If you take into account
our cultural and societal atmosphere, it is no wonder that large
numbers of people get discouraged. At the time of this writing, not
only there are wars going on in thirteen countries, but abuse,
poverty, and incompetence can be observed all over the place.
And if you are looking
for big-screen entertainment in order to forget about the world's
problems for a couple of hours, you have the choice between watching
a movie about some evil robots that invade our planet, and another
one about a bunch of power-hungry villains that want to take over the
galaxy, and exterminate all human beings.
But that's not all. If
you turn on the television, tonight you have the choice between a
series about a Mafia family, and another one about corruption at the
highest echelons of political power. These are today's cultural
choices. They come in many different variations, but their message is
always the same.
It is not a positive
message, not a message of hope, not something that can render you
optimistic about the future. On the contrary, the message is
overwhelmingly pessimistic, demoralizing, and discouraging.
Yes, it is no wonder that
numerous people feel discouraged and depressed, since no matter where
they look, pessimism and despair dominate the scene. However, modern
culture was not always like this. There was a time, not long ago,
where our culture was full of positive messages. They were not the
only ones, but there were many of them. In addition to discouragement
and pessimism, you could still find plenty of stories about
achievement, hope, and determination, the kind of stories that you
seldom find nowadays.
Spreading optimistic messages
One of the men who
massively contributed to spreading optimistic messages was Samuel
Goldwyn (1882-1974). To say that he was a self-made man would be an
understatement, since he built his own career from scratch, invented
his own name, and created dreams that inspired millions of people
around the world.
What is amazing is that
Goldwyn was not even born in America. Goldwyn had been born in
Poland, which was a very poor country at that time. His mother died
when he was only fifteen years old, and a year later, he left Warsaw,
and made his way all alone from Warsaw to London, where he had some
relatives. Since the young Goldwyn had no money, he was forced to
travel mostly on foot.
Once he arrived in
London, he worked for three years as an apprentice to a blacksmith in
to save money to pay for his trip to the United States. At that time,
Samuel Goldwyn was still named Samuel Goldfisch, which was the
Anglicised version of his Polish name.
At nineteen, he made the
boat trip from Liverpool to New York, but he cleverly shortened his
trip at the end by getting out of the ship in Canada in order to
avoid the immigration controls at the New York harbour. He then
walked from Canada to the United States, and found a job in glove
factory in a small town 20 kilometres north of New York.
Creating and seizing an opportunity
Goldwyn's ambition and
dedication to his work drew the attention of the factory owner, who
soon promoted Goldwyn from hired hand to supervisor, and later
offered Goldwyn a position in the sales department.
It didn't take long for
Goldwyn to become the number-one salesman of the company, and
eventually, the number-one glove salesman in the whole country, since
he was incessantly travelling, calling on retailers, and obtaining
orders for the gloves made in New York with leather coming from the
Michigan Lake area.
By
the time Goldwyn turned thirty, he was earning a large income that
allowed him to live in a nice area of New York city. Most people in
Goldwyn's shoes would have considered themselves lucky to achieve
such a high income and such a pleasant lifestyle, in particular
taking into account that Goldwyn had started out with zero
formal education.
But for Goldwyn, who was
extremely optimistic about the future, it was simply not enough that,
in a few short years, he had increased his income by a factor of a
thousand. The economy in the United States of America was growing by
leaps and bounds, and businesses were expanding in all directions.
Opportunities for advancement could be found by anyone who bothered
to look for them.
Intrigued by the possibilities
One night, Goldwyn
attended a “flicker show” in a movie theatre, and was intrigued
by the possibilities of the medium. On those early days, movie
theatres were mainly showing short films, which resembled more to
documentaries than to actual features. Nonetheless, the “flicker
show” led Goldwyn to start playing with the idea of becoming a
movie producer himself.
The career change from
glove manufacturing to film production was not as incredible as it
seems. As Goldwyn was fond of saying when he was presented with
interesting stories for making movies: “It is absolutely
impossible, but it has possibilities.” Goldwyn's attitude was
clear. He was willing to do whatever was necessary to learn to be
successful in the movie business.
