If you’re a regular reader of this blog, I must apologise for how sparse it has been of late. Certainly, there are many things happening. But I would hate to be one of those individuals who consume a daily diet of partisan news, get driven into a frenzy, and regurgitate it into the blogosphere.
I can only write about things that I know about, whether through research or personal experience. So I can share my thoughts about science fiction, or Breughel, or the production of motion pictures… but what do I know about the latter any more? COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on so many many industries and peoples’ lives; independent, audio-visual drama is only one of them. I wrote a short piece about this last year: since then, fundamentally not much has changed. Some bigger-budget production has recommenced, with the cast and principal crew encased in “bubbles”. A friend is in one of these bubbles now, pre-producing a series in Puerto Vallarta. He is tested every few days for COVID. He stays in one hotel room. His family stay in a different room. They have no physical contact. Production is scheduled to start with the arrival of the principal cast in March.
Obviously this is very risky. What happens if the bubble bursts, and an unreplaceable cast member gets infected? There’s no production insurance to cover a pandemic. So this, plus the cost of the bubble, and regular, fast-result COVID testing, means that only deep-pockets, studio or Amazon or Netflicks or HBO or Apple can currently afford to make films. Sure, you can shoot a movie for nothing with your phone within your own “bubble”. But low-budget, independent features, where you pay the crew and hire SAG actors, aren’t happening right now.
And nor is exhibition! Good cinemas in Florence, OR, Tucson, AZ, Boulder, CO, Dallas TX, Hoylake, Wirral, and many other places struggle to stay afloat — and the audience response in every case has been greatly encouraging. What happens to the big cinema chains, with their monoform diet of Disney, superheroes and war, matters not. It is the independent cinemas – the ones not owned by media monopolies, the theaters which screen classic and foreign feature films, which must, and I believe will, endure. The Loft and the IFS and the Texas Theatre will survive the pandemic because they supply a need and satisfy a desire — for genuine cinema. The closest analogy I can think of is vinyl. Twenty years ago Big Media was telling us vinyl was dead. CDs were infinitely better quality, they never skipped, and hey! why not rent music from us, via a stream? Big Media lied, and lost, and vinyl is once again state of the art, not just for audiophiles, but for regular music enthusiasts.
I think art cinema will prove equally resilient. AMC may go the way of Blockbuster, but over the years art houses will survive, and, I predict, flourish. Good films have an enduring quality. Crap quickly rots.
On the subject of film, here are links to a couple of other articles I wrote last year: one about recent Russian WW2 films, and one describing an idealized film festival celebrating the year 1972.
If you’re interested in more filmic rambling, including a penetrating analysis of Navalny’s Putin’s Palace, the documentary Collective, and Julien Temple’s Crock of McGowan, Pablo Kjolseth and I continue our IFS podcast here.
(Unfortunately Julian Assange remains in a COVID-wracked, high-security prison in London. The magistrate in the case has declared she will not allow him to be extradited to the US on espionage charges; however she has ordered the journalist to remain incarcerated, while the US government “appeals” against her decision. The failure of the MSM to cover the persecution of Assange is horrific. Some of the best reporting has been done by Craig Murray and Consortium News. This week Craig is to be tried in Scotland by a politically appointed judge – like Julian, no jury trial – also for the crime of journalism.
alexcox.com 