The following is the first half of a two-part article by Jeremiah Kipp, a critic and reporter whose work has appeared in Fangoria, Filmmaker Magazine, Slant Magazine and other publications. He previously interviewed movie critic Charles Taylor for The House Next Door.
___________________________________________________
In 1999, film critic Godfrey Cheshire [left] wrote a compelling two-part essay for New York Press entitled “The Death of Film/The Decay of Cinema." The article considered the transition from celluloid to digital technology within movie theaters, and the repercussions that would have on cinema as an art form. Predicated on the belief that the viewer responds differently to televised or digital images than film images, Cheshire expressed ambivalence and curiosity about that changeover.
To frame his argument, Cheshire provided definitions for terms normally considered interchangeable: “Film refers to the old, celluloid-based technology; movies refer to motion pictures as entertainment; and cinema refers to motion pictures as art.” Film and cinema, to Cheshire, are vitally linked, and that once film is removed, what is left may vaguely look the same for a short time, but that essentially video leads 
to the “overthrow of film by television—which is what this [shift] amounts to—will be related to a dissolution of cinema esthetics…The latter, which has implications beyond the realm of arts and entertainment, is my ultimate subject here. But let’s take one thing at a time.” The article has been reprinted all over the world, and was made the subject of a special colloquium at the Museum of Modern Art. It remains a valuable reference point for filmmakers, journalists and cinephiles.
But Cheshire himself admitted, “When the millennial clock ticks over, we will all be strangers in a strange land.” The technological and cultural landscape has changed rapidly since the publication of his article in ways Cheshire did not anticipate. Digital technology has accelerated the DVD revolution and the resurgence of documentaries. 
The Internet has affected how film criticism is digested by the public, and has fostered reactionary grassroots support among bloggers. Amidst these and other changes emerge new questions about film, movies and entertainment—as well as a few ironic surprises. Since leaving New York Press, Cheshire has continued writing film reviews for the North Carolina alternative weekly The Independent. But this self-professed “videophobe” is wrapping up production on a first-person documentary — shot on digital. It focuses on his family and their Southern plantation, which has been their homestead since 1739. In addition to his directorial debut, Cheshire has written two narrative screenplays and recently taught a course on the history of film at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Cheshire was open to discussing how the changing times broadened his interests in film and filmmaking, as well as looking back on his landmark essay. The death of film and the decay of cinema led to the rise of video and new technologies. Amidst these transitions, Cheshire has managed to keep himself on the front lines—in more ways than one.
________________________________________________
Jeremiah Kipp: Since you wrote “The Death of Film/The Decay of Cinema” in 1999, the cinema has changed, the world has changed, and Godfrey Cheshire has changed.
Godfrey Cheshire: It’s been interesting how that piece has stayed alive in people’s minds. Last year, I received a number of calls from writers who were working on articles about changes in the industry and film culture. They had read my article and found information that was valuable in terms of what they were thinking about.
When I wrote that article in 1999, it was prompted by the fact that there were the first displays of commercial movies in digital projection here in New York City and other cities. 
That made me consider what this change of technology would mean to Cinema and Movies as I defined them for the purposes of that article. I predicated my timeline on what people in the industry were all saying, which was that this changeover in movie theaters from celluloid technology to digital technology, from analog to digital, was going to take about three years. It sounded very comparable to the changeover from silent to sound, which depending on your definitions took anywhere between 18 months to three years—a fairly rapid change.
It turns out, of course, that the digital changeover didn’t happen so fast. There were economic and technological factors, but the most important reason was that the industry could not agree on the technical standards and the financial considerations for this change. The whole thing got slowed down for a while.
However, there are two things to say about that. One is that right now it seems like we are on the verge of the actual changeover that I talked about as something that would happen before 2002. The second thing is that since I wrote that article, a number of things have changed in film culture, and to the technology of film. 
The biggest example is DVDs. All of a sudden they took off as this enormous factor in the earnings potential of movies, to the point where a lot of movies make more money on DVD than they do in the theatrical realm. There’s a whole cultural dimension to DVDs, too. DVDs have the presence of books, in a way. They package film history in a literary way that wasn’t happening up until then. VHS is much different. It doesn’t feel like a book, it’s disposable, and you just watch it and throw it away or take it back to the store. But people actually take pride in building libraries of DVDs. They now come annotated with all this commentary and such.
It has an impact on the way people perceive film. DVDs have been in some ways very positive in the sense that people have an idea of film culture with the kind of presence and precedence that literature has. 
They can look at Carl Theodor Dreyer as a great artist; they can purchase the Dreyer box set and have it on their library walls, so maybe even their kids will watch it with that idea in mind. There’s a way film history is being packaged now that definitely has a positive educational value. Incidentally, when people ask what film criticism I enjoy reading these days, almost the first thing that springs to mind is Dave Kehr’s column in the Times about the DVD releases of old movies. It’s great to know which choice bits of our cinematic past are resurfacing thanks to this new medium, and Dave does such a great job discussing, evaluating and contextualizing them.
JK: DVDs give you an immediate history lesson about film, but it’s a double-edged sword. You can pick up "M" and learn about German Expressionism, or the Val Lewton box set to find out more about the development of excellent B-pictures in Old Hollywood. That is certainly a very good thing for film culture. And on the other hand—
GC: Yes, the other side of the sword is that it can easily turn into the rock ‘n’ roll museum, where we induct Keith Richards and the Sex Pistols, but all this packaging of the rock ‘n’ roll from the past does nothing for the vitality of rock ‘n’ roll in the present. It is putting the tombstone on top of a corpse, memorializing something rather than contributing to it as a present tense art form.
JK: In your articles “The Death of Film” and “The Decay of Cinema”, you were able to provide useful definitions of Cinema, Movies and Film. But now it feels like there are even more definitions, and it is almost difficult to keep up with it all. If you read J. Hoberman’s article about the cult surrounding "The New World," it proposes that the Internet and the so-called blogosphere are a way to level the playing fields, 
where a movie like "The New World" can have a small but fiercely loyal audience. The community sprouting up around the film is unique. I’m sure there are other precedents throughout cinema history where people have gotten behind a cult movie, but this is unique to the Internet where a grassroots support system has been created to support the film through new technology. It’s a way to discuss and promote a film that could not have been considered back in 1999. That is not specific to celluloid, but fits within the landscape of film and how it has been evolving.
GC: That’s a very good point. The thing we’re doing this interview for, Matt’s blog, is a part of a new evolution in film culture that wasn’t there a few years ago. In that way, it is parallel to DVDs. I think the Internet has changed the perception of movies and the way people relate to movies and understand them in enormous ways.
I’ll give you an example. Last year, I spent a few months in North Carolina working on this documentary [to be discussed in Part 2 of this interview]. While I was down there, I was asked to teach a course about the history of film at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I was very happy to do this. It’s a survey course that I took myself when I was at UNC. Actually, it was the same course, same classroom, same everything, except that now I was up there as the teacher. 
I had never taught undergrads before, and was very curious about what these undergrads were like now. The first day I was there, I gave out a questionnaire that I made up, asking them what were their five favorite films, their three favorite films of the past year, the films they bought most recently on DVD, what film critics they read, and where do they get your information about film. I discovered they were very smart, perhaps smarter than the students I was in the same class with many years ago. They were very motivated, hardworking, and interested. But I also learned through the questionnaire that most of their knowledge of film history was very thin. In my class, way back when, you would have had people into Eisenstein, Truffaut and Godard. There was very little of that depth of interest in this class.
