Oscar winner slams films
2005-01-26 12:57
London - Multiple Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman lamented the state of modern filmmaking on Tuesday, using a promotional session for his latest feature to pan a money-hungry marketing-focused industry.
"The whole culture is in the craphouse. It's not just true in the movies, it's also true in the theatre," Hoffman told journalists gathered in London to hear him promote his latest comedy Meet the Fockers.
"Broadway, and now London is the same, special effects are in great demand. It's not a good time culturally."
"There is this massive filmmaking where you spend this incredible amount of money and play right to the demographic.
"You can tell how much money the film is going to make by how it does on the first weekend."
"You go to the cinema and you realise you're watching the third act. There is no first or second act," he said.
Hoffman back on the big screen
Hoffman, a seven-time Oscar nominee won twice as best actor for Rain Man and Kramer vs Kramer. The 67-year-old actor, who has chalked up a full roster of recent supporting parts, said he stopped working a few years back because he had "lost the spark I always had".
"Studios weren't interested in the kind of films that people of my generation wanted to see.
"I thought I would stop and just try writing and directing. I wasn't aware of the depression that set in."
The past year has seen him pop up in features including I Heart Huckabees, Finding Neverland and now Meet the Fockers, also starring Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand and Ben Stiller.
Meet the Fockers opens in South Africa on March 11.