From our journalist in Deauville,
Shootings suspended, releases postponed like the highly anticipated second installment of Dune, productions at a standstill – in Hollywood, the strike movement continues and does not weaken. It deprives the 49th edition of the Deauville American Film Festival of its most prestigious guests of honor (Natalie Portman, Jude Law). To make festival-goers better understand the shock wave that grips the 7th art across the Atlantic and whose consequences will very quickly be tangible on our French screens, the Normandy event organized a round table on Saturday “Strike in Hollywood: the mutations of the movie theater”. In front of a large audience, Alexandre Pachulski, doctor in computer science, specialized in Artificial Intelligence, Xavier Lardoux, former director of cinema and audiovisual of the CNC, the Franco-American director Sophie Barthes who presents in Deauville The Pod Generation and the producer Michèle Halberstadt set the stakes.
Xavier Lardoux pointed out the role of platforms in triggering the crisis. Netflix and others do not report movie viewing counts on their sites. In the absence of circulation figures, it is impossible to assess the amount of the residuals, i.e. royalties and their additional remuneration. “This movement was predictable”, continues the one who is now director of Adami (Civil society for the administration of the rights of artists and performers). And to quote the 1960 strike, which lasted six months. “They look alike strangely,” he recalls. “At the time, the exponential expansion of television was threatening cinema; today it is artificial intelligence.”
With the proliferation of artificial intelligence software, the four professionals are calling for political regulation – something that the platforms are rejecting. “We should already have guarantees, such as creating an obligation of transparency, but also having the possibility of refusing to have our work taken over by artificial intelligence,” says Xavier Lardoux in unison with the director of Deauville Bruno Barde who fears “ an absolute aporia” of the world of fiction.
Also read “We are fighting for our survival”: in Hollywood, the strike is not cinema
“Artificial intelligence mixes data”, deciphers Alexandre Pachulski, doctor in computer science and specialist in artificial intelligence. In other words, no ex nihilo creation – the machine is only responsible for storing and collecting millions of data, while allowing users to create new ones. “At this rate, in 100 years, Chat GPT will have written the screenplay for Indiana Jones 14, still with Harrison Ford!” he exclaims. “There is a societal crisis. Artificial intelligences are supplanting humans in just about every industry. But in one area at a time. Creation is the last human bastion”, warns Alexandre Pachulski. “There is no point of view in the A.I., it is an assistant in the service of creation. And everything that comes out of this software must be stamped as such.
“Everyone is for this strike except, perhaps, the six bosses of the GAFAMS”, sums up the journalist from Le Monde, Laurent Carpentier who is leading the debate. Michèle Halberstadt, producer and co-founder of ARP Sélection, which defends Nos vies d’avant in Deauville, wishes to point out that “this is not a strike for the rich”. And to add: “of the 160,000 unionized actors, 86% live on incomes of less than $26,000 a year”.
On strike since May, the screenwriters were joined by the actors on July 14, under the aegis of the powerful SAG-Aftra union. Without an agreement, Hollywood is paralyzed and prevents any promotion and distribution of its films. Sophie Barthes, Franco-American director, who came to present her film The Pod Generation (produced by the independent studio A24), draws a parallel in conclusion: “We find ourselves like in Oppenheimer. We make the atomic bomb because we have the right to do so, and no one tells us that we shouldn’t. With the same false excuse “if we don’t do it, the others will”.