JK: These young people grew up on the Internet.
GC: That has done nothing to dull their intelligence, and may have stimulated it in some ways. However, it’s also made them graze the surface of things rather than go in-depth. I discovered that most of them read critics online. There’s not the culture of the local critic that there was when I was [a student]. Of course, I still write for The Independent Weekly, 
and I’m in that market. The thing that shocked me was when I asked, “Where do you get your information about films?” Which is basically what films are playing, what’s opening this weekend—and none of them said The Independent, which is the alternative weekly for that area, which is where you would think that most people their age would go for information like that. They get that online. There used to be a certain factor of localism in film criticism, which was very much tied to print, newspapers and journalism. You read whoever was in your market. Of course, you might buy The New Yorker if you lived in North Carolina to see what Pauline Kael had to say. But you read the writing in the local paper, because that was for a local audience. Now, there isn’t that presumption at all. The position of critics tied to local publications is being continually eroded.
JK: The other side of the coin is people can look all over on the Internet for the kind of criticism that is agreeable to them.
GC: True, but based on this experience with my students, I wonder if many of the people searching out film reviews on the Internet are reading with the kind of depth that people read the long reviews you saw published in the 1970s and 1980s. You see things like The Village Voice cutting back the space that their critics get. Even really good critics who write for that publication don’t have the opportunity, given the way the format has changed, to go into depth or relate one film to another film. The film reviews are cut up into these little capsule-like segments. All of that is to the bad as far as I’m concerned.
JK: If you’re reading something on a screen, it’s quite different. I’m sure reading "Moby Dick" on the Internet is not going to be the same as reading it on the page.
GC: I can’t imagine reading "Moby Dick" on the Internet. That seems self-contradictory.
JK: I consider it the same mindset, though. If you read something on the Internet, you are going to read it very quickly.
GC: Sure, probably the first paragraph or two to see if the critic liked it or doesn’t, and move on from there to the next review.
JK: But one can assume the roots of the way we respond to the Internet stem from the way we regard television. 
One could argue that television created many of the habits we incorporate into our lives that go way beyond the simple act of watching television, and that it creates a kind of attention deficit disorder. When you reviewed "Crash" and "Syriana," you referred to their storytelling approach as being filtered through the “atomization of attention." It is no mistake that Paul Haggis and Stephen Gaghan started in television, and that a TV mindset has crept into their movies.
GC: The success of films like "Crash" and "Syriana" represent the creeping erosion of cinematic values by television values. [Judging by the Oscars,] the filmmaking community considers those films artistic. But to me, 
"Crash" is the opposite of artistic. Somebody on the news pointed out that on the Village Voice Critics Poll it was #66. It was so far down. It’s not like the Hollywood community said, “Look, the critics have embraced this film!” A lot of critics cried bullshit on it. Nonetheless, that kind of value is overtaking traditional cinematic values just in terms of very basic entertainment terms Hollywood is used to dealing with. That is a terrible phenomenon, too, but it is not a matter of a fluke this year. It’s an ongoing process and the more you see this validated in forums like the Oscars, the more that will become the definition of film art.
JK: When you reviewed "Syriana," you said, “A real political movie is one that presents an analysis so persuasive and precise that it inspires you to action.” Could one create an argument for "Munich" as a political film?
GC: I come at "Syriana" as a film that sees itself primarily at a political film. I come at "Munich" as a film I see as primarily a work of art with philosophical dimensions, and political dimension as well, but it does not have a narrow focus. 
With "Munich," its virtues are so tied to its complexity. It forces questions back on the viewer. Part of the problem has been people rallying around one of two political views of the film, both of which greatly simplify the actual complexities of the situation, and both of which don’t lead toward helpful or political thought or action. Spielberg’s very intelligent artistic examination of all this, primarily its political effect, is to make viewers stand back and reflect on all of this, and their relationship to it, but it is not a banner for people to rally around.
JK: It has the viewer go internal and ask, “What is my relationship to this media war, or this televised war?” Certainly, that is something we can reflect on in our culture now. Regarding 9/11, one of the more chilling things said over and over again was, “It was just like a movie.” That’s quite a disturbing thing to hear. But it does bring a cultural interpretation into a major and shattering global tragedy. They filter the event through the movie experience.
GC: You have to factor in 9/11 to where movies fit into the culture right now. Within a week of 9/11, Hollywood people surveyed in a New York Times article said that movies would turn themselves away from all the problems that might be indicated by this event and that they’d be a valid form of escapism. 
I immediately wrote that if that is the case, then we will have forfeited any claim that we are using art for the broader purpose of attempting to show a sense of understanding of the world. We will deserve whatever bad fate is visited to us if we stick our head in the sand like ostriches. Well, I didn’t think that pronouncement they made was going to be true except in the very short term. [Indeed,] ever since 9/11 people have gone to movies that in some sense give them the feeling that it deals with the changed world we’re living in.
That deals with films like "The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," which were of course compared because they came out around the same time. They are about as different as any two films could be. One is extremely topical and political, and the other seems not to be either topical or political at all but everybody responds to it as if it were. Those are Category One Post 9/11 movies. 
In the last year we have seen people really get interested in films like the ones nominated for the Oscars, which is exactly why they were nominated: "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Syriana," "Jarhead," "The Constant Gardener," "Crash," all of these in some way are communicating to audiences that they are dealing with the society we’re all embroiled in now. People look to movies for meaning, to make sense of things. That is a truly valid function and an important one. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of these movies fulfill this function very well, but I would rather have someone out there trying. Hollywood, in its very dim way, is responding.
________________________________________________
Special thanks to John LaRocca for the illustration of Cheshire that appears at the top of this interview. To read Part Two, click here.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Cinema, dead and alive: an interview with Godfrey Cheshire, Part 1
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
40 comments:
For further reading:
"The Ending(s) of Cinema: Notes on the Recurrent Demise of the Seventh Art, Part 1,” by Stefan Jovanovic.
“Debating the death of cinema,” by Gavin Smith.
“A Brief History of Film and Digital Cinema," a timeline by Jim Mendrala.
Pioneer’s technical guide to the development of the DVD.
Also click on the links throughout the article -- the lead to Cheshire's criticism and other articles of interest.
Goodness, I really miss reading GC*. Just read through the interview, as JK suggested, quickly. Well, not quite. There are really great bits of interesting stuff are all over the place.
I should add (JK, if you are out there) the interviewer did a great job interviewing too, proper amount of ask and tell, give and take.
Though I wanted gossip.
* I know he's online, but somehow, he doesn't write regularly enough for me to keep returning.
Great and enjoyable interview, Matt. Thanks for posting it.
There are a couple more links in this post (and comments section) by Chuck Tryon, including this famous Susan Sontag essay.
I'd like to echo Godfrey's point about his young undegrads and the extent to which they rely on the Internet. My students told me a while back that when they register for classes each semester, they check a huge site called "RateMyProfessor.Com" to which millions of students around the country contribute, adding (not always reliable) evaluations and dirt about the profs they've had.
Look forward to part 2.
Another summary of the digital-to-film changeover is here. It's from an industry perspective, and a bit rah=rah, but the details are comprehensible to the layperson.
