cinema

DVDs Still Rule

By rights I should love streaming: it makes films and television programs so easy to watch. All you need to do is sit down at your computer, and you can now watch virtually anything you can think of, no matter how obscure. There is no need to muck around hunting down rare videos or DVDs, and no need to store them on shelves and put them into drives whenever you want to watch them. From my perspective, streaming should be awesome.

The thing is, I still don’t think it actually is. Of course, as I wrote here, streaming has many advantages, especially if like me you can’t physically use things like DVDs. Yet it seems to me that the rise of streaming has brought about an entirely new paradigm in how we consume film. Before now, if you wanted to watch a specific film, you just either went to the cinema or bought a video or DVD from a shop. It would then be yours to keep. It wouldn’t matter which shop you bought it from or the chain of cinemas you went to; the same films were available anywhere.

What bothers me these days, however, is the way in which certain streaming services are effectively the gatekeepers of certain films or programs. Instead of owning a film on disk which I could then watch whenever I wanted, Ad Infinitum, these days to watch certain films you have to subscribe to certain streaming services. The only way you can maintain access to that film is to keep up your subscription to the streaming service it is hosted by, of which there are now several.

I can’t help thinking that this is a fundamental change in how we consume and access film. Whereas we might previously have had a shelf of videos or DVDs alongside our shelves of books, to watch certain films we now need to be subscribed to certain streaming services. They are now no longer texts which we can get off the shelf whenever we want, but the products of streaming platforms without which we cannot access certain films. In a way this renders them products, like forcing people to keep buying bottles of water when previously it had been always available through taps.

A couple of days ago I bought all three seasons of Picard on DVD. I have seen all the episodes before of course, and it was little more than an impulse buy. Yet I think the purchase is something I will now cherish. Obviously, to watch the episodes I will need to ask someone to put them in my DVD drive. Yet simply to own them as a physical artefact, just as I own box sets of James Bond and The Lord of the Rings, is something I find very satisfying: simply to know the episodes are there, ready for me to access and indulge in whenever I want, without having to update a membership or keep paying a subscription, gives me a sense of contentment.

I love film, of course: I love how it really ignites the imagination, taking us to a plethora of different places. I love how different directors use it to express their selves and say different things. Yet instead of being the expression of directors, film now seems to be the product of online platforms, without which we cannot watch certain films. This renders them commercial products rather than works of art; pieces of entertainment to pay for rather than meaningful expression of thought. 

Ocean with David Attenborough

It was turning into quite a dull day so this afternoon I decided to take myself up to the cinema to watch Ocean with David Attenborough. I was, of course, extremely eager to watch it, although a (small) part of me was hesitant as I tend to associate Attenborough with the BBC, and he didn’t work with them on this film. However, what I found myself watching a couple of hours ago was truly, truly remarkable. First of all, Ocean is a beautifully shot piece of non-fiction cinema: some of the scenes we are treated to as an audience are jaw-dropping. More to the point, it is a highly compelling film. As many others are noting, unlike Sir David’s TV work, this film has a clear agenda: in large part it is about the damage we are doing to the oceans, mostly through over-fishing. We glimpse the ruin trawlers inflict on the seas, which it would be hard not to find compelling. In this sense it was clear to see why this film could not have been made by the beeb as it couldn’t have had such an overt agenda. At the same time it does not go too far or slip into dogma: it is not anti-fishing, but emphasises how balanced, sustainable methods could benefit everyone.

However, the aspect of the film I was most drawn by was how it highlighted Attenborough’s own incredible career. We are treated to clips of him diving as a young man fifty or sixty years ago. This allows the film to highlight how much the oceans have changed over that time, and how they also have a remarkable capacity to recover if we allow them to. Thus we are treated to a view of the oceans very much through Attenborough’s own wise, compelling eyes, and the film is all the richer for it.

The vast majority of us have spent our entire lives with David Attenborough on our television screens, treating us to insights into the natural world nobody else comes close to. I think I have said here before that I regard him as the greatest broadcaster ever. To my knowledge this is his first foray into cinema, and the result is an absolute pleasure. If I had a single criticism of the film, however, it is that it does not touch upon how the damage we are currently doing to the seas has it’s underlying roots in economics, or what causes it socio-economically. The issue is essentially one of capitalism. After all, people are compelled to catch fish to make a living; if this motivation was got rid of, surely over-fishing would be far less of a problem. The only way the issue of over-fishing can be dealt with is if we address our appetite for seafood. The film does not focus on this broader aspect of the issue though, but seems to shy away from the underlying economics. That aside, we are treated to a wonderful piece of natural history cinema – one which I would passionately encourage everyone to go and watch on the big screen as soon as you can. David Attenborough has treated us to yet another delightful insight into the world around us; but then, we expect nothing less from this great, great man.

Cinema Screenings should have Subtitles

I omitted a rather important detail from my entry yesterday which I decided warrants it’s own post. When we went into the screening room, I noticed that the film had subtitles. At first this struck me as pretty strange: the film was in English, so there was no reason for them. I initially thought they would just be a distraction. But then my brain kicked in: The Barbican obviously wanted the film to be accessible to everyone, including Deaf and hard of hearing people. Why shouldn’t the film have subtitles? In fact, when I came to think about it, why shouldn’t film screenings in general have subtitles? After all, it’s pretty unfair on people who need subtitles to watch films to only be able to go to certain, very limited, screenings. If subtitles distract or bother the rest of us, then surely it would be up to us to get used to them; that would be preferable than continuing to exclude Deaf people from cinemas.