Reading the Cameron Crowe book 'Interviews with Wilder' I came across the master Hollywood director talking about something that I feel very strongly about. Culture. Not in the general sense but in the specific sense of the culture of the audience and this short piece focuses on that and the parallel culture of the film maker.
Wilder claims that the audience are a lot smarter than what they are given most of the time, yet Cinema is invariably dumbing down. Why? I see a couple of main reasons that audiences are not seeing the best films around.
Firstly the existence of repertory and art-house cinemas is virtually nil meaning little or no access to classic films, independent films or foreign fare. Multiplex chains can put the latest Arnie vehicle in every site yet fight over who gets The Royal Tenenbaums, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or the reissued Raging Bull print? Often these films only visit on a one off 'weekly special' basis. I believe people are still watching challenging films. The DVD market is growing rapidly, thanks in no small part to the technical capabilities and special features of the medium. This means they have an appreciation for the technical and creative sides of cinema have a high level of expectance.
Secondly and more importantly I believe the culture of the film makers, the mainstream ones and Hollywood ones especially is lower than ever before and in some cases non-existent. Film makers from the Thirties to the Fifties had an awareness and appreciation for Silent cinema, Russian cinema and German Expressionism. New Wave film makers of the Sixties were influenced by the Hollywood masters of the preceding eras and Seventies film makers referenced the styles of pretty much anyone. In the early Nineties Hollywood and high-level independent cinema referenced the Seventies and indeed the New Wave and Neo Realism movements but recently any hint that a director understands the language of cinema has vanished, particularly in Britain. British cinema is currently so lacking in ambition and cinematic value that it is embarrassing. Where are those who appreciate Chaplin, Godard, Hitchcock, Wilder, Cassavetes?
I am not saying that we should be producing carbon copies of Psycho or The Apartment, that would be foolish and impossible but art should be aware of what has come before and either revolt or evolve from it. We are currently in a void of style and art, and going down a one-way road of throwing good money after bad. History has shown that film makers working under the Hollywood studio system produced works of great significance as well as being entertaining. Film makers such as Howard Hawks, John Ford and Vincente Minnelli were renowned for making one film for the studio and one for themselves, within the same picture. Nowadays the people behind the big movies are usually not known to the audience, hired hacks to point and shoot or they are not in the same league as their predecessors. I am talking about the likes of Michael Bay and Guy Ritchie and the recent work of Ridley Scott and Barry Sonnenfeld.
There are films and film makers out there that show an understanding of cinema and it's power to entertain and enlighten, David Fincher, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen Brothers for example. The problem is that fear from Hollywood production companies, distributors and multiplexes, coupled with some terrible Academy Awards has made it difficult for films such as In the Bedroom, You Can Count on Me, Y Tu Mama Tambien and others to reach the audience they deserve and that would appreciate them. I am not saying film makers don't know of the great film makers but they either haven't properly got to grips with what they did for the art form or are too arrogant to think that they don't need the help of watching old films. A word of warning in conclusion; just because the audiences come to see your film doesn't mean they like what you do. Most of them enjoy going to the movies, and after all, most of the time what else is there to see?
Neil Fox 15/8/02
The Black Box Auditorium
A certain cinema chain - actually make that "multiplex chain" - boasts of its auditoria that they are of "black box" design. They mean, and this idea is mentioned in publicity and press releases, that viewing a film on one of their screens offers the maximum immersion possible in the projected image by way of the fact that screens are of maximum size, often effectively covering one wall of the space, and that the "design" of the auditorium offers no distraction from the screen. This concept is reinforced on their web site by images of audiences looking as if spellbound by an apparent projected image (audience and screen are not shown in the same images), or all looking so happy, laughing in unison and appearing like they are blissed out on certain substances, that if one was part of such an audience it could prove to be deeply disturbing (of course, one suspects that these "audiences" are in fact made up of models, doubtless handpicked to represent a typical gathering of happy and contented multiplex spectators)!
Now I find the idea of audiences being distracted by features of auditorium design very funny! Are we saying that when eager filmgoers went to see the latest on the big screens at the "dream palaces" that were the norm in the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, they were aware of their would-be rapt attention being diverted by the architectural embellishments and design elements of the cinema? Fidgeting anxiously in their seats and wishing that there were no beautiful rich, red curtains framing the screen or looking up and cursing the carefully wrought plaster work or art deco lighting because it was stopping them from enjoying the movie? I think not. The whole idea of the so-called "dream palaces" was that they were intended to give their audiences the impression of luxury and they granted the films presented there a significance by dint of the theatrical environment that they were being shown in. I know that there were some badly designed cinemas with poor sightlines, uncomfortable seating and relatively small screens but there were also magnificent examples. The 1965 Odeon Marble Arch springs to mind - formerly the best cinema auditorium I have ever watched movies in; from 1996 a vacuous collection of five curiously proportioned auditoria which have as much sense of being special places as a collection of large toilets in a posh hotel - and there were of course numerous wonderful 1930's theatres such as the Granada Tooting, Odeon Muswell Hill etc. etc. What I feel so strongly is that no attempt is made to grant the images projected in cinemas today any theatrical significance other than increasing the screen size in proportion to the auditorium, often to the detriment of good image quality and relaying soundtracks through increasingly advanced sound systems.