I really enjoyed reading this interview, and Cheshire's discussion of the "decay of cinema" has informed my thinking for some time (in fact I'll probably have a longish blog post about this interview later tonight).
I especilly found helpful Cheshire's linking the mas marketing of DVD cinephilia and the rise of cinephilia on the internet and especially in the blogosphere.
I'll be interested in seeing how the New Cinephilia takes shape as it evolves over the next few years, and while the cult following for Malick's film is a significant example, I think we're also seeing bloggers cultivate audiences for international filmmakers that might have otherwise fallen beneath the pop culture radar.
And as a film professr, I found Cheshire's experience in the UNC fim classroom to be interesting, especially when he suggested that current students' knowledge of film history was a bit "thin." While I think every student should know Eisenstein and Truffaut, I'm wondering if the sheer proliferation of popular culture products has contributed to this "thin" knowledge base. There's just so much more to know, and our canons will be shaped accordingly.
Chuck -- I think you've zeroed in on a critical point.
The DVD phenomenon allows movies to enjoy a longer life than they would have at any other time. DVDs also grant movies a greater prominence among movie lovers and even give them a chance to return from the dead, as it were, years after they were last considered important.
But there's a limit to peoples' ability to process all this information. At a certain point you run up against the 24-hours-in-a-day, 365-days-in-a-year rule, and you have to pick your fights, and that means some titles or even areas of film will be neglected even if you're a pretty dedicated movie watcher.
It sounds like the sort of problem movie lovers would like to have, but the DVD revolution's embarassment of riches does contribute to the thinness Cheshire mentions. And it affects the sorts of conversations people can have about movies. If you feel the need to have an opinion on everything, you won't have fully formed opinions on everything. If everything is significant, then nothing is, and cinephilia becomes trivia.
Maybe this issue is more interesting to film professors and critics than to the general moviegoer, but it's worth discussing.
Nice points, Chuck and Matt.
"At a certain point you run up against the 24-hours-in-a-day, 365-days-in-a-year rule, and you have to pick your fights, and that means some titles or even areas of film will be neglected even if you're a pretty dedicated movie watcher."
Yes, but keep in mind that the size and degree of dispersal of the filmblogosphere means that this is not always, necessarily true. (I mean, it's true for one person but less so for the collective Internet film community.) Titles or areas of film neglected by one person might be picked up and addressed and developed by others in the blogosphere. Thus, a wide variety of areas and films will end up getting the attention they deserve. Which is very exciting.
girish: Right on, and thanks for clarifying my point when you say, "(I mean, it's true for one person but less so for the collective Internet film community.)" That's what I mean, really. The Little Boy with his Face Pressed Against the Bakery Window factor. I see a lot more movies than most people, but there are still particular areas of specialization/expertise I wish I could acquire. For example, I recently saw the Angolan drama "O Hero!" at the Syracuse International Film Festival and was tremendously moved and impressed, and when I told a friend, he said he hadn't seen the movie but was not surprised it was good, because the Angolan film industry had been producing some good stuff in the past decade. Then he ticked off a list of about a dozen titles, only a couple of which I've seen.
I fantasize about cloning myself and sending one version to watch nothing but, say, Taiwanese movies, or re-watch everything Spielberg or Wong Kar-Wai ever made, but it's not gonna happen. Thus the anxiety over "thinness" to which Cheshire, Chuck and others on this thread have alluded.
This is somwehat unrealted, but as a film historian, one of the problems I encounter is considering how to cover the history of cinema in 15 weeks. Of course I think we've also reached the point where that is becoming a practical impossibility, and most responsible film departments should find a way to spread that history into 2 or more semetsres (at least for majors).
But, yeah, I think Girish is right to point out that the dispersal of teh film blog community does make wider conversations about film history possible.
Matt wrote: "But there's a limit to peoples' ability to process all this information. At a certain point you run up against the 24-hours-in-a-day, 365-days-in-a-year rule, and you have to pick your fights, and that means some titles or even areas of film will be neglected even if you're a pretty dedicated movie watcher."
I'm with Cheshire on this. Part of the problem for me is that a kind of consumerist mentality creeps into cinephilia through the backdoor with Videotape and DVD. Film (that strip dancing before the light) isn't just information. It's a particular experience. You of course remember the moment that you first saw The New World. Because the experience of watching a film is not a repeatable experience. Conversely, nobody remembers unwrapping a DVD. You know what your TV set looks like. You hit the remote. I'm pretty convinced that the "ain't it cool...?" brigade is merely consuming and fetishizing images rather than having meaningful encounters with filmic art. "Ain't it cool...?" is an aesthetic and a politique which is inextricably tied to certain media. It means that Dreyer and John Flynn (the director of Rolling Thunder) are providing identical ways to spend a few hours.
Anon: Agreed. Just recently I've had the urge to re-watch 2046 and 2001, but resisted, because no matter how much I admire those movies, I'd be disappointed by the experience of watching films that are intended as sensory, even sensual experiences on a TV set.
On an unrelated note, I disagree with the idea that television atomizes attention. That's certainly true for certain types of TV -- sports, MTV, advertising -- but long-form series and miniseries with intricate plots and big casts disprove that bit of common wisdom. If anything, the so-called DVD revolution -- and to a lesser extent, DVR and video-on-demand -- proves beyond a doubt that at least some viewers are willing to invest their time in TV as they would a good film or book. They scrutinize every detail, note every allusion or bit of foreshadowing. And there is now an entire class of viewer that doesn't even watch shows like THE WIRE or DEADWOOD in their original run -- they just make a mental note to buy or rent the DVD of a particular season when it comes out, and then they binge over the course of a few days, or just a weekend, watching 10 to 24 hours all at once.
TV's not a medium, it's an appliance. It delivers a wide array of programming, some of it atomized, some very slow and meditative (a lot of high definition programming has this quality -- it's all about the images, and tries not to cut unless it's really necessary).
Godfrey and I have been having this conversation for 10 years now, so I'm not ambushing him in the comments thread. But here are two assertions worth arguing about
(1) While narrative TV still hasn't attained the aesthetic complexity of theatrical films, it's made great strides in the last 20 years, and for a variety of reasons, TV now satisfies the urge for classically styled linear narrative that used to be Hollywood's specialty. From junk to art, TV drama is doing this with more imagination, and on a more widespread basis, and in a more conspicuous way, than most mainstream American movies. TV has not produced an Antonioni or Wong Kar-Wai, but there are little Howard Hawkses running around all over the place.
(2) And I concede Godfrey didn't address this point directly, but if movies and/or cinema are dying, as he contends (and I think they are, very slowly) who's fault is it? Not just TV, and not just changing lifestyle rhythms. I think exhibitors cooked their own goose by making the theatrical experience so expensive, impersonal and often unpleasant (20 minutes of ads, no professional projectionist to fix problems, no enforcement of simple rules of courtesy). A fairly significant indie film producer recently put it to me this way: if you want to see a particular art house movie, and you don't live in a major city, are you going to pay the cost of admission, parking, concessions and perhaps a babysitter (anywhere from $100 to $150) or are you going to wait for cable, the DVD or maybe buy a bootleg? Given all the downsides of seeing movies in your typical multiplex, it's no huge shock that so many Americans are going with option B.
