After four months, the Sag-Aftra film and television union has reached a tentative deal, but we may be waiting a while for the art itself to triumphIt’s over. The stream of sweatshirted and placard-wielding Instagram no-filter/no-makeup posts from stars is at an end. The Sag-Aftra film and television actors’ strike in Hollywood is paused after four months, with a tentative deal giving actors larger minimum-pay increases, a streaming bonus and “consent and compensation” provisions against AI, although how exactly this last is to be enforced remains to be seen. For those who had thought of Hollywood as the very epitome of free-marketeerism, the spectacle of an actual strike, which remained reasonably popular and un-demonised in the press, and which produced a result, is quite startling. Especially as British Equity doesn’t have this kind of power.In the movies themselves, from Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront to Sylvester Stallone in FIST to Peter Sellers’ Hitler-moustached shop steward Fred Kite in I’m All Right Jack, there is a long tradition of showing unions and union activity as dramatically compromised. The closing scene of Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike shows the workers being collectively shot, interspersed with images of a cow being slaughtered. But today’s Hollywood cow is in pretty good shape, despite rumours that studios have been using the strike as a cover to make production cuts.But what does it mean for the moviegoing public? Well, not perhaps all that much... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-09 12:08:06 UTC ]