The first DVD I ever saw was American Pie (or American Pie One as sequelitis compels us to call it). Though I found the film mildly amusing (in a simple, cock-in-pie sort of way), the shiny new format seemed fairly underwhelming. I don't know what I'd expected exactly, but advertising had promised a very different experience.
The year was 1999 and DVD-mongers were keen to make us ashamed of ever having considered VHS a good thing. Thus we were inundated with wildly OTT adverts demonstrating the format's supposed attractions. You know the kind of thing I mean. A guy slumps into a comfy and stylish leather chair in his trendy (but curiously empty) apartment. He composes himself and presses play. All hell breaks loose. Cue blown back hair, wide and wild eyeballs, furniture scattered hither and yon. Behold the awesome power of DVD! It was thrilling, bewildering, mildly terrifying. It was, to use a phrase beloved of the laziest film hacks, "a rollercoaster ride".
Cut to 2007, and what was (allegedly) true of home entertainment then, is (actually) true of cinema entertainment now. I seem to remember that film used (once upon a time) to be a warm and intimate friend, holding you close and whispering in your ear. Now, however, it tends to hold you at arm's length - dazzling you with its marvels, deafening you with its slams, bangs & wallops, and brutally slapping you into exhausted and discombobulated submission. Yeehaw!
The Simpsons (as it frequently used to do) captured this trend quite beautifully in "Burn's Heir":
The movie begins with a promo for THX sound which is powerful enough to shatter Hans Moleman's glasses, break a man's teeth, make an exit sign explode, pull plaster from the ceiling, and cause a man's head to explode. Everyone cheers anyway…
Welcome to contemporary cinema. It'll blow your fucking head off.
Perhaps I'm just a stuffy ol' stick-in-the-mud, but I don't care for rollercoasters and I prefer my head firmly attached to my shoulders. I love films that seduce, that weave a spell. Films that captivate by enclosing you in a bubble, inviting you to inhabit their dream-spaces before easing you back into the (lights on) daylight world of mundane, conscious reality. Films peopled with flawed, cracked and vulnerable characters/heroes. Films that are, in other words, fundamentally human.
The experience of being mentally/sensually booted about by the relentless twirls and flourishes of much contemporary mainstream fare may be interpreted, by some, as "entertaining", but I'd rather be spoken to than shouted at.
Here endeth this brief rant.1
- A rant partially brought on by the films that have been speaking (quietly) to me over this delightfully long weekend: Peckinpah’s chopped, changed, recut (but still beautiful) Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, and Vincent Minnelli's astonishing, and gorgeously absurd, Brigadoon. [back]
If you haven’t seen it, try Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs”. Truly amazing movie that was banned for years.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:56 pmI absolutely agree. Recently I had the misfortune to see the film 300. I had expected it to be about the battle of Thermopylae, but it turned out to be an overlong piece of (slightly homoerotic) twaddle featuring a group of muscular guys with gleaming gnashers and wearing nothing but long red cloaks and leather knickers fighting against monsters straight out of The Lord of the Rings in a brooding computer generated landscape. The worst thing was the unremitting noise. That I still have eardrums is miraculous…
April 10th, 2007 at 12:54 pmYes, i also had the misfortune to watch 300 last week. It’s a bit like watching someone play a computer game for two hours whilst doing Brian Blessed impersonations. As mentioned in one review…”300 bridges the much needed gap between an army recruitment video and Gay Porn”. Check out ‘Half-Nelson’ if you want a fine quiet human movie. Oh, and it’s not about wrestling.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:46 pmColm, I’ve seen Straw Dogs a few times, but not yet in its recent (apparently uncensored?) DVD form. Though I very much enjoyed it (if that’s the right word) I have a softer spot for the Peckinpah westerns. I even love the later stuff when the constant booze and constant battles were allegedly taking their toll (Alfredo Garcia, Cross of Iron etc).
Ithaca, I was wondering when someone would mention 300. I haven’t seen it and I’m not going to. That may seem close-minded of me but I’m almost certain that I’ll hate it. Why waste 8 Euro (or whatever it is) proving myself right when there are so many other films I want to see that remain unwatched?
I’ve occasionally been viewed as a cinema snob when I slag off the relentless drivel on offer at the local Omniplexes. The implication being, I think, that I must be one of those people who find “entertaining� movies too “lowbrow�. This, I hasten to add, is utter balls.