In other words, if film/movies/cinema are dying, is it murder or suicide? Or some combination?
Godfrey actually hits on some of these points in his original 1999 piece, but they're worth discussing again here if anybody's game.
Matt wrote: "On an unrelated note, I disagree with the idea that television atomizes attention. That's certainly true for certain types of TV -- sports, MTV, advertising -- but long-form series and miniseries with intricate plots and big casts disprove that bit of common wisdom."
Well, yes, and no. Where are the Berlin Alexanderplatz's and Prise de Pouvoirs...? Even what passes for long form dramas assume that you're going to be peeing and scratching. Part of the problem here is that American TV is designed to be something that you don't give your full attention to. TV is obsequious. Cinema is imperial. TV says: "watch this, if you don't mind, but if you want to knit or flip to another channel that's OK with us. We'll always let you recap and catch up."
Matt wrote: "While narrative TV still hasn't attained the aesthetic complexity of theatrical films, it's made great strides in the last 20 years, and for a variety of reasons, TV now satisfies the urge for classically styled linear narrative that used to be Hollywood's specialty. From junk to art, TV drama is doing this with more imagination, and on a more widespread basis, and in a more conspicuous way, than most mainstream American movies. TV has not produced an Antonioni or Wong Kar-Wai, but there are little Howard Hawkses running around all over the place."
The real, secret, dirty, reason TV sucks is because the Writer is the auteur in that world. Guys like Serling (one of the rare TV auteurs) who also thought cinematically are few and far between. TV is a creature of Radio and it shows. TV still gives you radio dramas with optional pictures. You can watch almost any show with the image off. That's not mise en scene. It's an ear thing. And it has taught movie audiences to favor the ear too.
"At a certain point you run up against the 24-hours-in-a-day, 365-days-in-a-year rule ...."
This leads me to a couple observations:
1) With over a century of film history, and especially with the explosion of films due to constantly falling barriers to production, the "generalist cinephile" will fast become a thing of the past. Just as we don't expect the historian to have expertise in every era from the dawn of man until yesterday, we won't expect the cinephile to have seen every movie, from every country, for all of film history. Matt's Angolan-film antecdote demonstrates how this is already happening.
Which leads to my second point...
2) Movies (and, in the same way, popular music) will no longer be cultural touchstones like they were in the past. There will be so many films that very few will seep into the cultural consiousness the way a Bonnie & Clyde, a Star Wars, or a Fahrenheit 9/11 once may have. The "narrowcasting" of media will let more people see/hear the specific things that they are interested in, but at the expense of a larger cultural experience. Which brings up an interesting question: What do you make of a popular art form when its individual texts are no longer popular?
As a theater-artist-slash-film-buff I’m usually bemused by the death of cinema crowd, since my own primary art form has been enduring cries of “the theater is dying!” for longer than any of us have been alive.
Neither movies nor film nor cinema will die; there will always be people who crave the communal experience of sitting in the dark together while celluloid fantasies are projected before them.
What is ending (and has probably already ended) is cinema’s place as the primary popular artistic medium. That’s okay. It happened to theater, to opera, to the novel--all displaced by cinema in their day, just as cinema is now being supplanted by TV, video games, what have you.
Now, it’s fair to bemoan what will be lost in the transition; as an art house junkie I’ve expressed my share of disappointment over the years at having been born too late to partake of a film culture where everybody had an opinion on Antonioni, the New Wave, what have you. Wong Kar Wai doesn’t really matter to anybody in this country but film buffs, and that’s a shame.
But it hardly means that we’re going to be stuck without exciting work, any more than theater or the novel have turned into wastelands just because the day has passed when people gathered at the port to find out what happened to Little Nell.
MZS: In other words, if film/movies/cinema are dying, is it murder or suicide? Or some combination?
Some form of assisted suicide, I'd say. You make a lot of valid points here Matt, and since I am already wearing my exhibitor hat (I'm typing from the day job here) I'd add the shrinking windows to the equation.
On two of my six screens right now I'm running films that are already available on DVD.
I know my perceptions are skewed because I haven't really had to pay for a movie this decade, but I gotta think that if I had to choose between $18 for two tickets for a onetime show vs. $12.99 at Target to own the sucker outright, what's the logical choice?
I understand that by the studios' rationale this saves them some coin on the DVD ad launch, as the titles are still fresh in people's minds - but what are they doing to repeat viewings? Not to mention the buzzy, social "Special Event" status a big movie used to have.
Or maybe I'm just being nostalgiac for an era when I could go see GOODFELLAS ten times on the big screen because it played in theaters for over a year.
jre: The "narrowcasting" of media will let more people see/hear the specific things that they are interested in, but at the expense of a larger cultural experience.
Which you can argue has already happened to popular music. Was it Lester Bangs who said, "We will never all agree again the way we agreed on Elvis"?
But isn't what's being talked about here really the death of the cinematic "experience"?
I would argue that, yes, while people will always want to congregate in a darkened room to share in a piece of drama, this same feeling can now be achieved at home more successfully than ever before.
I've got a friend who owns a digital projector and has an entire wall set aside to view his goodies on. He's got absolutely no need to go to the movies anymore if he doesn't want to. Can't say I blame him either, due mostly to all the reasons everybody's outlined.
I've taken in a number of group showings at his place that were just as rewarding as any time I've ever spent at the movies. They were with friends whose opinions I valued and sensibilities I shared, there were no crying babies, and nobody was talking loudly at the movie screen. Home theatre is nothing new; it's just become not only more affordable, but also more penetrable. His entire setup cost him somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000 (although I think he may have gotten some kind of "good" deal). If this sort of arrangement is the death of cinema, then I say kill it yesterday.
There appears to be this massive last gasp that certain high-profile filmmakers (Lucas, Cameron) are developing with the advent of new and improved 3-D, but come on - I don't need for the latest Sofia Coppola movie to engulf my field of vision. There may be a temporary spike in event film-going due to this technology (seeing THE POLAR EXPRESS in 3-D at IMAX was one of the best theatre-going experience I've had in years), but it'll only be a matter of time until that too is developed for the consumer.
The TV-influencing-film debate is also a good one, but realistically I think there will always be room and demand for the stand-alone, under 2-hour narrative, if for no other reason than not everybody has the time or inclination to delve headfirst into 24 hours of quality TV. (And if the standard becomes as such, we’ve got far bigger problems than the death of cinema on our hands.) One thing short form narrative will always have over long is the offer of instant gratification, and that is something we as a society now embrace more than ever. It all comes down to good storytelling - where I ~see~ the good story, is far less important than if the story is worth watching.
And TV is in great shape these days. I directly credit - if you can believe this - the reality TV craze for helping it on its way. Reality TV taught viewers to learn "character" names and the importance of tuning in each week to follow the ongoing story. The most successful reality shows are and have been those that offer some kind of long-term carrot on a stick, and while not everyone views them, an awful lot of people do.
I never thought I'd see the day where people actually tuned in to arc-driven programming in droves. The trick, I think, is going to be that makers of these shows had better *damn* well know where they're going with these stories, as nothing will be more detrimental to the “revolution” than a bunch of shows that sucker people in for months on end only to deliver jack-squat at the end of it all. This is the one area where reality TV still has the edge - all they need to do is deliver a "winner" at the end. Making it up as we go along could kill everything, if producers and writers aren't careful.
