If it's "obsolete" can it still be good?

December 10, 2004

The only thing that keeps me away from the theatres is the picture they have of me in the box office with the words "Do Not Admit This Guy" underneath.

It seems they don't like me yelling out, "HD is of the devil! Film will reign supreme!!"

What a bunch of cry babies.

DC

December 10, 2004

I think my girlfriend might of been at that session, when she yelled out "do you mind i'm trying to watch the movie" someone yelled out "shut up and get back in the kitchen".

Maybe it was somone else. It was the opening night of Spice World the spice girls movie.

Alain LeTourneau · December 10, 2004

I'm sorry but I came of age in the time of 16mm reduction print film societies and ok, they're rare... but the diversity of films on DVD is amazing, it's opened up Chinese cinema, Iranian, you name it, like never before. And honestly I *prefer* a well mastered DVD to a bad 16mm reduction.

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I would agree that DVD is making available work made "for the cinema", but I don't know if I would agree that its providing a "cinematic experience". That experience can only be had at the theater, no? I mean, cinema is a public experience. The domain of the private is left to televsion, or as in your suggestion books that we read alone.

The Kineticscope was not cinema. Cinema was those first Lumiere screenings in a cafe before a public audience.

I fully understand your comments about not having the time to spend at the cinema. Unfortunately, this is reason for not attending is echoed by so many I wonder were the cinema will be in 10-20 years. Were it is now is that one cannot see really interesting and compelling cinema unless they living in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Paris, Toronto. Those big cities with a rich history of screening films. I live in a somewhat progressive city but trying to see films can be frustrating. Portland does not have a PFA or Cinematheque or Anthology.

So, naturally one turns to DVD since that's the place you can go to actually see something. I don't know about you Sam, but I would think that your preference and the preference of most would be to see films in the cinema if given a choice. I can tell you that I lived in San Francisco for 5 years and upon leaving realized what I took for granted while living there. I went to 100s of films but often missed some really wonderful or rare screenings. Even walked out of a Dorsky screening once because I worked a 12 hour day on a shoot and was dead tired, couldn't keep my eyes opened.

The cinema will continue to exist, but likely not as a common, collective endeavor. Not part of our normal routine, but a museum-like experience that is rarely visited, esp in smaller cities.

Alain

John Sprung · December 10, 2004

That experience can only be had at the theater, no? I mean, cinema is a public experience.
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True, and it's also dependent on the size of the theater. A couple dozen seats in a multiplex shoebox is nowhere near the same experience as a 1500 seat art deco picture palace, especially if you fill most of the seats.

-- J.S.

Sam Wells · December 11, 2004

For sure. Alain, there is plenty of work I'd rather see in the cinema. Nick Dorsky is a good example, I can't imagine watching his films on my computer (altho I think "Alaya" would be kinda cool on my Powerbook. At the "opposite" end of the spectrum, I haven't been able to bring myself to watch "The Thin Red Line" (a film I admire deeply) on DVD - or any screen less than about 40 feet !, it just --- needs the space.

But there are movies where I can have one experience in the cinema, another with DVD.

I'll often turn off subtitles on a non-english language film I've seen before. Replay "riffs" I like, in the same way I might read a passage from a novel etc.

I'm all for collective cinema experience too, but... for instance, I went to see Soderbergh's "Solaris" at a local theater - and I was the only person in the theater for the show I saw !

What kind of communal experience is that ?

It's always the best of times, the worst of times. What else is new ? Otherwise, we might as well talk about the whole issue of public space / private space.

-Sam

Sam Wells · December 11, 2004

"The Kineticscope was not cinema. "

Really ? Well why not ?

I feel like I've just gone back 100 years in time, as I'm now personally working in digitally sampled film (my phrase) but at 720 X 480. It drives me insane on one level - that I'm not doing this @ 2K.

But it's beautiful. It is DIFFERENT. So I have to work on small canvas now, learn / invent, even, the language of this hybrid film/digital form.

Then ramp it up :D

(Probably, what I'm doing now will exist as installation before it exists as theatrical movies. But it's nonetheless cinema. Maybe we need to reinvent the idea of the movie theater, why,

in 2005, should we lock ourselves into the pardigm of 1905 ?

-Sam

Alain LeTourneau · December 11, 2004

But there are movies where I can have one experience in the cinema, another with DVD.