I love genuinely entertaining films, the likes of which Hollywood used to churn out with regularity. I can think of dozens of terrific films made in the 1950s (for example) that would have been solid “Omniplex� fare in their day. In spite of this they manage to make the vast majority of mainstream stuff we see today look the work of rank filmmaking amateurs. I mean this in an artistic sense, of course. On a purely technical level a lot of recent stuff is (I suppose) quite impressive, but who really cares about that?
Perhaps there’s a clue there. Perhaps the term “entertaining� has come (depressingly) to be synonymous with displays of spectacular technical virtuosity.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:48 pmCome to think of it, the imagery of 300 is not unlike the old Trigan Empire comic strips… Now, there’s a bit of cultural ephemera for you to investigate, Fustar. There are even websites devoted to it…
April 10th, 2007 at 3:57 pmIthaca, Never really read the Trigan stuff, though I do remember seeing it in Look and Learn (I think it was). Beautiful Dan-Dare-esque artwork. Did the Trigans ever meet the Treens I wonder?
Devo, That’s pretty much how I’d have described it…and I haven’t even seen it. Actually a friend mentioned the Brrrriannn Buhhhlessed flavour of the acting ham on offer. Didn’t surprise me in the least.
So there’s a gap between army recruitment videos and gay porn? I hadn’t realised.
April 10th, 2007 at 9:20 pmGive me Cinema Paradiso any day - an amazing film about a great era for film. Something all the special effects and surround sound could never improve on.
April 11th, 2007 at 6:57 amYes, Fustar, it was Look and Learn but what one was expected to learn from Trigan I am not sure. It was an absurd world - a bit like ancient Rome but with fighter jets… You did not miss much.
I am not against computer generated imagery in films - it worked very well in the later Star Wars films, The Lord of the Rings and Gladiator all of which I found very entertaining.
However if I have a favourite film it is probably Fellini’s Amarcord. I also loved his Roma, which was like a tonic to somebody breaking loose from the shackles of Irish Catholicism in the 1970’s - I remember a wonderful scene with an ecclesiastical fashion show… At that time the Irish Film Theatre in Earlsfort Terrace was one of the very few places one could see foreign language films which were regarded with deep suspicion by many.
In recent years I have been very impressed by Iranian films which are (as might be expected) the antithesis of noisy CGI blockbusters. They tend to be dreamy and lyrical and the actors are often untrained.
My favourite recent film id Almadovar’s Volver for which Penelope Cruz should have got the best actress award at the recent oscars. One of the best American films of the last 10 years in my view was Fargo.
April 11th, 2007 at 12:59 pmDespite the way it was marketed I actually think DVD has had a fantastic effect on domestic film consumption. I love it. One can’t remotely compare the VHS/DVD situation to the Vinyl/CD one. Before the advent of DVD those who worried about things like correct aspect ratio, quality of transfer/image etc, etc, were likely to be thought of as overly-serious film nerds.
What DVD has managed to do is to increase general awareness of the shoddy pan and scan butchery that was par for the course with VHS. The rise in popularity of widescreen TVs clearly indicates that punters are realising that a 4:3 screen is a far from ideal yoke for watching movies (other than pre-50s “academy ratio” ones of course). DVD, in other words, has bred a desire for quality, whereas VHS often simply filled a need for quantity.
As for CGI…I’ve no inherent problem with it. If CGI effects were composed/created sensitively and unobtrusively then it would be simply another valuable film-making tool. The reality up to now, however, is that the emperor isn’t often wearing any clothes. In fairness, the peek period for horrendously slapdash and unconvincing CGI may be coming to an end. Perhaps.
Memories of the reintroduced Jabba (in the Star Wars: Special Edition) and the (Spielberg-sanctioned) brutal CGI rape of E.T. that came out a few years ago are hard to shake. Was there no one willing to raise a hand and say “Er…lads. This looks really, really shit�?
A lot of it just feels shiny, texture-less, volume-less. Having said that it depends entirely on context. The two Toy Storys are probably among my very favourite movies and they’re entirely computer generated. Horses for courses, though. A completely different thing.
Oh and I haven’t seen Amarcord for a long, long time, Ithaca. Actually I think I saw all the Fellini moves I’ve yet seen in the space of 6 months about 10 years ago. They’re on my list of things to get reacquainted with (particularly Casanova after my recent trip to Venice). Fargo is an absolute gem that gets better with every viewing. It and Miller’s Crossing show the Cohens at the very peak of their powers I think.
April 11th, 2007 at 11:03 pm