James Cameron-Wilson Looks Back at the Year of 2018
The year of 2018 was remarkable on a number of levels. Just as the Depression in America saw a surge of cinema attendance and a golden age of the movies, so our time of austerity has proved to have had a similar effect. Cinemagoers in the UK flocked to the multiplex in numbers not seen since 1971. And we’re not even talking box-office receipts. The figure of bums-on-seats leaped to 176 million, while an unprecedented eight films pocketed more than £40 million each: Avengers: Infinity War, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Incredibles 2, Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Peter Rabbit and The Greatest Showman. In 2017, only four movies managed that feat in the UK. In America, too, box-office figures were shattered, with 2018 grossing an all-time high of $11.381 billion (a figure that will increase substantially over the lucrative post-Christmas holiday).
The advances in cinema technology and the standards of comfort only explain half the picture: in times of national malaise, there is nothing like the communal thrill of experiencing a great movie. Of course, fantasy played a big part, with both superhero movies and musicals attracting unparalleled numbers. Since the colossal losses of the big-budget musicals Camelot, Doctor Dolittle, Paint Your Wagon and Sweet Charity in the late 1960s, the genre had all but died out. Then along came the insanely inventive and exquisitely charming La La Land (2016) which clocked up $446 million at the international box-office. But nobody could have predicted the success of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Greatest Showman and A Star is Born. Inevitably, then, a film version of Cats is currently in production, Steven Spielberg is to direct a remake of West Side Story next summer and both Wicked and Sunset Boulevard are in development.
But this economic boom is not the only good news. Both racial minority and female representation on screen has flourished, from the unexpected success of Crazy Rich Asians to the phenomenal popularity of Black Panther (the year’s top-grossing movie in the US). And women on screen have had a bumper year, too, from the commercial triumph of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again to such female ensemble pieces as Ocean’s Eight, Apostasy, Widows and Disobedience, while The Favourite is reaping critical acclaim. And in January we have Mary, Queen of Scots, starring two of the best actresses around, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. The calibre of female performance in film has never seemed stronger, from Glenn Close’s miraculous turn in The Wife to the mesmerizing presence of Daniela Vega in A Fantastic Woman, along with other grandstanding turns too numerous to mention here. So note, my top three films all feature actresses in the leading roles: Sally Hawkins, Emily Blunt and Daniela Vega, with two sterling turns coming up shortly: Keira Knightley as Colette and Rosamund Pike in A Private War.
James Cameron-Wilson’s Favourites:
1. The Shape of Water
2. A Quiet Place
3. A Fantastic Woman
4. Isle of Dogs
5. Whitney
6. The Square
7. The Children Act
8. A Star is Born
9. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
10. You Were Never Really Here