I realize this somewhat flies in the face of my previous statements about short form vs. long, but truthfully, it's anybody's guess what everyone is going to want to see 20 years from now – my guess is anything that distracts them from the worlds outside (not unlike today).
anonymous (not me): "You can watch almost any show with the image off. That's not mise en scene. It's an ear thing. And it has taught movie audiences to favor the ear too."
Robert Bresson (not me either): ""the ear is profound, whereas the eye is frivolous, too easily satisfied. The ear is active, imaginative, whereas the eye is passive."
I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
honestly, as much as i do believe the advent of DVDs, netflix, and the internet have and will continue helping more people become better watched and more educated on film, I still can't help believing that it's still a pretty exclusive group that actually takes the time to pay all that much attention. i agree that the fact that you can't see the art-house projects anywhere but a big city is partially the industry shooting itself in the foot, but i honestly can't see most of america really getting out and seeing these films in any more significant numbers than they already do, even if they were in wide release. The New World had a huge release and still didn't even cover half it's modest budget state-side.
Also, people always quote DVD sales as helping independant cinema, but does it really help all that much? DVDs are cheap to produce, but the big sales still, by in large, go to the big product. King Kong will sell like crazy making up for the rest of the films Universal puts out that don't do all that well at all.
Maybe it's just that I'm cynical, but honestly i think that this whole "internet-cult-movement" isn't really as widespread or influential as we might like to believe. it's slightly akin to high school students thinking they were the only one that liked Bauhaus, only to find out there's a club!...thing is the reality tends to remain that 90% of the population still have never heard of the band, the kids that have stick to themselves and it's likely to stay that way...
We've got a lot of potentially interesting threads here. Phrased as questions -- with comments -- they are:
1. How much of cinema is bound up in the cinematic experience, as Ross defines it? Meaning the theatrical experience?
Most Americans don't go to the movies more than a few times a year, if that. The overwhelming majority of moviegoers who don't live in major cities see films on DVD, tape, video on demand or cable TV. Are their movie experiences compromised? Is their love for movies first seen under those conditions less real than if they'd seen it in a theater?
2. Is TV really the enemy of cinema? Or are they different delivery devices for the same medium, moving pictures?
Yes, we all know there are huge qualitative differences between MTV's "The Real World" and "Deadwood," or SAVE THE LAST DANCE and BELLE DE JOUR. I'm not talking about content, I'm talking about the most basic component parts: actors pretending to be fictional characters, taking part in a series of shots strung together with cuts. For the first 30 years of its commercial history, TV was a bastardized, compromised, commercialized form, one where it was nearly impossible to create anything of substance -- radio with pictures, as Anon said above.
But now that TV technology enables us to experience a wide array of moving picture formats in a number of different forms -- movies and TV shows, video on demand vs. DVD vs. DVR, a tiny little monitor vs. a gigantic plasma screen TV -- the common language is becoming clearer, and in my view, the old "TV bad, movies good" formulation is as anachronistic as a wide-lapeled shirt. No, no, no, it's not as great as the movies, but there's thoughtful, ambitious or just plain entertaining and well crafted stuff on TV, particularly the better dramas. A lot of TV still is radio with pictures, but a lot of it isn't, from HILL ST. BLUES, ST ELSEWHERE, CRIME STORY and MIAMI VICE in the 80s through SEINFELD, THE SIMPSONS and THE X-FILES in the 90s through today, a period that includes, in no particular order, DEADWOOD, THE WIRE, THE SOPRANOS, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, THE SHIELD, LOST, RESCUE ME, NIP/TUCK, THIEF, SAMURAI JACK, SOUTH PARK. These shows are, if not mainly visual, then at least equally visual and verbal. You can't follow them without the picture, or without the sound. You need both. And a surprising number of them demand close scrutiny, if for no other reason than if your attention strays, you won't have the slightest clue what's going on -- which is more than you can say for the bulk of mainstream Hollywood narrative cinema, series TV's closest stylistic cousin. Miss 10 minutes of of THE AVIATOR, KINSEY or CRASH in a theater and you won't lose your place, either. 2046, of course, is a different story.
3. Is the age of movie-as-popular-art dead, or dying? If so, is the embarassment of riches on DVD partly to blame, by making everyone a specialist because there are only 24 hours in a day?
4. (related to 3) Does the desire to be an omnivorous generalist (most movie fans' impulse, in my experience) condemn most self-professed cinephiles to a somewhat thin understanding of movies? As the range of available movies becomes wider, does the depth of understanding start to thin out, like water that's dumped onto pavement rather than poured into a glass? Does the DVD revolution encourage a kind of intellectual materialism, a need to see things just to have an opinion on them, to not seem "out of it"? (JRE touched on this in the thread above.)
5. So Internet criticism has the ability to go longer and deeper, and express a more idiosyncratic sensibility, than most print criticism, due to space constraints and style edicts and a general dumbing-down.
But the lowliest alternative weekly in the most culture-deprived mid-sized city gets more readers in a day than most websites devoted to halfway serious commentary and criticism. Mass media is still mass media, even after fragmentation, and to the studios (and DVD companies, and TV networks) newspapers and magazines are nothing more than free advertising. Entetainment companies collude (knowingly or incidentially) with mainstream print outlets (some of which the entertainment companies own!) to resist anything that's not a psuedo-knowing puff piece, and stamp out any review that's not bite-sized, snark-filled and devoted to a movie that might already find an audience anyway, with or without critics. There are always exceptions, of course -- the New York Times and LA Times and Chicago Tribune, some of the alt weeklies, Film Comment, etc. -- but Godfrey's right, they do seem to be getting more scarce.
All of which leads me to my last question: if the future of film writing is on the Internet, and the Internet is all about fragmented, niche audiences, then is the idea of movie-as-popular-art-form truly a lost cause? I mean, unless the director's name is Spielberg or the studio's name is Pixar?
Mr. Burns:Was it Lester Bangs who said, "We will never all agree again the way we agreed on Elvis"?
Speak for yourself, Lester.
More SB: I understand that by the studios' rationale this saves them some coin on the DVD ad launch, as the titles are still fresh in people's minds - but what are they doing to repeat viewings? Not to mention the buzzy, social "Special Event" status a big movie used to have.
The movie experience has gone straight to Hell. Remember when, even at the skeeviest Times Square theater, you had one or two rooms and a big red curtain on the screens, a curtain that went up (or opened up) with a dramatic flourish? Nowadays, you pay 6 times as much, get a seat with springs playing Deliverance with your ass, and walls that vibrate with noise from the theater next to yours. When I went to see Good Night and Good Luck, it played next door to some incredibly loud action movie. It sounded like Edward R. Murrow's news show had been produced by Joel Silver. I would have enjoyed the movie better at home.
Ooh, a Matt Zoller Seitz questionnaire! Do I get a toaster for answering the questions?
1.How much of cinema is bound up in the cinematic experience, as Ross defines it? Meaning the theatrical experience?
That depends, really. As you mentioned, 2001 looks better on a big screen than on a television, but if you have a super duper entertainment system, it might not really matter.
Personally, I grew to love movies based on the old movies my Mom used to watch...on TELEVISION. I saw enough movies in my youth at the theater, but the first time I saw my favorite movie of all time, it was on a TV. My love for it would have been equally large had I seen it in the theater. TV taught me about noir and musicals and Bette Davis. The only Bette Davis movie I ever saw on a big screen was Burnt Offerings, and you know how bad that was.
