Although I'm not intending to date myself, I admit I remember a time when there were only two ways to see a movie: at a movie theatre (indoor or outdoor) or when a movie was broadcast on TV. That was it. No Netflix, Amazon, Blue Ray, DVDs, VHS or even Beta. Theatre or boob tube were your only choices.
As a result, you'd rarely meet anyone who had seen any particular movie more than once. If they had, it would likely have been by fluke of seeing it on TV (perhaps on the Late Late Show, for example). Occasionally, you might meet someone who loved a movie so much, he had returned to the theatre to watch it again. This was usually someone who had fanatical, foam-at-the-mouth love for the film, though. Those who loved a film, but not enough to return to the theatre for it, would wait out the year or two for it to appear on prime-time television (unless it stalled at the box office – in which case, wait for it on the Late, Late Show, at 2 am).
With the advent of video cassette players, though, as well as movie channels like HBO (both generally arriving in the early 'eighties), the fanatics could ease out of the woodwork. Movies became as available as music: you could record them from broadcasts, buy them, watch them repeatedly on movie specialty channels, or (unlike music) even rent them. During the transition from VHS tape to DVD, even TV series became as available as movies and music (this was great news to someone who spent about 90% of his TV viewing time in the 1970's. I found other things to do in my teens. Now I can return to Jim Rockford's trailer via that gold Firebird whenever I like...).
So here's an intriguing phenomenon: familiarity doesn't breed contempt when it comes to art (or pop art, if you prefer) – it tends to breed affection. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, some of the most deep, abiding and sublime tastes are also acquired tastes. Usually when a song, a painting or a movie is more complex than is the norm, it may require repeated exposure for its value to be perceived. Even when the work is not especially complex, repeated exposure seems to help with its acceptance. There's a reason that record companies have paid millions of dollars over the years to have their chosen artists receive repeated (ad nauseum) radio airplay. Repeated exposure makes for familiarity, and familiarity breeds affection. You might not ever have liked “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, but it will certainly take you back to the '80's when you hear it, and probably get you onto the dance floor more easily than a more substantial song that you've never heard before.
So now we have a generation of film and TV buffs who can recite entire movies or episodes line for line, shot for shot. We may even have a greater proportion of the population paying more attention to the craft of film – camera angles, scripts, editing, acting, direction – details are studied with devotion now...but has this made for a more discerning audience?
If we look to music as a precursor – probably not. When music in recorded form first became widely available to average consumers, it happened to coincide with the vanguard of the Baby Boom. If you're a record label exec of the early '60's, how do you maximize sales? Appeal to the big, new generation of record-buyers: teenagers. All the harmonic complexity developed over many decades in Jazz was swept aside in favour of relatively simple, primal, sometimes even puerile ditties of the '50's. Not to say there wasn't some great Rock and Roll from that time, but it was a harmonic, lyrical and melodic step back fifty years to the music that had spawned Jazz: the Blues. Kind of like swapping your Honda Civic for a Model T. Early Rock certainly had its own kind of nuance, but anybody could “get” it. Bebop jazz had started to empty the dance floors with its intellectual demands; Rock re-filled them with its primal simplicity. Rock gradually grew in complexity as well, but it seems that every few years, there's a great cull of cerebral artists from popular affections, and simplicity rules again. The closest we come to progress these days is fresh retro.
Call me an idealist, but I think rock music must and will progress. Much of what holds music and cinema back these days is merely the corporate structure that allows short-term corporate gain in favour of long-term survival. No one will be buying the Justin Bieber back catalog ten years from now, 'though the Beatles and Zeppelin will probably still sell respectably (record execs from the '70's tended to sometimes think beyond next month, unlike those of today). Once this crumbling corporate structure ceases to matter, there is reason to hope that all these new amateur film students and independent music aficionados will recognize substantial art when they are exposed to it, and promote it effectively. As Napolean said, when your enemy is making an error, don't interrupt him...and as the media corporations squeeze the last dollars from their failing, soulless empires, all I can do is – applaud.
As a result, you'd rarely meet anyone who had seen any particular movie more than once. If they had, it would likely have been by fluke of seeing it on TV (perhaps on the Late Late Show, for example). Occasionally, you might meet someone who loved a movie so much, he had returned to the theatre to watch it again. This was usually someone who had fanatical, foam-at-the-mouth love for the film, though. Those who loved a film, but not enough to return to the theatre for it, would wait out the year or two for it to appear on prime-time television (unless it stalled at the box office – in which case, wait for it on the Late, Late Show, at 2 am).
With the advent of video cassette players, though, as well as movie channels like HBO (both generally arriving in the early 'eighties), the fanatics could ease out of the woodwork. Movies became as available as music: you could record them from broadcasts, buy them, watch them repeatedly on movie specialty channels, or (unlike music) even rent them. During the transition from VHS tape to DVD, even TV series became as available as movies and music (this was great news to someone who spent about 90% of his TV viewing time in the 1970's. I found other things to do in my teens. Now I can return to Jim Rockford's trailer via that gold Firebird whenever I like...).
So here's an intriguing phenomenon: familiarity doesn't breed contempt when it comes to art (or pop art, if you prefer) – it tends to breed affection. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, some of the most deep, abiding and sublime tastes are also acquired tastes. Usually when a song, a painting or a movie is more complex than is the norm, it may require repeated exposure for its value to be perceived. Even when the work is not especially complex, repeated exposure seems to help with its acceptance. There's a reason that record companies have paid millions of dollars over the years to have their chosen artists receive repeated (ad nauseum) radio airplay. Repeated exposure makes for familiarity, and familiarity breeds affection. You might not ever have liked “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, but it will certainly take you back to the '80's when you hear it, and probably get you onto the dance floor more easily than a more substantial song that you've never heard before.
So now we have a generation of film and TV buffs who can recite entire movies or episodes line for line, shot for shot. We may even have a greater proportion of the population paying more attention to the craft of film – camera angles, scripts, editing, acting, direction – details are studied with devotion now...but has this made for a more discerning audience?
If we look to music as a precursor – probably not. When music in recorded form first became widely available to average consumers, it happened to coincide with the vanguard of the Baby Boom. If you're a record label exec of the early '60's, how do you maximize sales? Appeal to the big, new generation of record-buyers: teenagers. All the harmonic complexity developed over many decades in Jazz was swept aside in favour of relatively simple, primal, sometimes even puerile ditties of the '50's. Not to say there wasn't some great Rock and Roll from that time, but it was a harmonic, lyrical and melodic step back fifty years to the music that had spawned Jazz: the Blues. Kind of like swapping your Honda Civic for a Model T. Early Rock certainly had its own kind of nuance, but anybody could “get” it. Bebop jazz had started to empty the dance floors with its intellectual demands; Rock re-filled them with its primal simplicity. Rock gradually grew in complexity as well, but it seems that every few years, there's a great cull of cerebral artists from popular affections, and simplicity rules again. The closest we come to progress these days is fresh retro.
Call me an idealist, but I think rock music must and will progress. Much of what holds music and cinema back these days is merely the corporate structure that allows short-term corporate gain in favour of long-term survival. No one will be buying the Justin Bieber back catalog ten years from now, 'though the Beatles and Zeppelin will probably still sell respectably (record execs from the '70's tended to sometimes think beyond next month, unlike those of today). Once this crumbling corporate structure ceases to matter, there is reason to hope that all these new amateur film students and independent music aficionados will recognize substantial art when they are exposed to it, and promote it effectively. As Napolean said, when your enemy is making an error, don't interrupt him...and as the media corporations squeeze the last dollars from their failing, soulless empires, all I can do is – applaud.