Beware Another "Think Piece"

Film As Art Is Still So Much Popcorn

Movies don’t get respect. They haven’t even after a hundred years. Will it ever come? First some possible whys … the very word “movies” suggests a diminutive ("flicks" worse). But what more appropriate? There is “film,” a word to issue largely from schoolmasters, “cinema” the same, and as pretentious. “Picture” I like, have used, much as old-timers did. I’d propose popcorn as a highest barrier to prestige. Ever see someone carry a buttered bag into the ballet or opera? Popcorn is by definition frivolous. We do not make a meal of art by having meals with art. Especially something so silly as popcorn. With real culture, there is no place even for caviar. Herewith are the most popular snacks with movies: Milk Duds, Raisinets, “Sour Patch Kids,” Goobers, Nachos, Whoppers, popcorn being, of course, Number One. Some theatres will sell you a hot dog. We used to get hamburgers at the Liberty, likelier soybean-burgers. They came with slaw that I used to scrape onto the floor. Such was my regard for our Temple Of Enrichment. How to experience moving picture art on one hand with a box of Goobers in the other? I read that in the silent era, they didn’t let food into theatres. Peanut vendors off the street were allowed to push carts up-down aisles at a few places. Popcorn came later to scuttle film’s parity among the arts. Now awash with Goobers, our debasement is complete.

Note the "Formal Premiere"

Moviegoing was from the start a most democratic cultural pursuit. Too democratic, said High Art gatekeepers. Darkness conferred privacy, so it mattered less how you looked, whereas at live theatre, an arriving, or seated in boxes, viewership, bore as much scrutiny as actors on the stage. Roadshows upped the ante for deportment. Those of a politer generation imposed orderliness. We were dressed for My Fair Lady during a Washington family trip in 1965, my suggestion that we instead see Tomb Of Ligeia at an outskirts drive-in brusquely put down. I wore a starchy white shirt for the Pinocchio reissue of 1962, a feeling of red ants crawling up my back what I recall best of that day. Patrons came appropriate to outstanding event that was Cinerama, as did “Formal Premiere” attendees on Broadway during the early 30’s. To be assigned a seat conferred status, being escorted there jam on the bread. By such means might movies approach legit performance. Problem was attractions that did not justify hard ticket terms, or stayed past point of filling seats. A 1968 foray to Gone With The Wind at Winston-Salem’s Carolina Theatre saw me led by an usher with his flashlight to my reserved spot at a virtually empty matinee. I was seated to the far right, not a favored perch, but my ticket was specific. What penalty might come of a unilateral move? It was halfway through the Barbecue at Twelve Oaks before I dared a center view.

Assuming film is culture, is there any longer a film culture? The sort, I mean, that stood collegiates back blocks for a latest Antonioni or Bergman. Film festivals continue to thrive, so youth, and memory of art film in flower, is served. Apart from queue for comic book adapts, is there eager turnout for first Fridays of grown-up entertainment? I was there for Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood, but do not expect that experience to be duplicated. There was once active film following on campuses. Is there vestige of it left? If most anything can be streamed on a hand device, why walk even to the student union for a screening? I saw where Martin Scorsese knocked super heroes and got knocked back even by a Disney chairman with interests distinctly vested. Then there is Francis Coppola who they say can’t/won’t/never will be, hired to make features again. These would seem last hope among veterans for Film As Art, at least as the elderly define Film As Art (but see Scorsese's newest, The Irishman, said to equal his best). I bet there is more worthy product made today than anyone could begin to keep up with, short of ticker tape to tell what is streaming or cloud concealed. Would finest stories shot on camera phones equal low-budget greats of yore? Ways people troll for movies have changed utterly. No longer must one wade in water to pan for gold. You’ll sift much dross, sure, but that was chance viewers and critics always took. Some so venturesome keep web pages to pass along finds, things we’d not know existed but for these bloggers' initiative.

How many will identify themselves as a “film historian?” To be an art historian might imply you have a job with a museum, or that you travel around and lecture, for pay. Best off is he/she who, when asked what they do, says “thoracic surgeon,” or “I design and build robotic body parts to restore normal function.” Most people, more’s a pity, regard film history as trivial pursuit, an absurd accumulation of useless information. I shrink a little if anyone calls me a film historian, but am annoyed by the “movie buff” tag, words best spoke to kazoo accompany, a whoopee cushion beneath all who’d celebrate the moving image. What awes me is respect comic folks get. They are gods now and film executives toady to them. Look at San Diego each year, and how stars, directors, sit along a dais to curry favor with those they once called geeks. Super hero enthusiasm no longer asks for respect --- it is demanded. Those who ignore the constituency do so to peril of their product, and their jobs. Imagine a studio establishment and opinion makers afraid not to know who Harry Langdon was, or Jack Pierce, or when and why we lost precode movies. It’s the stuff of dreams, so never mind, but imagine someone going to a boy basement filled with Spiderman and Fantastic Fours, telling him that someday his kind of idol would rule media. Could such an outcome have been believed?