TV didn't dull my hunger to learn everything I could about the cinema, and when VCR's came along and I got old enough to work in a video store, I rented everything that I'd grown up watching on Independent NYC TV stations.
So I think very little is wrapped up in the cinematic experience, unless it's 3-D or Sensurround or Odierama (where I sit next to you and eat Halls to combat my persistent post-nasal drip--you've seen movies in OdieRama, Matt).
Sitting in a darkened theater has its merits sometimes, but comparing it to watching a DVD at home is like dissing masturbation because it's not an orgy: The outcome (pun intended) is the same; there are just more people.
2. Is TV really the enemy of cinema? Or are they different delivery devices for the same medium, moving pictures?
Didn't they say this shit 50 years ago (which led to Cinemascope and 3-D)? I think they're two different entities if we're talking about TV shows vs. movies. I think one goes to see "a movie" with a different expectation than one would watch a series. Since we no longer have serials like they in the 30's, we don't even have a valid comparison. How can you compare something like Deadwood to Unforgiven? One is 2 hours long; the other is an ongoing series.
if for no other reason than if your attention strays, you won't have the slightest clue what's going on
I can be just as distracted at the movie theater than at home watching TV--probably more so at the movies because it's an uncontrolled environment. I don't buy that TV makes you pay less attention. If you have fuckin' A.D.D., you'll have it at the theater, too.
3. Would you have more hours in the day if there were no DVD's?
4. Does the DVD revolution encourage a kind of intellectual materialism, a need to see things just to have an opinion on them, to not seem "out of it"?
Or: Does the fact that anybody can obtain and watch DVD's turn the average Joe Schmo into a wannabe snob critic without having to go through 4 years of film school? In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny: "Hmmmm...could be!" (My tongue is firmly in cheek here.)
What the hell is "intellectual materialism?" It sounds real doggone elitist! Please explain.
is the idea of movie-as-popular-art-form truly a lost cause?
Not so long as there are forums like this one out there, where people with different ideas can come together to intelligently debate and discuss all things cinematic. This is one stop shopping, and though it is occasionally intimidating, everyone here is the glue pulling those internet fragments together.
Cinema died when they stopped hand cranking the films.
"There used to be a certain factor of localism in film criticism, which was very much tied to print, newspapers and journalism. You read whoever was in your market. " Well that would all be wonderful, but Godfrey isn't local to the RTP market. He's a New Yorker. Why bother reading another New Yorker's feeling about movies isn't that what the New York Times is for? Isn't reading one of Godfrey's reviews in the Independent the same as reading something on the internet?
And you can read Moby Dick on the internet.
and then he declares:
"The success of films like "Crash" and "Syriana" represent the creeping erosion of cinematic values by television values."
Would that be the same television values that raised Sam Peckinpah and Robert Altman? And John Frankenheimer? Nothing is sadder than a guy going on about kids not knowing cinematic history and yet he has not a clue about television history.
And the Wire on HBO is a 12 hour movie. What's the difference between The Wire and "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector" or "Barb Wire?" Are we supposed to be elevated because "Benchwarmers" wasn't straight to video?
Anonymous: "I'm pretty convinced that the "ain't it cool...?" brigade is merely consuming and fetishizing images rather than having meaningful encounters with filmic art."
Yeah, I think so to. What AICN has done is take consumerism and turn it into a counterculture movement. Not just consumerism of images, but of actual product: DVD's, posters, toys, whatever.
To hell with that.
Odie: I was going to raise a toast to you, but a toaster's better.
Brett said:
I still can't help believing that it's still a pretty exclusive group that actually takes the time to pay all that much attention.
It’s been over ten years since I paid my dues working in a video store, but back then the question I heard more than any other was “What’s new and what’s good?” I remember many times, taking the latter half of the question into account, trying to recommend something older that I liked. They didn’t care. It was more important that it was “new” rather than “good”.
I would always ask at that point, “Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“Then it’s new to you.”
I doubt much has changed in a decade.
Everything Matt queried sounded provocative, but he’s too verbose for me. I need Odie as the middleman to give it to me straight. ;-) That said…
Odie wrote:
When I went to see Good Night and Good Luck, it played next door to some incredibly loud action movie. It sounded like Edward R. Murrow's news show had been produced by Joel Silver. I would have enjoyed the movie better at home.
I’ve all but given up on going to the movies. It’s just a big pain in the ass. I generally will ~only~ go see event movies, because they’re so fucking loud that nobody around me and no other auditorium can distract me from the task at hand.
I saw enough movies in my youth at the theater, but the first time I saw my favorite movie of all time, it was on a TV.
I’ve got so many positive memories centered around seeing movies on TV and VHS that they must far outweigh the great theatrical experiences.
Seeing Star Wars on cable for the first time was a grand experience. And I bet a lot of people reading this remember the first time ~they~ saw SW on cable. Going to the video store and renting movies with my friends, smack in the middle of the summer? Man, too many great feelings to count. I only wish it was that magical today.
Granted, so much of this is nostalgia and youth and I don’t want to be one of those people who swears up and down life was better in high school. But the point is, as I said before and Odie echoed, it’s the stories that matter, man!
I hate that I’ve become such a snob that the idea of watching something cropped or edited is too offensive an idea to contemplate. Just today I took “Where the Truth Lies” back to my vid store sight unseen because I didn’t realize I’d rented the R-Rated version. They didn’t have the Unrated and so I won’t see it until I can get my hands on a copy.
I. Is. Idiot. Do I really need to see Colin Firth getting a blowjob to like this movie?
Sitting in a darkened theater has its merits sometimes, but comparing it to watching a DVD at home is like dissing masturbation because it's not an orgy: The outcome (pun intended) is the same; there are just more people.
This is just simply one of the best analogies I’ve read in ages – so I had to reprint it.
gordon said:
What AICN has done is take consumerism and turn it into a counterculture movement.
But their biggest crime is the failure to edit any of their criticism.
It was novel for the first couple years...
Oh and this: !!!
MZS: "But the lowliest alternative weekly in the most culture-deprived mid-sized city gets more readers in a day than most websites devoted to halfway serious commentary and criticism."
As a critic for one such lowly alternative weekly, I will point out that 99.9 percent of the email I get about my reviews comes from people who don't live in my market - people who found my work on the internet. Just becuase a theoretical 60,000 people pick up the paper each week doesn't mean that any of them read the movie reviews or if they do read them, care. Who has a strong opinion on and an interest in what I write about movies? People on the internet.
Who Else: "...like dissing masturbation because it's not an orgy."
Odie, keep it up and you're going to be my favorite person in the world. Right now you're still running a close second to Artie Lange... but the gap is narrowing.
As for #1 on the MZS Questionaire...
I'm not too sure how much of "the cinema experience" is wrapped up in theatrical. I know what I prefer, but once again my perspective here is shot because I don't have to deal with the usual fuckwad multiplex crowds and hassles. (Although I'm sure Matt will back me up that press screenings are hardly bastions of courteous behavior.)
My favorite way to watch a movie is to run the print at my own theater, after hours, preferably with a couple of friends and a six pack. (Like I did tonight w/DUCK SEASON - which is a joy, by the way.) Sure I'm seeing a movie projected on a big screen, but this is hardly the mass, communal audience experience we all tend to romanticize.
