Film scholars have been pretty insensitive to the myriad ways you can watch films. Most of the earliest film scholars watched in a theater with a group of people. They assumed that would be the only way to watch films, primarily because it was the only way to watch films. In some cases, a particular screening would have been a one-and-done situation. Consequently, they wrote about the film so that it survived beyond the evanescence of a theatrical exhibition.
This is a good weekend to be a film geek because you can watch films in ways that might seem novel or even foreign to most viewers today. Sure, you can watch a film at the New York Film Festival and pay as much as $25 to watch a film that will be out in New York–area theaters anyway. However, that’s not the case for the Views from the Avant-Garde series, which I plan on attending this Friday. For a more worthwhile glimpse at film exhibition, you could recreate the experience of watching a silent film in a movie palace and compare it to watching a film at a drive-in theater. Here’s how.
Silent Film
I’m a big fan of the Loew’s Jersey. Built in 1929, it is a landmark movie palace that has been restored over the years to resemble its original state. Whereas most movie palaces have been divided into multiplexes, altered beyond recognition, transformed into retail stores or churches, or are simply torn down, this one has remained a viable venue for film screenings and live performances.
To showcase their restoration work and to preserve a forgotten form of moviegoing, the Friends of Loew’s Jersey occasionally screen movies, including silent films and an annual horror movie series around Halloween.
The Friends of Loew’s Jersey will be screening two films on Sunday, October 5, beginning at 3:00 PM. My Best Girl (1926) stars Mary Pickford and the man she married after Douglas Fairbanks, Charles “Buddy” Rogers. To add to the authentic experience of the show, there will be live organ accompaniment during the screening. Neat! There will also be a short film, Movie Night, starring Charlie Chase. It’s a rare chance to watch silent films as they would have been seen in their day. And if you don’t mind breaking from the authentic 1920s experience, go get Indian food after the show.
Drive-In
Starting this Friday, October 4, you can see films in a “drive-in” theater at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
The Empire Drive-In is more of an art installation than a bona-fide drive-in movie theater. The installation is open during the hall’s regular hours, but on select days, it transforms into a drive-in theater. To create the drive-in experience, there are sixty cars and trucks, salvaged from a nearby junkyard, installed to accommodate visitors. The screenings run from October 4 through October 20, although you should check the schedule because they’re screenings films only on select days. On those days, the installation is only open until 2:00 PM, presumably to allow time to prepare that evening’s screening.
Everyone is going gaga for the final episodes of Breaking Bad these days. Although this is the sixth year the show has aired, it’s still technically the fifth season. It just took them two eight-week runs, over 2012 and 2013, to complete it.
Because I watch Breaking Bad via an iTunes season pass, I was elated to see that Breaking Bad “Season 5” was selling for $22.99 in 2012. I bought the season pass for what I thought were the sixteen episodes of Season 5. Last month, however, when I went to download the first of the new batch of episodes, I found that had to buy anotherseason pass for the “Final Season.” It was confusing, given that the episodes airing in 2013 are still part of Season 5.
It turns out that I was not alone in my confusion. After a class-action lawsuit, Apple has given us a buy-back:
We apologize for any confusion the naming of “Season 5” and “The Final Season” of Breaking Bad might have caused you. While the names of the seasons and episodes associated with them were not chosen by iTunes, we’d like to offer you “The Final Season” on us by providing you with the iTunes code below in the amount of $22.99. This credit can also be used for any other content on the iTunes Store. Thank you for your purchase.
Sweet!
It’s unclear who is at fault here, but Apple and AMC better figure this out before the final season of Mad Men, also due to air over two years in 2014 and 2015.
When teaching a class on digital media, I start the lesson by telling students that “computers are stupid” that they can only “understand” two things: on and off. This episode from the 1980s animated series, Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips centers around this important fact. Scooter thinks that Mr. Chips is smart, but in fact, Mr. Chips lets his pal in on a little secret.
