{"id":1402,"date":"2013-05-01T17:07:24","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T21:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnestes.org\/?p=1402"},"modified":"2013-05-01T17:07:24","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T21:07:24","slug":"how-movies-are-killing-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/?p=1402","title":{"rendered":"How Movies Are Killing Cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s the end of the semester, and I’ve had an existential need to leave work after long days and see a film, but when I look at what’s at the local theater’s, it’s all shite. The existential need that is my soul then slumps and I think to myself: who are these [people] in control of what is available to me (the same shite at every theater), and why is there not at least a little variety? Why is there not a single independent film available for viewing in all of Canton Ohio? Well, thank the maker for Steven Soderbergh, who in Film Comment gives us all the answers to at least what the problem is and why it matters<\/a>. First of all, there is the distinction between movies (which are doing fine) and cinema (which is not):<\/p>\n

\n

The simplest way that I can describe it is that a movie is something you see, and cinema is something that\u2019s made. It has nothing to do with the captured medium, it doesn\u2019t have anything to do with where the screen is, if it\u2019s in your bedroom, your iPad, it doesn\u2019t even really have to be a movie. It could be a commercial, it could be something on YouTube. Cinema is a specificity of vision. It\u2019s an approach in which everything matters. It\u2019s the polar opposite of generic or arbitrary and the result is as unique as a signature or a fingerprint. It isn\u2019t made by a committee, and it isn\u2019t made by a company, and it isn\u2019t made by the audience. It means that if this filmmaker didn\u2019t do it, it either wouldn\u2019t exist at all, or it wouldn\u2019t exist in anything like this form.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

These are outrageous, surprising numbers:<\/p>\n

\n

In 2003, 455 films were released. 275 of those were independent, 180 were studio films. Last year 677 films were released. So you\u2019re not imagining things, there are a lot of movies that open every weekend. 549 of those were independent, 128 were studio films. So, a 100% increase in independent films, and a 28% drop in studio films, and yet, 10 years ago: Studio market share 69%, last year 76%. You\u2019ve got fewer studio movies now taking up a bigger piece of the pie and you\u2019ve got twice as many independent films scrambling for a smaller piece of the pie. That\u2019s hard. That\u2019s really hard.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I like Soderbergh’s fantasy-studio thought experiment. Hire talented directors, give them a budget, and let them make things. Why doesn’t that happen? One filmmaker he mentions as one he’d hire is Shane Carruth, whose new film Upstream Color<\/a> I’m scheduled to see tomorrow night at a premier in Akron. His first film, Primer<\/a>\u2014about some entrepreneurs who accidentally make a time machine\u2014is quite good and available on Netflix.<\/p>\n

But SS does have some hope, and sees hope as the only salient, salable thing.<\/p>\n

\n

So whenever I despair I think, okay, somebody out there somewhere, while we\u2019re sitting right here, somebody out there somewhere is making something cool that we\u2019re going to love, and that keeps me going. The other thing I tell young filmmakers is when you get going and you try to get money, when you\u2019re going into one of those rooms to try and convince somebody to make it, I don\u2019t care who you\u2019re pitching, I don\u2019t care what you\u2019re pitching\u2014it can be about genocide, it can be about child killers, it can be about the worst kind of criminal injustice that you can imagine\u2014but as you\u2019re sort of in the process of telling this story, stop yourself in the middle of a sentence and act like you\u2019re having an epiphany, and say: “You know what, at the end of this day, this is a movie about hope.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s the end of the semester, and I’ve had an existential need to leave work after long days and see a film, but when I look at what’s at the local theater’s, it’s all shite. The existential need that is my soul then slumps and I think to myself: who are these [people] in control of what is available to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}