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In Reply to: Videos v. Movies posted by clarkjohnsen on April 26, 2001 at 11:10:41:
An imagined past that never existed.Where do we begin with this foolishness and misplaced nostalgia?
How 'bout with the idea that viewing a movie in a theater full of strangers is a social experience?
If we accept that proposition, we are truly in a parallel universe where parallel lines do converge.
In my dimly remember collegiate past, I recall seeing a number of art films from the Italian greats of the time-- Visconti, Fellini, etc. at university theaters. Also in my club there were a couple of guys who were real film connoisseurs. They persuaded me, as the social chairman, to appropriate some of the party and beer budget to pay for rental of these films (not videos; 16 mm films). I can't remember where we got the projector and screen. So we watched a few of them, the only one of which I can remember was King and Country. Also, independent TV stations, desparate for programming and short of cash, ran Bogie films and the like.
But we talked about films only because there was a pre-formed group that was interested in the subject. It isn't like we picked up five strangers at the theater while watching "Juliet of the Spirits" for the 5th time and an earnest discussion of Howard Hawks'directorial style ensued.
Video puts this stuff in reach of all of us, and at our convenience. And, if I were a single college kid, we'd gather around the biggest and best TV set and watch and discuss. I don't do that anymore; instead I introduce my kids to the "originals" of some films that have been inferiorly remade, such as "Sabrina" Occasionally, when alone for a weekend, I have been known to have succumbed to some total lunacy, like declaring a "WW2 submarine movie night." I'll scoop up "Das Boot", "Run Silent, Run Deep" "The Enemy Below" and, if I can find it, Ronald Reagan's "Hellcats of the Navy." After all that, I've got to take an 1/2 hour shower; I reek of salt water and diesel fuel.
If this is the best that this guy writes, I gotta say, Clark, you and I have pretty divergent tastes. I thought people had sense in San Diego, like our beloved webmaster, Rod M.
Follow Ups:
Bruce wrote:"How 'bout with the idea that viewing a movie in a theater full of strangers is a social experience?
If we accept that proposition, we are truly in a parallel universe where parallel lines do converge."Wow Bruce, we DO live in parallel universes. I'm a film buff (Film School graduate, ack!) and my experience of movie going is so "social" that, well, I just can't possibly see what type of valid point you might be trying to make.
As I wrote lower in this thread, the "shared experience" of seeing a film with a large group - my friends and the rest of the theater audience - is a very valuable element of movie
going for me. There is nothing drier than seeing a comedy (even a funny one) in an empty theater. And horror movies? Nothing like being one of hundreds of people clawing their arm-rest - watching girls burying their face in their boyfriend's shoulder. I'll never forget seeing Jaws the first time, when Ben Gardner's head popped out of the boat hole. The entire audience jumped out of their seats and landed with a thud, followed by laughter at each other's reactions. My fondest memories of many films start before even entering the theater. I saw countless big films on their first day, and there was nothing so fun as being in a huge line-up full of film nuts, babbling away, sharing the anticipation with each other.
The buzz in the theater before the first Star Wars sequel? Fuggedaboutit! It was Awesome! How's about the sneak preview of ET? Not one of my favorite movies but an absolutely incredible audience experience - especially at the end with my girlfriend bawling on one side, and on the other a woman I didn't know gripping my shoulder, jumping up and down cheering with tears streaming along her cheeks.Movie-going not really a social experience? Speak for yourself, I guess.
Rich H.
I guess when you're in graduate school, every thing is a social experience -- even going to the bathroom.But, seriously, movie viewing can be a social experience -- with people with whom you have common connections -- fellow students, friends, family, etc. But what you see on the screen is exactly the same whether the theater is empty or filled with the entire USC and UCLA graduate film school faculty and student population. The nature of the experience can change, of course, depending upon with whom you view the film.
As to your comments about experiencing a comedy, I give you that point -- what do you think the laugh track on comedy TV shows is for? OTOH, and speaking personally, watching "American Pie" with a room full of teenagers and then watching it with one other person, not a teenager, the film did not seem all that funny the second time.
But the change is all in your perception of the event, not the event itself. That's not the case with a live performance of music or drama.
***Movie-going not really a social experience? Speak for yourself, I guess.I suppose we ALL speak for ourselves. I suppose that is given.
So you like to see the others around you scream. Many of us don't.
