Have Film and TV Lost Their Imagination?

Can we get it back?

Recently I shared some of my thoughts on imagination with Dominique Sisley for a piece on David Lynch, imagination, and attention on Dazed. It’s a thoughtful essay that I recommend checking out, but answering her questions sparked something for me and I wanted to take some time to explore the subject further.

Sisley’s thesis is that the imaginative quality that made Lynch’s work so striking seems to be disappearing. “Could a young, oddball director release a debut as fucked up as Eraserhead now? Would it get enough traction, even if they could?” Sisley asks in the essay’s opening.

It’s a good question. Artistically I think a David Lynch could absolutely still exist. I think they do, they just don't look like Lynch because what made Lynch himself was his own commitment to his unique voice and aesthetic taste. There are filmmakers out there operating in that way now. But part of what was special about Lynch was the way he brought an avant-garde sensibility into the world of mainstream filmmaking. Could that still exist today? The mainstream that Lynch brought an avant-garde sensibility to in the 80s doesn't really even exist now in the same way it did then. It's hard to know what might be possible for filmmakers starting now when the medium is in such a point of flux. There are plenty of weird, unique films still getting funded, made, and making money. Kinds of Kindness made $16 million worldwide off of a $15 million dollar budget. Not a smash hit by any means, but striking for such a bizarre, esoteric work. Twin Peaks: The Return, still remains one of the most avant-garde pieces of television ever produced, but imaginative and strange shows like Severance and The Curse, are still getting made and finding a home.

Existing as an artist who makes imaginative work is certainly possible, it's just a question of what the culture chooses to pay attention to. Realistically I don’t know if the kinds of films as strange as David Lynch made will ever compete with the blockbuster tentpoles, I think it’s very possible that ship has sailed. But I also don’t really feel the need for the weird art I like to be the cultural mainstream, as long as the interesting weird work has room to exist.

I certainly take the point however, that much of the mainstream landscape seems devoid of imagination these days, and perhaps it is the exceptions that prove the rule. But what is the value of imaginative media, and why do we need it?

Why We Need Imaginative Media

An artist has many tools at their disposal, and imagination is one of them. Imagination is what takes art beyond being mere remix of the world or other works and into completely new territory. Deeply imaginative work is the work that takes us so far into new territory that it's almost unrecognizable. Imaginative work is what helps us discover new possibilities and futures. It is what helps us see the world and ourselves in new ways. Imagination pushes forward science, society, and art into new territory. It’s the impulse that envisions something other than what we already are.

It's also rare. It's rare because it requires the artist to do the actual work of imagining, something few set aside the time it takes to do these days. Imaginative work also takes a real commitment to the product of your own imagination. When you're in deeply imaginative territory with a work, you can't look to others for confirmation that you're on the right path, because you're blazing a new one. Nobody can tell you if you're headed in the right direction, you just have to do it and see. It’s what we see reflected in the work of actors like Willem Dafoe and directors like David Lynch. It's risky work and not a lot of people have the courage to put themselves out there like that, especially in mediums that takes a massive amount of collaboration and a lot of money like film and television.

Lack of Imagination in Mainstream Cinema

Mainstream blockbuster cinema lost a lot of its imagination when it became all about Intellectual Property. Things get made primarily on the basis of how they fit into a marketing scheme: how they fit into a "cinematic universe," relate to the previous film in the series, or the material the film is remaking. All of that literally a lack of imagination. It’s selling people on seeing more of what they've already seen. They do it because it works: people go to the remake, sequel, or next film because they remember how they felt watching the original and want more of that. Eventually though, this plays itself out. Remaking the old misses the point of why all the original works were appealing in the first place, which was the imaginative originality of those works.

Star Wars was once an imaginative story—something new. But it’s sapped of its imagination when we've revisiting that world countless times, not because there’s more story to be told, but simply because there’s more money to be made. I think even if we’re drawn towards sequels and remakes, fundamentally we go to the cinema to see and feel new images. So much of mainstream cinema has become a retreading of tired ground.