Having grown up in the 1980s, I remember the series, and the melody of the theme song has remained in my brain since I was a child. I don’t remember this particular episode, even if its story, dispelling a widely held belief that computers are autonomous, informs my thinking about computers.
This was a particularly resonant for the early 1980s. Well-heeled consumers were bringing personal computers into their homes, and their children could learn that their computers were not thinking machines. All they did was execute instructions, faster than any thinking person could.
Since the beginning of September, Turner Movie Classics has been running a ridiculously long festival of movies representing the history of cinema. The festival last fifteen weeks, into December, which happens to be the same duration of a college semester. Each week, TCM airs an episode of the 2011 documentary The Story of Film and a program of representative films to accompany each episode.
It doesn’t happen too often, but events like this make me miss cable. Sometimes.
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Although Labor Day isn’t for another seven days, for all intents and purposes, summer is over. I usually try to get my syllabi done in early August, but I haven’t been especially motivated lately, especially since I’ve taught these classes before. I didn’t start reviewing the syllabi until last week, and I even posted one for this semester’s Introduction to Electronic Media and that class that was ultimately cancelled on Friday.
After getting that bit of bad news, I lost whatever slim motivation I had developed last week. I took the weekend off and started reviewing my unfinished syllabi today. Since it’s a bit late in the game here, I did a little triage to figure out which classes to prioritize, and, in doing so, I figured out that I have a “soft landing” at the beginning of the semester.
As you can see, my classes start over the course of three weeks. And with one already cancelled and one in danger of being cancelled, I start one class each of the next three weeks, giving me a bit of time in finishing each of these syllabi. It could get complicated if Queens College runs American Film Industry. The course had six students enrolled on Thursday, when I learned it was in danger of being cancelled, but it now has nine students. I’m not sure if that’s enough to spare the course. I haven’t heard anything yet, but I am not updating another syllabus only to have the class cancelled.
It’s not easy to write syllabi in the summer…especially when there might not even be a class.
This class was cancelled on August 23, due to low enrollment. ↩
This class is in danger of being cancelled due to low enrollment. ↩
As someone why doesn’t have a dog in the fight, as I don’t watch any CBS shows and I don’t subscribe to any multichannel video provider, I have been a bit detached from the CBS-Time Warner Cable retransmission dispute. Someone complains that they can’t watch…wait, what does CBS air in the summer?…and I think, “shut up and get an antenna!”
The timing of the dispute has been to the advantage of both parties. They get to dig in their heels during broadcast television’s lowest season, and they both save face since the stakes are rather low right now. The conventional wisdom, however, is that someone has to give in before the NFL season starts. Once that season kicks off, all hell is supposed to break loose. Time Warner Cable customers are supposed to revolt because they can’t get their Patriots vs. Bills, Titans vs. Steelers, or any of four other games on CBS on Sunday, September 8. Or so the thinking goes. In the meantime, we have a stalemate. Both parties are hanging tough, but until something gives, let’s examine the issues at hand.
Time Warner Cable is a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD), an industry term for a company that brings you a lot of television channels. An MVPD such as Time Warner needs consent from a broadcaster to take its signal, from a transmitting antenna, and retransmit it through its own cable/satellite/fiber optic network to your home. In exchange for distributing the signal, the MVPD charges you a monthly fee. This is your cable bill.
Until 1992, MVPDs were required to retransmit all of the television stations in their local area and carry them on their channel lineup with the same channel assignment. The practice has a catchy name: must carry. For instance, the station you received on Channel 7 with your antenna was the same as Channel 7, although the signal was probably clearer because most people don’t know how to orient properly an antenna. Although the MVPD carried the stations’ signals, the stations were not compensated. Your cable company basically took something from the air for free and charged you for it. We have hated the Cable Company ever since.
They can require the MVPD to retransmit their station’s signal (“must-carry”) without compensation
They can allow the MVPD to retransmit their station’s signal (“may-carry”) in exchange for compensation.