A few years ago I was working at a conference centre in Central London and heard a very eager young advertising type talking about young people and cinemas. By young I think he would have been referring to 18 - 25 year olds who, at the time, were thought to make up the main age group that regularly attends the cinema (I suspect that statistic may have changed now). He claimed that his company's research showed people in this age bracket preferred the "informal" environment of modern multiplex cinemas to the older theatrical style buildings. I would like to know what choice they would have had in being able to make such a decision.
I love movies and I would always prefer to experience them in the company of others - even though unattentive and disinterested audiences can sometimes create a barrier between the film and me. I do feel sad though at the lack of imagination that goes into modern cinema design (and that's without even thinking about older cinemas being subdivided - check out the Odeon Beckenham for a typically doubtless efficient but dispiriting example of that phenomena). I like to feel my keen sense of anticipation at how much I will enjoy a film to be in some way echoed by the environment I will be viewing it in. The "black box" design is just so nondescript and unatmospheric and all the while the suspicion lurks in the back of the mind that this is the very cheapest and most unimaginative way to create and build cinema auditoria.
Keith - 19/08/02
Talk to Her
Okay; a confession. I had not seen any of Almodovar's movies until this one. I am almost ashamed of this as I reckon I am a real film buff with genuinely wide-ranging tastes in cinema. I have been aware of Almodovar's presence in European cinema since the mid 1980's but the clips I used to see from his movies didn't entice me to check him out. The strident melodrama and camp tone of sequences that I saw led me to believe that I would feel isolated sitting in audiences made up of apparently appreciative Time Out and Guardian readers at the Gate Cinema, Notting Hill or The Screen on the Green at Islington. After watching Talk to Her I feel that I must now take a look at some more of his films because this movie is certainly the work of a thoughtful and poetic artist.
In the opening sequence of Almodovar's latest the curtain rises (literally) on a modern dance piece: two middle-aged women clad in white, diaphanous garments dance and writhe around a stage in trance-like fashion. They are accompanied by a suited and bespectacled man who seems to be intent on anticipating their movements and pushing chairs and tables out of their path. His actions seem spontaneous, wild, perhaps aggressive, even though his aim appears essentially protective towards the women as he forcefully removes obstacles from their respective trajectories. Almodovar cuts away from the performers to a medium shot of two men in the audience, one of whom is shedding a tear, apparently deeply moved by what he is observing. We later learn that it is by chance that they are seated next to each other but by the end of the film their lives will have become irresistebly linked to each other.
A bond develops between them through the relationship that each of them has with two comatose women. Marco's partner Lydia, a famous bullfighter, lies in a hospital bed after having been badly gored, while a few doors away down the hospital corridpor the sweet but creepy nurse Benigno - previously devoted to caring for his aged mother - carefully tends to the every need of Alicia. Marco is frustrated because he doesn't know how to react to Lydia in this state but Benigno's advice is encapsulated in the title of the film. When Benigno apparently crosses the line of decency and commits rape against the comatose Alicia a tragic chain of events ensues which nevertheless unites the two men in a close spiritual relationship.
Almodovar's meditation on the borderline between love and sexual obsession is an almost dreamlike affair where the actions that characters take have an inevitability that prevent the scenario from gliding elegantly into potential absurdity and disbelief. The film opens and closes in dance scenes and certain sequences emphasise the dance-like nature of the film by using superimposed intertitles that announce the relationships between the characters onscreen. It is all beautifully photographed by Javier Aguirresarobe in rich, saturated colour and is accompanied by a wonderful soundtrack score composed by Alberto Iglesias. Altogether an elegant affair that invites us as viewers to participate and as such makes a very rewarding experience compared to the shrill provocation that many modern movies make on us.
Rakeman - 3/09/02
Terrible experience in the foyer - congestion and confusion as people started queueing by the escalator. Poor hapless usher looked worried at the build up of people as she had to keep asking more and more people to join the queue. Another usher got patrons in the mood for a nice night out by barking at them and pointing to end of the queue! Toilets at ground floor closed so a few people were allowed up to first floor to use the loos (I was one of them!). Very poor lighting in the space between the up and down escalators on the first floor and when we were finally allowed up for Screen 12 (just after 8pm) much confusion around the dimly lit escalators as one was out of order. Talk about health and safety! Annoyed to discover that Odeon have now made a few rows in front of their Gallery seats a more expensive seating area. Three prices for an auditorium that size (Gallery at £22, Premier at £10, Standard at £8.50)?
Main gripe: illumination level for projected image consistently too low throughout ads, trailers
and main feature with feature worst of all because it was scope so had larger image area (it was
film and not digital). Dull image with poor colour. Sound okay but nothing special! Its a puzzle: since
this cinema opened in 2001 as UCI The Filmworks the images on three of the bigger screens 9 - 12 have often
looked drab and lacking bite and with lowish illumination. Movies such as Moulin Rouge, Planet of the Apes,
Lord of the Rings, Shrek, Bridget Jones Diary etc. all lacked sparkle (saw Moulin Rouge at another cinema on an
even bigger screen afterwards and it looked excellent). If one sits in the seats either side of the centre
block the image quality suffers further degradation. One of the bigger auditoria where we saw The Incredibles
and Finding Nemo amongst others usually had superior illumination and better sound. There must be some
cinema industry standards for screen illumination and I suggest Odeon at this venue offer below standard
presentation in some of their auditoria. The smaller screens 1 - 8 on the first floor tend to have
generally better image quality but the auditoriums are vacuous and give no sense of anticipation
or a cinema-like vibe. What a consistent disappointment!
Big Screen Man - 16/11/2009