I'll often turn off subtitles on a non-english language film I've seen before. Replay "riffs" I like, in the same way I might read a passage from a novel etc.

I'm all for collective cinema experience too, but... for instance, I went to see Soderbergh's "Solaris" at a local theater - and I was the only person in the theater for the show I saw !

What kind of communal experience is that ?

-Sam

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Turning the subtitles off is a very nice feature indeed.

As for your recent (non)collective experience at the cinema: see what I mean! Its a ghost town out there. It's like a party that nobody wants to attend, kind of a strange feeling...a private experience in a public space. Where you can turn around to wave at the projectionist as they scowl back at you realizing that your the one reason they now have to run the print.

Alain

Alain LeTourneau · December 11, 2004

(Probably, what I'm doing now will exist as installation before it exists as theatrical movies. But it's nonetheless cinema. Maybe we need to reinvent the idea of the movie theater, why,
in 2005, should we lock ourselves into the pardigm of 1905 ?

-Sam

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One powerful experience which I might have mentioned before on this forum was a trip I took to the PFA to see Santantango. The 6 hour film played twice over two days. I attended both screenings and hardly noticed the time passing. The experience was like none other that I had at the cinema.

When the cinema can provide experiences such as this I do not feel 'locked into a pardigm of 1905'. Works of cinema can re-invent the cinema without needing to reinvent the public or private nature of the experience. Cinema changes every day, whether its a new work or re-visiting an old work.

In my experience, films have become so hard to see that what remains an old hat for someone living in New York is so often a space never visited in so many other parts of the world. Some might say there's nothing wrong with this, but I think the filmmakers themselves would like to see the work play for audiences in many different places (cinemas).

Alain

Annie Wengenroth · December 12, 2004

There's something oddly rewarding and definitely memorable about sitting in one place for such a long period of time, watching and just taking it in. I remember that feeling from seeing the Black Maria film festival for the first time last year. I went outside after the last film and suddenly I was completely disoriented, because I'd seen such a wide array of films and animation, in what seemed like no time at all. Then I realized it had been hours. It was the same thing with the Savannah film festival. I discovered later that I'd seen 21 films in the span of a week. What an experience. No matter how good people's living room home theater systems get, nothing compares to the real thing. I think when you physically go somewhere else to see a movie, it becomes something much more special and real.

Oh, I'm getting all misty-eyed... :P

GeorgeSelinsky · December 12, 2004

There is one thing I always will cherish about video versus theater projection - with video you can pause it and go to the bathroom if you have to! Usually, I always have to go somewhere about an hour or so into the show. Ugh!

- G.

Annie Wengenroth · December 13, 2004

Good point....maybe they should start having intermissions at the theater!

I hate when things go wrong with the print or projector and there's nobody up there in the booth. Today I saw "Kinsey" for a second time and for the first 10 minutes, the whole thing was shifted over about a foot and a half too far to the left. It was a little frustrating.

DavidSloan · December 13, 2004

I also saw Kinsey, unfortunately. Elmes has a pretty good range, but those extreme long lens CUs were pretty horrid.

DavidSloan · December 13, 2004

One powerful experience which I might have mentioned before on this forum was a trip I took to the PFA to see Santantango. The 6 hour film played twice over two days. I attended both screenings and hardly noticed the time passing. The experience was like none other that I had at the cinema.

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Satantango is actually closer to 8 hrs, and is certainly a film like no other. The opening 10 minute tracking shot of the cows is magnificent. I had to pleasure to view this film at the Moma with Tarr himself introducing it. I think it was Susan Sontag who said: "I need to view this film once per year for the rest of my life."

John Sprung · December 13, 2004

with video you can pause it and go to the bathroom if you have to! Usually, I always have to go somewhere about an hour or so into the show.
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Next checkup, tell your doctor.

-- J.S.

Annie Wengenroth · December 13, 2004

You noticed it too! I thought I was just being picky or something.

Gotta love the animal footage at the end though...! (For some reason the porcupines just cracked me up)

Getting back to the subject at hand, there is always room for new intepretations of older things. There was an article in the Boston Globe the other day (I go back and forth between MA and GA in true college student style) about people making short movies out of found home video and super 8 footage. It was kinda cool. I also saw this short piece on the IFC called "Three Tales" (I THINK that was it, correct me if I'm wrong). It combined found footage with animation; I found some of the sound design to be tedious, but could appreciate the concept.