I don't like going to the theater because I enjoy the crowd, far from it. My best experiences have been in an empty theater with just someone I care about. I don't think this is because the Jaws or Star Wars are not my kind of movies - I simply think many things in life, movies, good books, etc, should be digested privately. Then discussed, perhaps. But I really don't care bins what that slob in the next seat thinks about the Persona, I am watching it for myself. And if the slob is not there, so the better.
I would still go to the theater if it was not too crowded. I love large screen, even though I can get one at home. But I sure as Hell don't miss the audience. At Ritz you most of the time sit in a very small company - to have perhaps ten people in the room is not unusual - and I LOVE that.
I also realize that this discussion was pointless. With very few notable exceptions (that lucky dog Doug may be one) we do NOT have choice. There is no theater that shows most of the films I want to see aroung here, so I don't lament that fact, I simply rent.
But I defer to c1ferrari"s opinion below.Oh BTW would you further state that attending a *music concert* with "a theater full of strangers" is also not a social experience? Would you even further argue that listening to records at home, at our "convenience", "puts [us] in reach" of the concert experience?
clark
PS I very often engage strangers in conversation after movies, and while I haven't formed any friendships, that was not the purpose. Out in public I'm a very social animal and people seem to enjoy that sociability. I know I do!
Umm, Clark. If I have a preformed group to attend either a concert, a play or a movie, I can just as easily have that same group watch a video (with a suitably good HT setup) or listen to some recorded music and we can all talk about it, drink wine and pretend like it was when we were in college 30 years ago. I doubt seriously that attending any of these live events is going to result in spontaneous social interaction with otherwise unknown to me attendees. (I admit the case was different with rock concerts and the like 30 years ago.)The reason to attend a live concert -- excluding rock -- is that the sound is way better, and there is the possiblity of something special happening when a good performer and an appreciative audience feed off each other. If one is lucky, the best one can do with a recording is if the recording happened to have captured one of those "magic" performances e.g. Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall; BB King in Cook County Jail.
The reason to attend a stage play is similar; plus the fact that a stage play is a different experience than a film.
The only reason to attend a movie, rather than watch a video, as far as I'm concerned is if the movie requires a theatrically-sized screen to achieve its effect (e.g. the "Star Wars" flics). On the other hand, I believe that "The Maltese Falcon" would gain absolutely nothing by being enlarged to fill all 170 degrees of a person's field of vision. Other than that, with a good DVD source, a good HD progressive scan 16x9 monitor of 40 inches or larger with a good line doubler, I see absolutely no reason to go to a movie theater and many reasons not to -- you can start the thing at your convenience, the seats at home are more comfortable, the sound is apt to be better at home, and you can stop the movie to refill your popcorn bag.
Now all I need is a room to hold all that stuff and about ten or 15 kilobucks to buy it.
Why pick that B&W film, of all there are to choose from ?The Maltese Falcon is glorious on the big screen, Huston held nothing back in this wonderful noir masterpiece. It glows on the silvered screen with all the magic it did the first time I saw it. If there is one thing HT cannot do, it is to capture the depth on screen that a well shot B&W film has.
People treat the cinema like their own lounge rooms these days. They talk, munch, giggle, belch, make sucking noises from 4 gallon Coke buckets- one day there will be a tragic case of "Cinema Rage" during a screening of The Maltese Falcon.
Umm, well, I guess you and I are looking at different things. To be honest, I'm not much of a connoiseur of B&W image quality in movies; although as a still photographer for 35 years, I much prefer to work in B&W. Certainly, I agree with you that film will render a much better gray scale than a transfer to video. It's just that I never paid much attention to that.The reason I selected "Falcon" as an example, is that the movie has an intimate, close -- almost claustrophobic -- quality. A reduction in screen and image size does not violence to that, IMHO. By contrast, any number of B&W westerns, for example, would suffer from image size reduction. Part of the motif that needs to be allowed to work is the "big sky" feeling. You need a big picture to convey that.
Much more recently, I saw "Crouching Tiger" in the theater and was completely entranced. I'm pretty sure it would suffer when it's reduced to video-sized screen.
The home environment is as easily disturbed as the theatre, often moreso. And its defenders utterly ignore the indisputable fact that film's creators *intended* and *imagined* it to be seen on a large screen.clark
...last time I went to see the Falcon, the audio was out of phase. So I left.At least at home I can change the phase.
.
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