In his mind, the movie
business was not that different from glove manufacturing. You simply
have to make sure that you use the best design and the best materials
for making your product. The rest was just a question of sales,
distribution, and promotion, three areas at which Goldwyn excelled.
Goldwyn's wife had some
family members working in the vaudeville business, and Goldwyn began
to talk with them about the possibility of starting a film production
company. Their discussions led to the incorporation of a company,
partly funded with Goldwyn's lifetime savings.
Heated discussions about what to do
Despite some initial
successes, such as the movie “The Squaw” (1921), the business did
not run smoothly. Goldwyn was one of the members of the company's
board of directors, and during board meetings, he often engaged in
such heated discussions with his partners, that they eventually
decided to buy him out.
Undaunted, Goldwyn found
new partners and started a second film production company, which they
named Metro Goldwyn Meyer. Nonetheless, despite the large profits
made by the company, Goldwyn's partners expelled him from the board
of directors a few years later, since they didn't want to deal with
such an opinionated entrepreneur. It was at that time, when Goldwyn
initiated a court procedure to change his birth name Samuel Goldfisch
into Samuel Goldwyn.
Finding himself again on
the street was a hard blow for Goldwyn, but as he had always done, hereacted vigorously to adversity. Once again, he started a new
company, but this time, he kept 100% ownership of the stock. He would
be company president, head of production, and head of sales all under
one hat.
You have to realize that
Goldwyn's career developed in this way as a result of his fights with
his partners. At the end of those fights, he found himself alone on
the street, and reacted by becoming a lone entrepreneur, the head of
a production boutique that was able to develop, finance, and make its
own movies.
A clear vision of the goal
All other companies in
the movie business were relatively large corporations, managed by
committees and subcommittees that decided which movies were going to
be made. That was the kind of atmosphere that Goldwyn had never
liked. He had always had a definite idea of the kind of films he
wanted to make, and did not want anyone to tamper with his vision.
From
the very beginning, it became clear to Goldwyn that story development
was the key factor for succeeding as a film producer. If he had the
right story, even if the sequence of events was disorganised and the
dialogues unpolished, he knew that he was on the right track.
In
addition, Goldwyn only liked optimistic stories. He never
wrote the scripts himself, but he demanded his writers to give their stories a happy end. When he once hired Dorothy Parker as a
screenwriter, she presented him a couple of romantic stories that
ended badly. Goldwyn never failed to demand Parker to change the
script, and rewrite the final part, so that her stories ended on a
happy note.
For Goldwyn, optimism was
not only a principle for succeeding in business, but also a
philosophy he practised at every opportunity. He used to say that
everyone gets bad breaks and good opportunities, but that the people
who get ahead in life are those who smile at the bad breaks, and
seize the good opportunities.
The result of enthusiastic presentations
Goldwyn's optimism
transformed his film production company into a money machine, since
he managed to produce a large number of movies with a small capital
base. How did he do that? How did he manage to make so many films
with his limited financial resources? Very simply, he convinced film
distributors and theatre owners to give him money in exchange for the
right to exhibit movies that had not yet been made.
In the same way as
Goldwyn had been selling gloves by calling on retailers, he was now
selling theatre owners the right to show his movies before they had
been produced. Thanks to his enthusiastic presentations to theatre
owners, Goldwyn enabled his company to make a long string of new
films with little money of his own.
Goldwyn was always
optimistic about life in general, and business in particular. He
always believed that, if you produce something of extraordinary
quality, people will appreciate it, and buy it. For this reason, he
never spared costs for making his movies. He always tried to hire the
best screenwriters, novelist, and playwrights, from America and
Europe.
He wanted to have
optimistic stories that would inspire the public, and make them come
out of the movie theatre with a smile on their faces. From the day he
made his first movie (“The Squawk”) in 1921 to the day he made
his last (“Porgy and Bess”) in 1957, Goldwyn cumulated many good
reviews for the inspiration that his movies provided.
