Product placement.

2008-08-28 19:00:00

There's an interesting piece at the Guardian from David Cox, who sees end times-signs in the fact that Shane Meadows' "Somers Town" (which, I know, enough already) was paid for by Eurostar: "A fateful Rubicon has been crossed," he declares. Meadows didn't extract money from Eurostar to facilitate a project of his own. He agreed to place his skills at the service of one of theirs. Of course, plenty of directors make commercials, and there's nothing wrong with that. Advertising tries to sell us something, and it doesn't pretend otherwise. Somers Town, however, carries no warning message, like the 'Advertorial' banner atop of every page of a sponsored newspaper supplement. Corporate authorship isn't acknowledged until the very last line of the credits, and then simply by the word 'Eurostar' attached to a copyright symbol in tiny type. For its £750,000 or so, the company bought not just an advertisement, but...

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