our inaugural season, in which we pull apart an unofficial law, motto, guideline, prediction, or secret to moviemaking success. Newton had his laws of motion. These are our laws of motion pictures. This week's movie law decrees that Hollywood is dead, or at least dying. Producer David O. Selznick decreed it so 75 years ago when he said this, Hollywood's like Egypt, full of crumbled pyramids. It'll never come back. It'll just keep on crumbling until finally the wind blows the last studio prop across the sands. Now this comes second hand, like so much Hollywood lore, from someone else's book. In Ben Hecht's 1954 autobiography, A Child of the Century, Hecht recounted the day he and Selznick were walking past an eerily quiet studio soundstage. Selznick stopped, looked at it for a while, and listened, and what he heard was nothing. Not the sound of movies being made, and certainly not the sound of money being made. Now Hollywood's death has been predicted since the silent era, and especially since the Great Depression, but today the panic is more insidious and pervasive. Sound stages are often empty, crews are out of work, not just in Hollywood, but in recently bustling filmmaking centers outside Hollywood, like Atlanta, Georgia, New Orleans, and in Chicago.

Now, since we recorded this show, the corporate consolidation of Hollywood everyone feared has taken another massive step forward. Paramount and Warner Brothers have officially finalized their $111 billion merger into a thing called Skydance. Two guests join us to make sense of this moment. First, Representative Laura Friedman, the Democratic Congresswoman from California, represents the geographical epicenter of Hollywood filmmaking. Last month, Friedman, some Democratic colleagues and an array of Republican representatives introduced a bill proposing a national film and TV production tax credit similar to federal incentives in dozens of other countries, especially the nearby Canada. It's truly a freak of nature, a bipartisan effort with support in the House and the Senate and a strong show of pre-approval from President Donald Trump.

I actually met Friedman back in the late 1990s, when we were both friends of LA film and music writer Eric Lindbaum. He had a roving monthly movie club, followed by drinks at some dive or another. And this was long before Friedman was US. Representative Laura Friedman, and also before Friedman's years spent in the 1990s inside the movie industry.

We'll also get some historical perspective about Hollywood's century-old cycle of persistent existential threat from Chicago film professor, screenwriter, and historian Ron Falzone. But first, we'll start with US. Congresswoman Friedman. Let's go.

Well, Congresswoman Laura Friedman, thank you very much for jumping on the movie record, our first Congresswoman.

Laura Friedman (3:43)

Yeah, well, thanks for having me. It's always nice to be the trailblazer.

Michael Phillips (3:48)

Good. Now, for folks who don't live in your district, your district includes Glendale and Burbank.

Laura Friedman (3:58)

Hollywood, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, West Hollywood.

In terms of the industry, my district also is the home to Paramount, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney Company, DreamWorks, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Universal Studios. Wow.

Michael Phillips (4:15)

Okay.

First of all, thank you for this bipartisan freak of nature that you've put together. I mean, in these days, to see language unapologetically used, just simple descriptors like bipartisan when we haven't heard much of that. It's great even if I weren't into film. You have to notice that. Do you know what I mean? Am I the only one who's had this reaction about just to see what seems to be completely sincere across the aisle bid to keep movie making in this country more viable?

Laura Friedman (4:52)

You know, I'll tell you who's been the most happy about this being a bipartisan effort and the Road to Housing, which was another significant package that passed out of Congress this year being bipartisan. The ones who seem to be the happiest about that are members of Congress. I will tell you that there is a huge desire amongst many members, not all, but many, to bridge some of these divides, to stop the partisan bickering a bit, and to have times when we can show that we can work together and that the country is not as divided as people would want to think.

So, it seems to me that my colleagues take and I take a lot of joy in the fact that we are working on an issue that's important to so much of America in a bipartisan way.

Michael Phillips (5:40)

Now, one thing, Laura, for folks who are brand new to this issue, they've heard about, you know, like keep movies in this country. They've heard maybe that much, let's say, for some folks. For those folks, what does the Motion Picture Television and Entertainment Revitalization Act do just in terms of the basic numbers? Who's it helping in addition to all the sort of below the line folks you just mentioned?