…film within film, 1913 style, in Louis Feuillade’s A Tragic Error, also in the Kino Gaumont box referenced below.
It’s funny, I was thinking the other day, about how when I hawk treasures such as these on the blog, I’ll invariably hear from somebody who’ll comment, half-facetiously, about how I’m indirectly bankrupting them. Which is certainly not my intention. Home video really has made cinephilia a subset of consumerism in a way, hasn’t it? I remember as a kid, reading Clarens and Sarris and the Grove Press film books and so on, and wondering, “How the hell am I ever gonna get to see this stuff?” One could move to a major metropolitan area…or found a film club and start renting things…get to know a film collector, or become one yourself. And when the first home video machines came on the market, there emerged a subculture of film freaks who travelled to various motels to tape cinema treasures off of local stations (it was via one such tape that I saw Blast of SIlence for the first time). And now it’s largely a matter of waiting for availability, and clicking one or two buttons on Amazon.
Speaking of availability/nonavailability, apparently A THOUSAND CLOWNS, which is still inexplicably not on DVD, will be showing on TCM this weekend. I just about wore out my VHS copy, and am looking forward to seeing it again.
:: salivating over Barbara Harris ::
The shift from appreciation to collecting is a pretty major consequence of the home video revolution. I’m not complaining, exactly—I love being able to own all these great movies, to go back and watch, say, the gymnasts from Man With A Movie Camera whenever I want. But I have been making a conscious effort to see more revivals (at Anthology, MoMA, and the like) and buy fewer DVDs. Granted, this is largely possible because I live in a “major metropolitan area”—it’s obviously great that those in, say, Ohio, now have almost as much access to foreign film as us snooty NYers (though the Anthology means we still have the edge on never-released-on-disc experimental stuff). But there is something obscene about the movie collection too massive to watch—for a lot of people, it’s become the new gold-bound Everyman library, objects whose purpose is to impress rather than to be watched.
If $$$ are an issue, all one needs is the internet, a Netflix account, and a DVD burner and one never has to buy a DVD again (‘cept blank ones)…
Not that I would ever, EVER violate copyright.
Whatever the dark side of collecting may be, I’ve still been told that there’s no point in watching “Eraserhead” at home on DVD, and that if you can’t see it in the theater, then you can’t really see it. Well great, thanks, but I’ll still take what I can get, if it’s all the same to you.
I think the Eraserhead DVD is pretty keen, actually, with a great interview w/ Lynch.
There is, however, no point in watching Mulholland Drive on DVD, as Lynch actually censored his own film for the DVD version. While I understand his reasoning (he didn’t want that scene to be used for, um, prurient purposes) it’s very jarring and does bring one completely and totally out of the film.
@Tom – Hah? What are you talking about?
Lynch briefly used digital blurring in the DVD version of the film to partially mask a nude scene featuring Laura Harring.
Crap, and I already watched Mulholland Drive on DVD…first time I saw it too…I did a quick Google search and apparently very little was changed (I know I’m gonna get in trouble for thinking there’s such a thing).
Glenn, I didn’t mean to say that you posting this stuff bankrupts me. Rather, it just frustrates me that I don’t have an account big enough TO bankrupt. Really, I should’ve just said I need to find some more damn time, because I can afford a pretty decent Netflix account. Don’t do the rent-and-burn thing, because I know if I own a movie in any fashion that I have yet to watch, it’ll sit there for years before I get to it. Rentals force expedience.
And, again, just so I don’t come across as a ginormous pervert here, it’s not that I had any overriding desire/need to see the nudity. It’s just that the blurring was kinda distracting and odd.
@Tom and Gareth – Well, I never noticed that, and I was really looking. I’ll check it out tonight and see if I can see the blur. No, that’s okay, I don’t mind.
Barbara Klinger’s book BEYOND THE MULTIPLEX has some interesting thoughts on changing patterns of media consumption and how they relate to cinephilia. Worth reading.
“—it’s obviously great that those in, say, Ohio, now have almost as much access to foreign film as us snooty NYers ”
As someone who lives in Ohio, I can only say, “Amen!” (:
Jonah, thanks for the reminder about Barbara Klinger’s book– I would definitely like to check that out.
The Internet needs more Feuillade stills: http://soundsimages.blogspot.com/2009/09/tih-minh-divided-by-10-for-gk.html
Glen, can you tell this guy, who’s never known a world without a video store on every block, about this taping subculture? It comes up in film blogs now and again, but only in passing. Seems to me there’s something there.