True love flourishing against all odds
One
of his favourite subjects was that true love could develop even in
the most adverse circumstances, such as when a person is affected by
physical invalidity. That was the subject of two of his most
acclaimed movies: “The Dark Angel” (produced in 1925, and remade
in 1935), and “The Best Years of Our Lives,” released in 1946,
and winner of six Oscars of the Academy.
In
“The Dark Angel,” a man loses his eyesight as a result of
his injuries, and in order to allow his beloved fiancée to
start a new life without him, he makes her believe that he is dead.
Years later, when she accidentally finds out that he is still alive,
she goes to visit him in his lodgings.
The man, who doesn't want
his former fiancée to know that he is blind so that she
doesn't feel pity for him, he learns by heart the geography of his
room, so that he can move around and pretend that he can see.
Eventually, the woman finds out the truth, and the two of them become
again a couple.
In “The Best Years of
Our Lives,” Goldwyn presents the plight of several World War II
veterans who return home after having endured serious injuries, and
who despite their partial invalidity, managed to retain the love of
their girlfriends, and lead happy lives.
With a smile on their faces
No wonder that people
came out the theatre with a smile on their faces after watching one
of Goldwyn's films. The stories were so optimistic, so incredibly
encouraging, that the audience couldn't get enough.
Where he started his film
production career, Goldwyn was once interviewed by a journalist who
pointed out Goldwyn's total inexperience in the movie business.
Without missing a beat, Goldwyn retorted that “inexperience was one
of his strongest weaknesses.” Indeed, his inexperience allowed him
to maintain his optimism during his whole life, and rendered him
immune to all forms of cultural pessimism and despair.
In order to keep working
towards his goals during good and bad times, Goldwyn always had a
very practical approach for dealing with bad breaks. He knew that
everyone gets beaten by life now and then, but that, if you keep on
working towards your goals, you can dramatically increase your
chances of success.
“If you put your
problems out of your mind,” Goldwyn used to say, “they will soon
become forgotten memories.” Another of his quirky sayings was that
“in life, you have to take the bitter with the sour.” And that
was exactly what he believed. All that he did was to spread optimism,
and continuously encourage people to seek a better life, and work
towards a better future.
The need of inspiring messages
During his last years as
a film producer, Goldwyn turned to making optimistic musicals, such
as “Hans Christian Andersen” (1952), “Guys and Dolls” (1955),
and “Porgy and Bess” (1959). The latter proved a financial
failure, despite featuring Sammy Davis Jr and Sidney Poitier.
Confronted with the financial losses of the film, Goldwyn simply
replied that “It is a great movie that had to be made.” The music
was beautiful, the story inspiring, and the production did not spare
any cost.
It is unfortunate that we
no longer have this kind of inspiring messages in our culture. It is
really a pity because many people are becoming so affected by the
prevailing pessimism that they become blind to the available
opportunities.
Goldwyn always made
movies that he liked himself, instead of wasting time consulting his
partners and associates. He was never happy working in corporate
environments, and this is why he ended up a sole entrepreneur with
total creative control over his movies. And despite his initial
inexperience in the film business, he never was afraid of failure. As
he used to say, “a man who is enthusiastic about his job has
nothing to fear from life.”
This is a kind of
enthusiasm that we need to witness as often as possible. Learn the
lesson from people like Goldwyn, and start looking for inspiring
messages wherever you can find them. Look for stories that have a
happy end, so that you can ensure that your own story also ends of a
happy note.
Every time someone tries
to overwhelm you with pessimistic stories about the economy, the
future of the world, or your personal future, you should reply by
using Goldwyn's words: “Include me out.” Yes, this is the answer
that you should be giving whenever you encounter discouraging
messages. What you need to do is to listen to the right messages,
those that people like Goldwyn spread: Always remain optimistic, and
on top of that, a gentleman.
[Text: copyright John Vespasian, 2014]
[Image by dwan.mac under Creative Commons Attribution License. See the license terms under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us]
[Image by dwan.mac under Creative Commons Attribution License. See the license terms under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us]