Most broadcasters choose the latter: a practice called retransmission consent. To get consent, MVPDs could either pay the station a fee or negotiate some other form of compensation. Most MVPDs balked at paying stations for what used to be free. Instead, they would offer to carry cable-only stations owned by the broadcaster or its parent company. For example, in 1993, the then-owners of ABC stations negotiated with the MVPD Continental Cable to carry its nascent ESPN2, instead of requiring a cash payment for retransmitting its broadcast stations, paving the way for its nationwide rollout.[1]
This situation would be a win-win for both parties. The channel lineup would expand for the MVPD, and thus their service was more valuable (and expensive), and the station owner would expand the reach of its cable channel and could sell more advertising (and charge more). Today, however, advertising revenue is unstable because of the dwindling audience, and thus stations and their owners are demanding cash, which they hadn’t done until very recently.
This is the background behind the dispute between Time Warner Cable, an MVPD, and CBS Television Stations, the division of CBS, Inc. that owns twenty-eight or so television stations. Each station that CBS owns is known as an owned-and-operated, or O&O, station. CBS Television Stations has reportedly demanded an increased payment for Time Warner Cable to retransmit the signal of its O&Os, and also Showtime, The Movie Channel, and Smithsonian. Time Warner Cable cannot retransmit those signals either because CBS owns those cable stations, too. Time Warner Cable is balking at the increase because they will either have to make less money (yeah, right) or pass along the charge to subscribers, who will complain about yet another rate increase. Thus, no Time Warner Cable customer gets to watch anything transmitted by a CBS-owned broadcast or cable television station. Tough toenails, as my seventh-grade science teacher used to say.
The ire of most customers is directed at the MPVD. After learning all of this, I almost sympathetic to the MVPD. Its costs are rising seemingly arbitrarily and has little recourse but to accept it. If they drop CBS and its many stations, their customers will revolt. They will either jump to a competitor, should they exist, or they will simply cancel their service. People are doing that already and missing must-have channels can only exacerbate the cord cutting.
Joe Flint. “Top of the Week: CapCities, Hearts Opt for Channel.” In Broadcasting and Cable 19 July 1993: 6, 8–9. ↩
Although I cut my cable in 2010, I never felt left out of the Breaking Bad party. In fact, having started watching the series right after the first season was released on DVD, it felt like the audience was pretty small. But last night, it was the talk of the town, and of Facebook and Twitter. I wanted to watch the premiere, but my options were limited:
Watch at a friend’s place.
Watch at a bar.
We opted for the second choice because it was closer to home. It was a mistake.
I’m not blaming the bar for hosting a TV night. It is a great way to attract business on otherwise slow Sunday night, and I won’t name it because I don’t believe it’s their fault, even if watching Breaking Bad there was not a good experience.
Watching at the bar sucked. First, there was the setup. The television sets scattered around the bar were of poor quality. There was also a projected screen, but it was set to the incorrect aspect ratio: 4:3 for a program intended for a 16:9 screen. It looked terrible. And since there were so many people there, the sound was turned up so loud that it was distorted. I couldn’t decipher the dialog.
Second and more important was the classic New York problem: there were too many people. It was nearly impossible to find a place to park a bicycle on the street, let alone find a comfortable spot in the bar. I resorted to standing in a small pool of people. All these patrons, however, deserve a lot of praise. As crowded as the bar was, everyone was absolutely silent when the program started.
Having watched every almost other episode of Breaking Bad asynchronously, I couldn’t get into watching it at the bar, standing against a window, barely following the story because I could neither see the picture, hear the dialogue or get used to the commercials. I left at the third ad break.
This morning I bought a season pass for Breaking Bad on iTunes, as I had done since the fourth season, and I invited a small group of friends who also don’t subscribe to cable/satellite TV to come over to watch.
We cord cutters have to stick together.