I do know that I grew up watching either RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK every damn day afterschool until my VHS tapes wore out, and the smaller screen certainly didn't diminish my budding cinephilia.
Clearly, seeing a pristine 70MM print of RAIDERS at Brookline's Coolidge Corner a few years back, and catching the EMPIRE re-release (dopey added "Luke-scream" and all) at the Zigfield were quasi-religious experiences... but great movies are still great movies, however you can catch them.
It did, however, just occur to me that I spent a vast chunk of my high school years watching double-features of older movies at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge.
At the time it was absolutely imperative for my friends and I to see stuff we loved "on the big screen" because our precious VHS tapes had such shitty color and were (with very few exceptions) panned-and-scanned to visual smithereens.
But given the superior DVD picture quality and widespread acceptance of letterboxing (except by certain networks that inexplicably like to show their TV programs in widescreen but fuckheadedly still pan-scan their movies) I wonder if I'd still feel it was of such vital importance to schlep my way out to the Brattle and thus have to stomach an afternoon in Harvard Square... just to experience "the missing 1/3d of the picture that the stupid video cropped out."
But then again, I also obviously don't enjoy having to be around other people, so take these musings however you will.
"I would argue that, yes, while people will always want to congregate in a darkened room to share in a piece of drama, this same feeling can now be achieved at home more successfully than ever before."
I think it shows a lack of imagination to think that a society of people not weaned on experiencing the movies as communal experience will want to "congregate in a darkened room" with complete strangers to do so. In the words of two of my young cousins, watching movies with complete strangers is "weird" and "creepy". They seem to find it vaguely threatening and possibly dangerous. It's easy to take for granted the desire to see movies in theatres if that's the majority of what you've known, but what happens a few generations down the line when you've got only people whose main experience of movies is dvds on the tv? They'll think it's weird and backwards. A relic. And I do consider that the death of cinema.
MZS: If film/movies/cinema are dying, is it murder or suicide? Or some combination?
I'd say it's reincarnation.
It's rare for a medium to die. Films/movies/cinema will evolve, just like radio is evolving into podcasts as we speak, and columns turn into blogs. Things will definitely change. The landscape is shifting: big movies become bigger, small movies become smaller. Lines of distribution will have an effect on the form and the way it is experienced.
Maybe to be a movie lover is to be, in some sense, a private person. Maybe the communal experience was something a lot of movie lovers endured (sometimes enjoyed, with a good movie and a good crowd) but didn't rank as one of the best parts of the experience. And maybe for some of us, the privatization of moviegoing is a plus, not a minus.
Sean's ability to run a print in a real movie house for himself and a few buddies sounds like heaven.
I'll jump around in time here, so lets start with what Josh said...
"As a critic for one such lowly alternative weekly, I will point out that 99.9 percent of the email I get about my reviews comes from people who don't live in my market - people who found my work on the internet. Just becuase a theoretical 60,000 people pick up the paper each week doesn't mean that any of them read the movie reviews or if they do read them, care. Who has a strong opinion on and an interest in what I write about movies? People on the internet."
I'm in publishing as well, having migrated from print to web (albeit web for a print publication), as well as from alt-weekly to nationally owned daily. I have to say that I place no value in circulation numbers. The audits commonly accepted for pint when applied to online give results that couldn't possibly be accurate based on hard and fast server numbers. This is a pet peeve of mine, but why would we assume it's accurate for print whn for another medium we have proof it's completely innacurate?
Another point regarding the local alt-weekly critic, I know I see a lot of syndicated content in alt-weeklies. This isn't a bad thing, and quite apporiate to print, but what do you have when you take a critic syndicated across a few papers, read by only a percentage of the readers from each paper? A similar number of readers to a dedicated film blog or site on the internet.
One of several Anonymous people said...
"Conversely, nobody remembers unwrapping a DVD."
Maybe I'm a real big loser, or a real big consumer whore, but I remember opening a few DVDs. Same for music CDs. It was always mail order discs that I had been eagerly anticpated seeing/hearing for the first time based upon... internet suggestions that seemed valid.
Heck, just a few months ago I eagerly awaited the Criterion edition of Le Samouraï, a film I had not had the opportunity to see on tv, video, or film revival. Whether I'll remember that in years time, who can say...
Another, or possible the same, Anonymous said...
"Part of the problem here is that American TV is designed to be something that you don't give your full attention to. TV is obsequious. Cinema is imperial. TV says: "watch this, if you don't mind, but if you want to knit or flip to another channel that's OK with us. We'll always let you recap and catch up."
I've heard similar comments from Robert Altman, and though I concede the point is perhaps accurate, I also view it as a bit of artistic arrogance. My art DEMANDS full compelte undivided attention for whatever running time I decree my art to take. I've never considered myself to have difficulties paying attention, but sometimes a brief break from the movie, TV show, or whatever is what you need to come back with a sharper focus. I know I've sat through theatrical exhibitions where I was riveted to the content, but found my attention drifting not because I was bored or through any fault of the filmmaker, but strictly because I could NOT break attention without loosing something. I felt this way between the second and third acts of Munich and I loved that film. When the DVD comes out, I think being able to pause or whatever at home to take a leak, grab a glass of water, whatever, will actually enhance the level of attention I pay when I return. Anyone else feel this way, or does any break from the viewing detract from the experience.
"TV still gives you radio dramas with optional pictures. You can watch almost any show with the image off. That's not mise en scene. It's an ear thing. And it has taught movie audiences to favor the ear too."
Some other have addressed this, but the best of what is coming out on TV now doesn't fall into this in the slightest. Matt has much love for the Wire, and I have to agree. Omar hunting Wee-Bey through darkened streets while whisting the "farmer in the dell" or Brother Mouzone with shocking skill wounding Cheese frankly rank amongst the finest scene constructions I can think of in recenty memory. Well, I suppose you need the sound to appreciate "the farmer in the dell", but you needed sound for M's use of "in the hall of the mountain king" as well.
Carnivale also was more cinematic than writing driven as well. The ghosts of babylon decending upon the carnival, or *SPOILER* Brother Justin hunting Ben through the corn field are scenes of incredible tension constructed purely through image, motion, and cutting. I never see any love for Carnivale on here, Matt, are you not a fan, or is it merely a dead and buried and not get thought of much?
Cheers!
lindsey wrote:
I think it shows a lack of imagination to think that a society of people not weaned on experiencing the movies as communal experience will want to "congregate in a darkened room" with complete strangers to do so. In the words of two of my young cousins, watching movies with complete strangers is "weird" and "creepy". They seem to find it vaguely threatening and possibly dangerous.
Which in and of itself is weird and creepy. Are we really becoming so disconnected that every stranger, in every dark alley is some sort of perverted madman out to cop a feel? Maybe for some newer generation, but all I can think is I'm glad I'm not them.
Certainly nothing ~I've~ said so far related to a notion that part of the problem was the "unknown" aspect (quite the opposite, in fact - my movie-going problems stem from what I've come to expect) and I'd like to point to a particular screening I experienced that blows most everything I've already stated right out of the water:
Opening day of THE ARISTOCRATS at the local art house (we have ONE! Yay!) here in San Antonio.
