Today I attended two very interesting presentations by economist Tyler Cowen (of blogging fame) at the Copenhagen Business School (more here). Moreover, he is a eloquent speaker, and just like his blog he is always to the point and keep his choice of words economical. For me this is a great talent and something I wish I was better at myself (I can easily take to rambling about… well, mostly everything).
The presentations were on globalization and culture (which is diversifying and homogenizing at the same time) and state subsidies for culture (specifically the Film Industry, which I have some knowledge of myself). According to Mr. Cowen state subsidies are mostly pointless and economically damaging, but at the same time they are usually on such a small scale that they are unimportant in the big picture. If the public wants to, then it should go right ahead.
Seen from inside the industry, I’m not sure that I agree. Yes, state subsidies have been tremendously beneficial to some individuals and companies, but on the whole I think we are all worse off by having such a limited amount of people deciding what movies are made (in fact only three people really matter, those are the consultants at the Danish Film Institute). In actuality Danish filmmakers are making movies for the bureaucracy (although in this case the bureaucrats are other artist, which probably reduces the damage done).
We usually take pride in the Danish subsidy system and present it as the main reason for the success of Danish films in recent years. However if we look at the results from other European countries (who on average actually spend more on each movie than we do) the results are not very good, meaning that the films made are generally not films people want to see, not inside the country and especially not outside. The return ratio on every dollar spent by for example Austria on the national film industry is 1 to 28. Let’s take that again: To make 1 dollar on movie exports, the Austrian state spends 28 dollars. I think that number speaks for itself. What’s the number in Denmark? “Only” 1 to 3,5. A much better ratio (and the best in Europe), but not exactly what I would call a great bargain.
Of course there are other reasons as well for subsidizing different art forms, but again I think we are looking at the wrong facts (the size of the subsidies) when trying to explain the success of Danish cinema. What the right factors are I can really only speculate, but I would think that luck plays a big part and that the right mix of a few persons have mattered greatly (Lars von Trier and his and Peter Aalbæk Jensens organizing ability with Zentropa for one).
Bonus:
Tyler Cowen on his Favorite Things Denmark, Danish Economists and Kierkegaard.