After last night's film critics panel I did go back for both sessions to today (I took the T). Here's much more detail on the morning session than I'm willing to write.
They showed the Hotel Chevalier which made the second time I've seen it. It's a short that augments The Darjeeling Limited and is available for free from iTunes. For me, it convinced me I didn't want to see Darjeeling. I disliked it just as much the second time as I did the first. A couple of critics didn't like it but most did. It was also a starting point for a discussion about film and a theater projection versus digital and downloading and watching on a computer or an iPod (or even watching DVDs at home).
Film critics love films so many were quick to point out that "it's an entirely different experience" but as I find is usual for such a conversation they didn't say what those differences were. In Hotel Chevalier's case I didn't really find a difference. I was surprised that none of the critics had seen it on a computer but were still talking about how inferior an experience that was (it was shown at the start of press and festival screenings of Darjeeling). I saw it both ways and didn't like either. In the discussion of the general topic I think they missed the point that a big screen can be better, but it's perhaps the last 10 or 20% and most of the film probably does come across in different forms. Someone mentioned how they knew someone who had seen Lawrence of Arabia on TV many times before seeing it on a big screen and didn't see a difference. I agree that's kind of absurd, but the point is Lawrence was made to be seen on a wide screen and uses these large wide peripheral vistas deliberately. I'm very much in favor of letter boxing but many films work fine on TVs (e.g., The Holiday which I'll review shortly), particularly new large screen TVs. Still seeing a comedy with many people is a different aspect of the theater experience. It also took too long for someone to say that with DVD the difference is often the choice between seeing a film in inferior circumstances versus not seeing it at all. Seems like an easy choice to me.
They also spoke with a fair amount of derision about the democratization of filmmaking as more and more people can create films and post them online. They view most of the stuff as a waste; one asked who wants to see someone else's home movies? Personally I think it means more people will be knowledgeable of film language and how difficult it is to make a good movie. Sure there will be more crap, but it's probably a bell curve and there will be more good stuff too. There are lots of films made in film schools, do the bad ones make the good ones worse? You don't want to see just anyone's home movies, but I've seen clips of the ones Spielberg made as a kid. It took a while for one to point out that with more to see perhaps the role of critics becomes more important.
They expressed a fair amount of frustration with being a professional film critic in this day and age. As newspapers come under more and more financial pressures, it's hard for film critics to make a living. That is a real problem as the industry undergoes a paradigm shift. Music videos didn't actually kill the radio stars, it merely changed them. Several said they had done music reviews for a long time in addition to film reviews. One spoke of interest in video game reviews as interactive film while another had no interest what-so-ever.
I enjoyed the day. They sometimes did go on too long too often but I can very much relate to that. It was most interesting when they (often) disagreed and when they wandered off-topic, for example when they spoke about bad remakes. While they often spoke about having a dialog with their readers I didn't understand that as they publish their views and that's the end of it (aside from a few letters to the editor or the critic). This was a conversation between them and that was fun to watch.
I found myself at times very much wanting to add my opinions to the discussion. It was fun to listen but I enjoy speaking too. While I didn't know many of the films they referenced I figure I've seen about 4,000 movies and I've read a number of books on film. I know enough to have an informed opinion if not a critical one. Then again, I could be the kind of blogger they hate.
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