I'm sure many people are aware of the Alamo Drafthouse chain that started in Austin and the movie-going experiences available there. In S.A. (where we have one, lacklustre Drafthouse), Santikos Theaters has adopted a Drafthouse-like strategy at several locations. One, the Rialto, has a restaurant in the lobby and even a FULL BAR!!! Yes, if I so desire, someone will BRING a martini to my seat as I watch my movie of choice.
But back to THE ARISTOCRATS. The Santikos Bijou serves beer and wine. The afternoon THE ARISTOCRATS opened, a group of us all headed out there to see this film we'd been eagerly anticipating for several months. Many pitchers of beer were ordered and many gut-busting laughs were shared, but what ~really~ made the experience was sharing in the joke with an auditorium full of complete strangers.
It was a glorious feeling to know "I'm not the only person in the world with a sick sense of humor". If somebody behind me was laughing at the same twisted material, I laughed even harder and they in turn laughed louder and so forth and so on. It was as infectious a movie-screening as any I've ever been to, and while I'll admit that this sort of film is a rarity, it demonstrates why seeing a movie with people you don't know can be one of the most liberating experiences a movie-goer CAN feel provided all the cosmic forces properly align.
Sean: Odie, keep it up and you're going to be my favorite person in the world. Right now you're still running a close second to Artie Lange... but the gap is narrowing.
Your words warm my heart, but if you really love me, you'll invite me to your late night screenings!! I am green with envy.
Didn't Artie appear in Boat Trip with my doppelganger, Cuba Gooding Jr.? Cuba, if you're reading this, your bad movie choices are ruining my life!
James: Maybe I'm a real big loser, or a real big consumer whore, but I remember opening a few DVDs.
If that's the case, then I'm selling my goodies on the consumer corner too, James. I couldn't wait to open my DVD of Robert Wise's The Set-Up.
Ross: Many pitchers of beer were ordered and many gut-busting laughs were shared, but what ~really~ made the experience was sharing in the joke with an auditorium full of complete strangers
No...what really made the experience was that all of you were shitfaced.
Ross again: ...the most liberating experiences a movie-goer CAN feel provided all the cosmic forces properly align.
Yeah! Cosmic forces like Heineken, Colt 45 and Ripple!
Let me stop before Ross shows up at my house to beat me up.
As for the cousins who thought strangers were "weird" and "creepy": Strangers don't kill you. People you know kill you. Just one to grow on from Evil Ghetto Child Odie.
Odie wrote:
No...what really made the experience was that all of you were shitfaced.
Not so! I've been shitfaced in public on many occasions, and all I wanted was to hide in the corner.
Nope - it was definitely the movie & the vibe.
(~Perhaps~ the two pitchers of beer played a tiny part.)
Strangers don't kill you. People you know kill you.
Agreed. You're killing me and my "well-made" points right about now!
Odie: Didn't Artie appear in BOAT TRIP with my doppelganger, Cuba Gooding Jr.?
I dodged that one, myself. But as Artie says on his DVD: "I'm back doing stand-up because my movie career was like a bad rape."
Odie again: No...what really made the experience was that all of you were shitfaced.
I'm with Ross, as THE ARISTOCRATS was a movie I purposefully went to see for a second time with a big crowd just to hear all the gasps and count the walkouts.
But then again, it was even more fun at my after-hours screening, when we could all shout the word "douchebag!" to drown out everything Paul Reiser said.
---- Would that be the same television values that raised Sam Peckinpah and Robert Altman? And John Frankenheimer? Nothing is sadder than a guy going on about kids not knowing cinematic history and yet he has not a clue about television history. ----
Whether or not you agree with Godfrey Cheshire’s take on the demerits of television, I think it’s off-base to claim he has no clue about TV history.
He specifically references Altman in his essay “The Death of Film”, and I quote:
“In the 1960s, the two media [of film and television] bounced off each other in friendly, productive fashion. They were still of comparable size on the cultural landscape; neither overwhelmed the other. Television initially aped the movies, like a fond and frisky younger brother, taking on some of its most appealing hand-me-downs (westerns, Lucy, etc.). And movies learned from tv’s immediacy, flexibility and expanded technical vocabulary; Robert Altman was one of the directors who forged his style working in tv and had no trouble transplanting it to the movies. The downturn came, as I observed in an article earlier this summer, in the mid-to-late 70s with the arrival of Jaws and Star Wars, films that constructed a formidable new movie-business paradigm (pulp blockbusters advertised on tv) atop a profound if little-analyzed cultural shift: It was the moment when the first generation exposed to tv since birth came of age. Thereafter, it became clear that these media weren’t natural allies, and certainly weren’t meant for peaceful coexistence. Television, a thousand times more powerful and pervasive, was destined to swallow its older sibling whole, and with it a vast range of cultural understandings and values. In McLuhanesque terms, if you will, cinema marks the last stand of the culture of literacy before its final submersion in tv’s postliterate whazzit. In any case, these two now hardly look like brothers at all.”
I'll admit that I've never been a big fan of "the theatrical experience," and I'll still only see a movie after it's been out for a couple of weeks, often during the least-crowded showing of the day. However, there is a huge material difference between a celluoid-projected image and a digital one. While plenty of DV movies look terrific on disc, movies designed for and shot on film are qualitatively different played through your DVD player. There's a solidity and brightness to the colors that makes everything, foreground and background, TOO lucid. That's why I saw L'Intrus in the theater, even though it may have been a worthless movie on DVD, and that's why it will break my heart if I miss the one-week run of The Fallen Idol. Let me add that it was Mr. Cheshire, in the New York Press, who really got me thinking about the issue, so thank you to him and thanks for the interview.
Part Two of this interview was posted today. Subjects include the rise of do-it-yourself filmmaking, the difficulties of independent distribution, and Cheshire's first feature, which -- surprise! -- is being shot on video.
Fascinating discussion and a great interview!
Really interesting to address these issues today again, especially the evolution of cinephilia and the state of film criticism.
I'm not worried about the death of cinema though. BWC says it very well.
I don't care if popular taste gets worse, as long as there are Wong, Tsai, Tarr, Lynch, Hou, Weerasethakul, Martel, Kore-eda, Alonzo making new films. Art cinema is greater than ever!
This alarmist/reactionary position narrows the existence of the movie industry to the successful and the popular, while art has always survived on the sidelines, ignored by the world, and eventually re-discovered years or decades later, posthumously. Like if what validated art was fame and immediacy.
Art cinema will be overshadowed by more TV-grade feeds, so what? Only the face of the industry (essentially at the distribution level though) will change, not the ever marginal existence of struggling art films.
Maybe it's the end of the popularity of the art, but not of the art itself. The simultaneity of artistic transcendance and wide popularity is a coincidence not a general rule. There will be a revival later...
The film culture dispersal on the blogosphere raised by Girish is the right issue to ponder.
General audience or cinephile have access to a wider variety of movies and cinema than any of the greatest critics from the 50ies!
The real problem of our time isn't scarcity/decay of cinema but dilution/equivalency/confusion of quality standards.
About anything can be found online, but only awared cinephiles will look it up. We don't find obscur masterpieces by chance on the internet... it's the fruit of a constant watch and the right network of reference.
Unfortunately popular search engines (Google, Rottentomatoes, Metacritic...) promote new/popular stuff.
Post a Comment