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Konstantin Ernst, the chairman of Russia’s Channel One, claimed on Thursday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) that the American film industry has deteriorated into making crap for infantile viewers.
“On the one hand, Hollywood is the world’s largest movie-making machine. “Hollywood, on the other hand, has been producing so much crap for the last 15 years,” Ernst stated during an SPIEF discussion of Russian filmmaking.
According to Ernst, all of the “serious people” left to develop TV shows instead of movies since movies “have become juvenile.”
In response to Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine, major Hollywood companies Universal, Sony, Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. blacklisted Russia in March 2022. Some Russian leaders, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as the Security Council’s deputy chairman, have advocated for piracy as a means of retaliation. However, Russian cinema theaters have done well by showcasing indigenous productions.
Ernst maintained that the greatest impediment to domestic manufacturing was what he called the “masochist psyche” instilled in Russians throughout the twentieth century, manifesting itself in the belief that anything foreign-made is superior.
‘The Challenge,’ a Channel One production, was released in April as the first film shot in space. Ernst stated in promotional interviews that the cast and crew were all fans of the 2013 Hollywood blockbuster ‘Gravity,’ but that although the US film was all CGI, the Russian feature was “made with real butter.”
Karen Shakhnazarov, the CEO of Mosfilm studio, recently made disparaging remarks about current cinematography, comparing it to “cave paintings.”
“You’ll be surprised, but I don’t consider cinema an art, despite having worked in it my entire life,” stated the 70-year-old director of ‘White Tiger’ (2012) and ‘Anna Karenina: Vronsky’s Story’ (2017).
