Cancelled For Lack of Interest
For the first time, I am unable to offer my usual list of the best films of the previous year. I attribute this to a combination of poorer quality films in 2016 and the decline of Pittsburgh’s film culture.
The main factor in Pittsburgh’s decline is the financial distress of Pittsburgh Filmmakers. The Three Rivers Film Festival, which they sponsored, was dropped from its traditional 15 days to 9 days in 2015, and to 5 days in 2016. Management of the festival has been handed off to Film Pittsburgh, formerly JFilm, sponsors of the JFilm Festival, a showcase for films of Jewish interest. Meanwhile, the three theaters owned by Pittsburgh Filmmakers are scheduling fewer foreign and independent films. It’s not unusual to find them showing movies that are simultaneously playing at suburban shopping malls, presumably as a strategy to maximize revenue. The selection of films shown in Pittsburgh in 2016 was really not very different from those shown in rural areas of the country.
I’ve only seen three films that I considered worthy of inclusion in my Dirty Dozen. Two of them, Manchester By the Sea and Moonlight, are nominated for the Academy Award and are probably familiar to most of you. The third was my frontrunner for film of the year.
The Measure of a Man (La loi du marche) is a 2015 French film which had a limited release in this country last Spring. Vincent Lindon plays a 50-something factory worker who loses his job. The first half of the film follows him through the many humiliations of his long job search. When he finally gets a position, it turns out to be one of the worst possible–as a security worker in a big box store who is required not only to apprehend shoplifters, but also to inform on his fellow employees. The film portrays conditions among Europe’s working class which are unfortunately becoming similar to those in this country.
You may also be interested in reading: