Small screen, silver screen, or something in-between?

 

‘For years, I had effectively renounced the idiot box, claiming that, as  a film critic, I had no time for such frippery’
–  Mark Kermode, 2007

 

America leads the way

In this age of media convergence, as the distinction between the systems of production and channels of distribution continue to break down, HBO is playing a major role in the merger between the film and television industries. Since receiving prestigious awards back in 2003 at Sundance (American Splendor) and Cannes (Elephant) for movies that they financially backed, HBO Films have exhibited a restless fascination with the very meaning of originality and strategically distanced themselves from the formulaic excesses of Hollywood. Even when working with familiar territory in their made-for-TV canon, they have been able to successfully exploit the freedoms granted to subscription TV (often involving, but not limited to, excessive violence, swearing and sexual content) and capitalise on the up-and-coming talents in the worlds of screenwriting and directing. Working from Oscar Wilde’s claim that “it is personalities, not principles, that move the age,” the single largest output of HBO Films have been those that grapple with the cultural memory of a public figure. The most recent biopics of the underrepresented Jack Kevorkian (You Don’t Know Jack) and Temple Grandin (Temple Grandin) convey the optimistic message that perhaps the times we live in are better thanks to the efforts and achievements of such recent agents of progress. In a similar way, I like to think we owe a lot to HBO’s championing of complex and maverick film making for both their cinematic originality and social provocation.  

Joseph Newall

The Cinema experience

For me, the joy of film is bound up with the ceremony of the cinema. Nothing can compare to the big screen with its immersive sound system, dimmed lighting and velvety seats, the hushed voices and collective gasps and guffaws of strangers. No one can argue that a TV screen experience comes anywhere near close, not even in the age of the inordinately sized HD flat screen. Why? Because, my dear cinephiles, cinema is a state of mind. The sensory experience aside, there is nothing like stepping into the Phoenix or Ultimate Picture Palace in fifth week and being forced to empty your mind of the essay deadlines, underwhelming tutes and midterm spats. This is not something a dose of iPlayer at your desk can remedy; it was this cruel piece of furniture that witnessed the tears and trauma, remember? If you stay stagnating in your pokey college room, you can only expect to feel jaded, even if the last hour counts as veritable downtime. 

At the cinema, you are entering into a safe place where quotidian Oxford concerns must be abandoned for a total focus on the drama of another. A trip to the cinema can often feel like a short holiday, leaving you stimulated, invigorated and somehow better equipped to go back to the outside world. The significant social aspect also cannot be ignored; sharing a film with someone can be like sharing a secret, months from now you will still be able to reference it, not as you might with a TV show, but as an experience. How many times after a piece of quality TV do you sit down with your squared-eyed companion for a wine fuelled discussion of its ambiguities and subtleties? Post-cinema chat in Oxford, I grant you, can be shockingly pretentious, in which case I would suggest making a quick exit.

Cecilia Stinton

The joys of serialisation

As the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth falls this year, all channel controllers took the opportunity to infiltrate our TV guides with every single film and series vaguely related to his life. My emphasis on ‘vaguely’ directly applies to the ‘Great Sexpectations’-style plotline of Alfonso Cuarón Orozco’s 1998 film shown on Sky Movies 1 starring Hawke and Paltrow. In this sexed up version of Dickens’s quintessentially Victorian novel, ‘Finn’ (because ‘Pip’ simply doesn’t sound realistic enough) associates this romantic pursuit directly with the physical conquest of Estella. A knife would not be a strong enough instrument to cut through the sexual tension of this film. 

After Christmas, when all eyes were glued to either the Downton Abbey or Made in Chelsea Christmas specials, the BBC chose the optimum moment to throw another appropriated Dickens in our overfed, sofa-dwelling direction. Over three nights we watched the one-time Burberry model Douglas Booth play ‘Pip’ against a brilliant depiction of nineteenth-century rural poverty and London smog. Eerie cinematography rendered this production compellingly chilling. Miss Havisham’s blanched exterior visually contended with the darkness of Pip’s home, the ‘forge’, displaying the complex binaries of Dickens’ novel. 

As it’s probably clear, my preference was for the television update of Great Expectations. That’s not to say that the 90s film was second-rate in comparison: it simply had the wrong title. Not only did the BBC production retain the background illustrated by Dickens, with its inheritance of the industrial revolution, class prejudice and poor health, but also,  and most importantly , it was a series. When Dickens wrote his novels, he serialised them — each chapter was bound and printed sequentially, providing his readers with another instalment of his extensive story every month or so. With this adaptation we were taken back in time to the Victorian system of publication. While we can ordinarily fast-forward, rewind, skip the adverts and watch the ‘behind the scenes’ footage of a programme before it’s even been shown in full on terrestrial TV, we were forced to wait for the second and third episodes of Great Expectations, and were therefore subbjected to the authentic Dickensian experience.                          

 Harriet Clarfelt

What Cinema thinks about TV

TV can get a rough time from its older brother, the cinema. A bit like a jealous sibling; the movies invent all kinds of stories. In films the humble television can be a portal to something horrid. In Poltergeist, a TV set abducts a young girl. In Ringu, quite the reverse. An alien invades Earth through a family’s satellite dish in 80s rubbish TerrorVision, while in 1992’s Stay Tuned a couch potato gets sucked up into his. 

Even when there isn’t a monster climbing out of it television is a risky business. Like in Requiem for a Dream, where a pensioner’s TV habit leads inevitably to drug addiction and madness. Or in neon pantomime Batman Forever, where Jim Carrey sucks the population’s brainpower out through its screens (we all know that feeling). Or, a whole different kettle of mutated fish, in David Cronenberg’s sublimely mind- and flesh-bending Videodrome television gets up to just about everything you can and can’t think of.

It’s not surprising when the people behind TV are only one step above Bond villains. Making a modern day black-face minstrel show in Bamboozled. Rigging a quiz show, in Quiz Show, so that Gentiles beat Jews. Giving Jim Carrey air-time in The Truman Show. Or being an actual Bond villain in Tomorrow Never Dies. But, despite the ghost- and brainwashing-related risks, is TV really any the less popular? Cinema giant Orson Welles once said, ‘I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.

James Aber

The rise of the mini-series

Perhaps only ten years ago, TV and Film were treated as distinct formats. Few people streamed movies online, and most television series weren’t held in particularly high regard. But now the two have merged somewhat, into a varied grey area, where plenty of films and series now reside. Perhaps the main reason for this is the increased budget of the entertainment sector. The advent of on-demand television and a wider variety of TV channels has increased the popularity of television, thereby allowing some series access to a budget comparable to the biggest Hollywood blockbusters.

When on-demand TV is coupled with the prevalence of pirated movies online, we can see that many people are now able to view movies and programmes in a very similar way. That is, cooped-up in front of our laptops in a darkened room, listening through headphones that inevitably belonged to a now misplaced iPod.

The production values of both formats are now effectively equal too, since even the most famous producers dabble in both art forms. For example, Martin Scorsese, JJ Abrams, and Stephen Spielberg produced Boardwalk Empire, Lost, and The Pacific, respectively. These are perhaps the series to have been revered most vocally throughout the last decade. The interesting thing about the latter is that is was a ‘mini-series’, a format that audaciously strides the middle ground between TV and Film. British journalist Francis Wheen states, “Both soap operas and primetime series cannot afford to allow their leading characters to develop, since the shows are made with the intention of running indefinitely.  In a mini-series on the other hand, there is a clearly defined beginning, middle and end, enabling characters to change, mature, or die as the serial proceeds.” 

Clearly one can see how series are encroaching on the space that once belonged purely to film. Some may complain that this change dilutes the purity of both TV and Film, but I for one am happy to embrace this new broader spectrum. After all, who would want a rainbow that goes straight from red to violet?

Nathan O’Neill