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Timehop scrubs through your social network accounts and offers a summary of what you did on this day one year ago, two years ago, three years ago, etc. It’s really not as creepy as you might think, since you posted your thoughts, activities, or whereabouts to Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare in the first place. It often jogs my memory about trips I took or friends I hadn’t seen in a while. At the end of your feed, it includes a story of interest (though not always an interesting story) from the pages of USA Today of what happened on this day some years ago.
Although the television signals we use today are for the most part digital, most television stations today transmit on the UHF band. That band was designated for television channels 14–69 and was established in 1952. Television receivers and antennas have fully supported that band since 1960. Television antennas, both the rooftop and the rabbit ear kind, can still receive the new digital signal and pass it to your television set. The only problem is that if your television set is older than 2000, then it won’t know how to decode the digital signal.
Cable and satellite companies took this as an opportunity to sign up new customers thinking that those that received over-the-air television would be doomed. Instead, they were just duped.
A few weeks ago I posted images of six films I screened in my History of Cinema class at Queens College. As part of the final exam, students were to name five of the six films and provide the country of production and, if appropriate, the avant-garde movement.
Here are the answers:
Anemic Cinema
Celebrated artist Marcel Duchamp produced this film using a spirograph and other graphics that rotated on screen. Like much of Duchamp’s work, the film was a Dadaist work that utilized word play. In this still, the text translates to “If I give you a penny, will you give me a pair of scissors?” According to Katrina Martin, however, Duchamp is playing with colloquial French expressions and this actually translates to “If I give you a penny, I will give you a fuck.”[1]
The Man with a Movie Camera
What can I say about this film? There are two items in the picture, a man and a movie camera, so I figured that would be easy. I was also looking for an image from this film that would show off two influential art movements in the Soviet Union: montage and Constructivism.
The challenge was to find a still that had montage within a single shot. Montage generally edits two shots together to create a specific and deliberate meaning, but I can’t show that in a single still. This one demonstrate the ability of montage to show “editing” within a single shot. Moreover, Constructivist integrated machinery into everyday objects, including the human form.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Not to spoil too much here, but in this still, Alan reacts to seeing Cesare in his room. He is terrified. In this shot, Cesare’s figure casts a shadow against the wall on the right side of the frame. The set of the room is highly stylized. It is not shown in classical Renaissance perspective, but instead has very sharp angles. This approach to composition was common in German Expressionism.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
This is another German Expressionist film but from 1922 and directed by F.W. Murnau. The shadowy composition is again present here and is there to cast a sense of terror. Moreover, no one who has seen this film will forget Count Orlock’s appearance. It has to be one of the most chilling figures in cinema.
Un Chien Andalou
This is the seminal surrealist film, produced in France, by future film icon Luis Buñuel and celebrated painter/sculptor Salvador Dali. Early in the film is perhaps one of the most unforgettable images in cinema history: the cutting of a woman’s eye. The film rejects any narrative causality and instead follows the logic of dreams, as surrealists were wont to do.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Yes, it’s another film by a German filmmaker, F. W. Murnau. But this film, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, was produced in the United States, not Germany, and was stylistically similar to Expressionism, although it was made well after the movement had its hey-day in Germany. This still is from the first third of the film. The man, played by George O’Brien, is about to kill his wife, played by Academy Award–winning Actress Janet Gaynor, and make it look like she accidentally drowned. You can see the compositional similarities between this image and that of the still from Caligari. Also, O’Brien’s posture is not unlike that of Orlock in Nosferatu.
Students in my class would have undoubtedly noticed that I absolutely love this film—it’s easily one of my all-time favorites—and some would remember it because I heard a few people crying at the end of the film.
As *Sunrise* is perhaps the last silent film made in Hollywood, it also might be the best.
Martin, Katrina. “Marcel Duchamp’s Anemic Cinema.” Studio International 189, no. 973 (February 1975): 56. ↩
