![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The long, painful death of the cinema
Oct. 19th, 2007 01:38 pmI wonder what's on at the pictures this week?
The Apollo, Barrow, is showing the following for the next seven days:
See anything you fancy? No, me neither. Eight screens, each and every one of them filled with unremitting tosh. Stardust is an excruciating two-and-a-half hours of unremitting tosh. I note that Peter O'Toole turns up in a couple of these, though not exactly above the title. All I can say is that this is a salutory lesson in how drink can bring a great man low. One of them - The Invasion, was recalled by Warner Brothers, the director sacked, and the film rehashed because the version as presented didn't have enough 'special effects'. 'Special effects' have nothing to do with true cinema, they are there so that spotty and vacuous teenage boys can make the seats sticky. Which is presumably why cinemas these days don't have proper seats, are filled with the sickly reek of stale oil, and resound to the jangle of game machines.
You all know how I hate the term 'movie', which as recently as fifteen years ago was an Americanism that stuck out as much as 'sidewalk' or 'elevator' when you heard it. Now it's the common currency of film critics who ought to know better. But the word does have its uses. I suggest that all eight of those showing at the Apollo this week are 'movies'. We want fewer movies and more films.
It makes me yearn for the days when the Embassy, Welwyn Garden City, used to show just one film a week but that film would be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or The Graduate, or Bonnie & Clyde. The seats were uphostered, the place didn't stink, and the ambience was comfortable and welcoming.
Let me introduce you to the film policy of Rosieworld. In Rosieworld, all marketing people have been rounded up and given useful jobs to do. There will be pure beer laws which require all beer to be made of nothing but water, malted barley, hops and yeast, and sold only within a twenty kilometre radius of its production. (Messrs Anheuser Busch of St Louis may sell their product, but they must call it fermented rice water rather than beer, and they may not use the name 'Budweiser'.) There will be corresponding pure chocolate laws outlawing the use of any fat other than cocoa butter. The policy towards film will be consistent with this; films may only depend on acting ability, skilled cinematography, make-up, sound produced by proper musical instruments, and reasonable props. Cinemas will all be nationalised and handed over to the British Film Institute to run. The BFI will make a particular point of fostering and financing independent directors from all over the world. Films made in languages other than English will be actively encouraged and shown with subtitles and not dubbed. Films for showing will be assessed for genuine merit by a rolling panel of film theorists and serious film critics. Money will not be able to influence the choice of films to be shown, on pain of very nasty penalties. Films containing car chases, elves, shoot-outs, cast-of-thousands battle scenes, fights between animated polar bears, and computer-generated geewhizzery will be strictly outlawed. Single-screen cinemas will be encouraged, reopened and refurbished where necessary and showing a repertoire of new work and established classics (why aren't the classic films of the past shown in our cinemas.) They will not be called 'theatres', for theatres are places for large performances on the stage. Multiplexes will be retained but properly furnished, stripped of game machines and will sell beer and chocolate but not popcorn. Multiplexes will all show one or two new films at all times, but other screens will be devoted to classics.
Wouldn't that be wonderful?
The Apollo, Barrow, is showing the following for the next seven days:
- Nancy Drew
- The Invasion
- Resident Evil 3: Extinction
- Stormbreaker
- Ratatouille
- Stardust
- The Dark is Rising
- Rendition
See anything you fancy? No, me neither. Eight screens, each and every one of them filled with unremitting tosh. Stardust is an excruciating two-and-a-half hours of unremitting tosh. I note that Peter O'Toole turns up in a couple of these, though not exactly above the title. All I can say is that this is a salutory lesson in how drink can bring a great man low. One of them - The Invasion, was recalled by Warner Brothers, the director sacked, and the film rehashed because the version as presented didn't have enough 'special effects'. 'Special effects' have nothing to do with true cinema, they are there so that spotty and vacuous teenage boys can make the seats sticky. Which is presumably why cinemas these days don't have proper seats, are filled with the sickly reek of stale oil, and resound to the jangle of game machines.
You all know how I hate the term 'movie', which as recently as fifteen years ago was an Americanism that stuck out as much as 'sidewalk' or 'elevator' when you heard it. Now it's the common currency of film critics who ought to know better. But the word does have its uses. I suggest that all eight of those showing at the Apollo this week are 'movies'. We want fewer movies and more films.
It makes me yearn for the days when the Embassy, Welwyn Garden City, used to show just one film a week but that film would be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or The Graduate, or Bonnie & Clyde. The seats were uphostered, the place didn't stink, and the ambience was comfortable and welcoming.
Let me introduce you to the film policy of Rosieworld. In Rosieworld, all marketing people have been rounded up and given useful jobs to do. There will be pure beer laws which require all beer to be made of nothing but water, malted barley, hops and yeast, and sold only within a twenty kilometre radius of its production. (Messrs Anheuser Busch of St Louis may sell their product, but they must call it fermented rice water rather than beer, and they may not use the name 'Budweiser'.) There will be corresponding pure chocolate laws outlawing the use of any fat other than cocoa butter. The policy towards film will be consistent with this; films may only depend on acting ability, skilled cinematography, make-up, sound produced by proper musical instruments, and reasonable props. Cinemas will all be nationalised and handed over to the British Film Institute to run. The BFI will make a particular point of fostering and financing independent directors from all over the world. Films made in languages other than English will be actively encouraged and shown with subtitles and not dubbed. Films for showing will be assessed for genuine merit by a rolling panel of film theorists and serious film critics. Money will not be able to influence the choice of films to be shown, on pain of very nasty penalties. Films containing car chases, elves, shoot-outs, cast-of-thousands battle scenes, fights between animated polar bears, and computer-generated geewhizzery will be strictly outlawed. Single-screen cinemas will be encouraged, reopened and refurbished where necessary and showing a repertoire of new work and established classics (why aren't the classic films of the past shown in our cinemas.) They will not be called 'theatres', for theatres are places for large performances on the stage. Multiplexes will be retained but properly furnished, stripped of game machines and will sell beer and chocolate but not popcorn. Multiplexes will all show one or two new films at all times, but other screens will be devoted to classics.
Wouldn't that be wonderful?