Lack of Imagination in TV

I think a lot of the lack of imagination and originality in TV has come from a devaluing of screenwriting. So much stuff now, especially in streaming TV and Blockbuster filmmaking has the trappings of high production value but absolutely horrible writing. I don’t blame the writers. Good writing takes a lot of time and investment. You can't force it with a formula. A writer or a group of writers have to sit around and wait for good ideas to strike, and then they have to refine. That all takes time, and time is money. If that isn't there it's the fault of the executives. From Variety:

“It’s wild to me that the first 10 weeks of breaking a show are the most important,” “Abbott Elementary” and “Harley Quinn” executive producer Justin Halpern (also a WGA board member) recently told Variety. “And to think that those are the weeks we get paid minimum, and maybe we don’t even get to go on with the show.”

I don't know exactly why execs aren't valuing the writing, but I can guess it's probably short-sightedness in pursuit of the bottom line. Hollywood is in crisis. Streaming has created heavy competition. COVID really hurt theatrical box office. There's been a lot of corporate take-over in the last 20 years. Appeasing shareholders is a fast track to destroying creativity.

Trying to stay competitive with streaming, executives are trying to make larger profits and screenwriting is one way they can cut corners and (temporarily) hide that they cut corners. When an audience looks at a trailer they see the flashy costumes, set design, actors they love, crisp cinematography, or an IP they recognize, but you can't really judge the writing until you've already seen the film or show and by then your money is already spent. It's a swindle that works in the short term, but in the long run they're undermining the value of the whole medium when they do this. The audience ends up losing trust that they're going to get a good story.

Some of it is also the fault of critics and fandoms. We've collectively become so enamored with a kind of nostalgia for media that is attached to what we already know that we'll forgive pretty mediocre screenwriting and the “money people” start getting the message that people just don't care. But I think audiences do care in the long run about the quality of screenwriting even if they don't consciously realize it. A lot of viewers aren't sensitive enough to the specifics of the medium to identify where it's going wrong and might mis-identify why they didn’t like something but they definitely feel it when the quality declines.

Lack of Imagination in Culture

Finally this lack of imagination in Film and TV stems from a more endemic lack of imagination across our culture. We don't create the economic and social conditions that allow imagination to thrive. Imaginative media takes risk. Corporatization is allergic to risk. I think it’s a mistake to blame consumers, because in traditional media so much of what's produced and how it's distributed is owned by a few corporate entities, and in new media the algorithms decide what is shown. It's why we need critics and curators. People crave imagination, but imaginative, risky media is not what succeeds commercially or algorithmically. The imaginative stuff is out there if you look but most people don't have the time and space to go looking outside the mainstream channels for the art that will resonate with them and take them to new places because they have busy lives. People don't want their media consumption to feel like a chore, so they go for what's right at their fingertips and it's boardrooms and algorithms that decide what that will be.

There another thing that limits imagination though, and that is the hypermodern environment most of us live in. It’s an environment that is sapped of the conditions that are needed to cultivate imagination. Part of why David Lynch was so imaginative is because he had an extremely dedicated meditation practice that he used to come up with his ideas. He consistently meditated for 40 minutes a day. You don't need to meditate to imagine, but if you want to make imaginative work you do need space in your life somewhere for your mind to wander imaginatively. I think it's so easy these days with our phones and AirPods with us everywhere to leave ourselves no moments of silence. Its so easy to fill all the spaces we would use for the actual work of imagining. It's a cultural tragedy but I think it's much simpler to get back than we realize, we just need to stop buying into the attention economy's demands, put down our phones, turn off the podcast or audiobook, and give our minds some space to actually wander. The solution is simple, but not easy.

Some people have a more active imagination than others but having space to imagine used to just be a natural extension of daily life. No that long ago you could not have filled your life with nonstop media consumption even if you had wanted to. We're the first few generations that actually have the option of giving up the space that would have been used for imagining in the past. We didn't really know what we were giving up. We're also the first few generations to feel the effects of actually giving that up. Right now we have to decide if we like the results of imagination enough to make the time for it in our own lives. We can talk about the cultural shift that's happening away from our towards valuing imagination, but it's also a choice you can make for yourself right now.