By Scott Graber
Twenty years ago I woke up and decided I wanted to write fiction. At that point I was dwelling in a world of non-fiction; writing short, declarative sentences followed by a case citation — the italicized citation revealing the name of a case, a date, a particular appeals court that had written a previous opinion supporting the argument I was making.
I got pretty good at this kind of writing, which usually came in the form of a proposed order, submitted to a judge, for his signature.
But all the while, I yearned to leave the land of brevity and precision for different terrain. I wanted to invent stuff — nuanced characters, clever dialogue and cover all of this protein with emotional gravy. I wanted to make people laugh, or cry and then scratch their heads saying, “Where the hell did that come from?”
When I started writing fiction, I also wanted it to be read — which is to say I wanted to be on somebody’s Best Seller list. And so I looked around for a formula, a technique, a sure fire storyline that would attract an agent and (at least) get me into the suburbs of celebrity.
I discovered that most publishers had long sought this same formula — and discovered there was no such formula — no sure fire way to insure a story (and its author) would be successful.
About this same time Netflix arrived on the scene and almost overnight we were flooded with movies, most of them fiction, that presented us with romance, mystery, murder and levels of violence we had not imagined. They delivered these movies, these stories, in a format free of advertising.
Netflix also came with its own “original programming” and that “library” expanded quickly. Willy Staley (New York Times Magazine) says there are 16,000 titles, many are Netflix-made originals, that would take 3 1/2 years of non-stop viewing if one was capable of that kind of herculean, semi-prone binging.
Although Netflix tried, they have not come up with a formula for sure-fire popularity. And though they did not learn that secret, they did learn how to lure investors into their tent.
“What Netflix was doing was creating a sort of flywheel, where new debt helped create new shows, and new shows bought in new subscribers, and new subscribers brought in more cash—but it needed to continue selling bonds over and over to oil the content-subscriber treadmill, to such an extent that by 2019 it had about $15 billion in long term debt. It earned the nickname, Debtflix in the business press which wondered if all this borrowing was sustainable …”
The “new show” part of their formula was central to the “flywheel,” and for years Netflix flooded the early evening hours — when every sentient person on earth decided to eat their spinach and feta pizza in front of a television — with a new movie. The movies themselves didn’t have to be all that great — we’re not talking “Casablanca“ or “Out of Africa” each night — we’re just talking different.
But these days there’s a certain sameness or, in Staley’s words, “slackness.”
“There’s no denying a certain slackness has crept in: comedies without many jokes: dramas without any stakes: a pronounced reference for backward-looking plotting that fixates on characters’ traumas: a plague of visibly Canadian filming locations.”
Canadian filming locations?
Although I thought everything was filmed in Georgia, we have come to understand that there are a finite number of ways to fall in love; to solve a murder; to slip/slide into scandal; to reveal one’s hidden past.
You can take a couple aging stars like George Clooney and Julia Roberts — and you can plunk them down on a beach in Portugal — but the “dilemma” that follows is predictable and, frankly, shop worn.
This past week I watched three movies with a “Harry Met Sally” denouement. You know the scene. It’s where Harry races through Manhattan (on New Year’s Eve) to find Sally. It’s the scene where Harry says he has just figured-out, at long last, that he loves Sally. She’s incredulous but realizes her own loathing of Harry has somehow morphed into love. Then they kiss, marry and then there are children.
Netflix dreams of another “must see” series like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” or “The Wire” where the entire world tunes in for a weekly dose of great storytelling.
This is, however, the mostly unrealized dream of every other streamer in this business.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
