Is this the end of Cinema as we know it?

[Gregg MacPherson]

 

.... Human progress means the shifting nature of the main source of catharsis for the individual....

 

 

Thanks for that clarification AJ. I gather that you mean the technical means that allows this to occur. So, thinking of this current quirk that might assume that tiny screens (phones, tablets) are the leading edge in this shift....it could be that a pair of spectacles might be the most critical technical element.

[Tyler Purcell]

In the case of cinema, audiences are progressing into an internet based consumption, evident with the popularity of streaming services.

Audiences are only doing it because cinema has priced itself too high. Most people don't even think about going to the cinema because it's too damn expensive today. It's expensive because theaters had to pay millions to upgrade projectors so James Cameron could show Avatar and they have to amortize that price down to the consumers. Plus, the distributors are greedy and are pulling even more revenue's from the theaters for special poop like 3D. They're just greedy idiots killing their own industry.

[Simon Wyss]

They're just greedy idiots killing their own industry.

 

George Spoor has begun it in 1903-04. On one hand you are right, a third party unnecessarily squeezes itself between producer and exhibitor. On the other hand the capital Spoor could accumulate enabled him to take two of his employees under his wing for new projects.

 

I don’t find cinema admission too expensive. I find cinemas vested in bad taste and faceless. Cheap showmanship knows presenters, what we have today is mass processing. So much gutlessness everywhere

[Tyler Purcell]

Well, here in the states, the average movie ticket is $12 dollars and most theaters in the city's are upwards of $16 - $20 depending on the show. Since the vast majority of people have a family of more then one adult, imagine paying $40 for the movie (two adults) and then buying one small popcorn and two bottles of water. That total comes to around $50 bux for two people simply watching 2hrs of entertainment. Forget about adding kids, forget about the "schedule" conflicts that forces people to scramble around after work in order to make the cinema.

 

So when the cinema offers identical quality to your home television (which is what it is today), then the only reason to pay $50 is to see first run content. The moment first run content is available at home within a week of theatrical release, people are going to analyze the option. Either waste a lot of money for 2hrs of something that maybe complete crap or have dinner at home with the family and watch the movie at your leisure.

[Gregg MacPherson]

Progress is, itself, an old concept.

 

Out with the old and in with the new. This is the mantra of modernism. But this mantra is, in itself, no longer new. It is a tired old formula.

 

So if we were to follow this old mantra we would have to throw modernism out. But in doing so (in throwing it out) we'd be doing so from the point of view of modernism - of this mantra - of that which is being thrown out. That which is old. The old throwing itself out according to it's own formula.

 

Post-modernism resolves this problem. It will inherit history rather than throw such out. History will be it's accomplice rather than it's enemy.

 

Modernism, of course, will become part of that inheritance, but now only a part.

 

Indeed, we will realise that modernism had always been only a bit player, playing the role of a perpetual present, forever young. A fantasy of sorts. The bigger picture was always history: the past and the future. The present being nothing much at all. Or perhaps a starting point. A birth. The beginning of history, but not yet history. Not yet a player in this bigger picture, but one that will eventually do so.

 

C

 

I don't know who gave you a red arrow for that. I quite liked it. Gave it the green arrow. Made me wish I had paid more attention in history class.

[Simon Wyss]

Either waste a lot of money for 2hrs of something that maybe complete crap or have dinner at home with the family and watch the movie at your leisure.

 

The cinema is half public space. I share it with others and that’s the point about it for me. To take part in public life at a given day. Everybody of the production, from big star to driver, the distributor, the theater folks, the projectionist, cashiers, ushers, all share that two hours. Nothing replaces that.

 

We pay Fr. 18 here, US$ 18.40. I have worked as a projectionist. It’s not much money.

 

The show is gone. My dominant eye is the one for the goods, not for the money. Thus I haven’t visited a cinema in years. Yes, the cinema as we know it is gone.

[Gregg MacPherson]

Simon,
Don't be the sad poet. Keep with hope. Yes, film in the cinema, as the common shared experience it was, in the 20th century, may dissapear.

But it will always be an accessible experience for some. Determined artists, the rich, the random person who discoveres it by accident at the museum, wierd hobbyists in their basement.

[John E Clark]

Simon,

Don't be the sad poet. Keep with hope. Yes, film in the cinema, as the common shared experience it was, in the 20th century, may dissapear.

But it will always be an accessible experience for some. Determined artists, the rich, the random person who discoveres it by accident at the museum, wierd hobbyists in their basement.

 

Come on... they still have a 'passion play' in Oberammergau that's been going on for centuries... then there's the Waaahhhgneh conclave in Bayreuth and Mozarts 'thang' in Salzburg...

 

The only problem of course is getting Film film and projectors to project...

[Gregg MacPherson]

 

Come on...

 

 

You may want to be more explicit. Especially when inventing your own language or vocabulary.

Film film? Twee twee?

[Simon Wyss]

Oh, I shouldn’t have thought that me sounds so gloomy. No, on the contrary, I am concentrating all my forces on film mechanics for the archivist. That she and he can look forward to having the best possible duplicate of a warped, shrunken, half-torn vinegar-syndrome victim. First in 16mm, I am devising a hand copying apparatus for such patients. I mean, it’s on its way, a half-finished prototype still in need of a couple things. Looking for a business partner

 

 

Cinema technically didn’t change much from the early 1930s to the early 1960s. That’s the second longest time span of film history. The longest, of course, was silent cinema. But to relive silent cinema it usually takes more determination. Low intensity carbon arcs, already not too easily found. Tinted prints, old lenses, and the gesticulation, not everyone’s.

 

Cinema, very white to me, lost not only against television in the 1950s but against that movement called rock‘n’roll music. The landslide came in 1958. Irreversibly. That was essentially black music. So, the last copy of Shakespearean theatre, of ancient theatre, the mechanized poor man’s theatre, the Nickelodeon prolonged and stretched to the shear point, that is gone. There are no more uniforms seen in box offices. The 3¼ inch square slides under glass, who has seen such? The organ, the vendor trays, streets sparkling from cinema lights . . .

 

The film museums have a heavy burden. I did do historical cinema, have a look at me 13 years ago, with no money. The MOMI got closed. Archivists get lured into digitality. We’re dispersed.

 

And I love Rock‘n’Roll.

[Carl Looper]

Film film (a necessary distinction these days) died many decades ago.

 

And also returned from the grave many decades ago, and has been with us ever since as a powerful ghost, haunting us in various ways and guises, just not necessarily doing so at your local cineplex (where market researched habitual versions of yourself get otherwise satisfied).

 

Want to find film film again? Find out where it is (where it haunts) - rather than looking at where it isn't.

 

C

Edited August 14, 2015 by Carl Looper