TV vs Film

Mark posted briefly a few days ago about finding TV more compelling than movies lately.  I don’t know whether I agree or not, but it something I’ve thought about (especially as a film buff who only a few years overcame a prejudiced and condescending view of television), and his post made the wheels of my mind start turning on the subject again.

I tried to come up with a cohesive essay-type thing with a thesis and everything, but it didn’t work…it’s too large a topic with too many variables and exceptions to deal with so quickly and with so little thought.  So here’s just some observations.  Make of them what you will.

  • Television really has improved over the last five or ten years.  Its reputation as the “bastard stepchild” of cinema is quickly falling by the wayside as actors and writers and directors and producers move more fluidly from tv to movies and back, bringing both quality and respectability. 
  • The fact that the average TV drama runs 18 hours per season (22 one-hour eps minus commercials) and may run for 3-7 seasons or longer means that a good showrunner can delve into much more complex plots and develop many more fully fleshed-out characters than is possible in the average two-hour film, yielding a more fulfilling and longer-lasting experience for the viewer.  On the downside, if the showrunner doesn’t have enough plot ideas or character development to fill the time, you end up with the “let’s try this, nope, let’s try this instead” style of writing that plagued the last couple of seasons of The O.C..
  • As well as being longer than film, TV is also shorter than film.  Each episode of a TV drama is roughly 45 minutes long without commercials, a much more easily consumable chunk than a 2-hour film.  This isn’t really a point for or against television’s quality, but just an observation that smaller chunks are appealing.  (Even books with lots of short chapters are a lot easier to read than ones with a few long chapters, even if the total page count is the same.)
  • Because a television show carries the same characters, world, and overall story (or at least setting) from week to week, it begets familiarity.  Sometimes different is good, but a lot of times familiar is good.  When I get home from work, tired and glad to be home, I tend to opt for the next episode of a TV show I already know rather than a movie that’s unfamiliar.  TV has the capability of being new and familiar at the same time.  And because it’s meant to be that way, it doesn’t suffer from sequel-itis like movies tend to do.  (Although it can, if the TV execs somehow manage to keep it on the air for a couple of seasons too long rather than cancel it a couple of seasons too early.  Can I trade two seasons of The X-Files and a few of Friends for a little more Wonderfalls and Firefly and Arrested Development?)
  • TV is more available and availably eclectic than film.  There are five major networks, each of which has ten to fifteen shows a week.  That’s at least fifty possible shows a week available.  Any given week, you won’t find more than twenty films or so in release, at least not in St. Louis, and that’s including independents. These shows are split between relationship-based dramas, science fiction, procedurals, sitcoms, reality shows, competitions, sports.  And that’s not even including cable channels, which adds in every sort of show imaginable.
  • Related to the previous point–film has a dichotomy of production/distribution models.  Mainstream Hollywood is often a very different thing from independent and world cinema.  Television does not have this dichotomy.  I suppose you could make a case that the big five equate to mainstream and cable equates to indie, but that doesn’t work entirely, simply because network TV itself contains more variety than mainstream film offers.  What multiplex would show Veronica Mars?  or Arrested Development?  These are cult shows that have a very devoted following, but simply aren’t mainstream (not that TV is a safe haven for them either, judging by the cancellation of AD despite an Emmy win).  The point is, if these shows were movies, we’d be watching them at indie theatres, not multiplexes.
  • I’ve put forth a lot of thoughts about TV over film.  But really, these are just the areas in which TV does have advantages over film by nature of its medium.  In other areas, film has it all over TV.  The ability to sustain moods–TV can’t sustain a mood for longer than fifteen minutes because of the commercials.  Immersion–for the same reason.  I don’t know how to term this, but storytelling that covers only a short period in someone’s life…a turning point, or an epiphany.  Garden State was an amazing and beautiful film, but it would’ve been a horrible TV show, because it’s about one weekend that changes a man’s life.  You can’t make that happen every week on a TV show.

The crux of the matter is this: Is TV really more compelling than film right now?  If by “TV” you mean Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars and Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Farscape and Babylon 5 and Arrested Development and Grey’s Anatomy, and if by “film” you mean whatever wanna-be blockbuster is playing at the multiplex, then YES.  But that’s the cream of TV’s crop versus the mediocrity of mainstream Hollywood.  Good TV may be easier to find than good film, just because it’s there on your TV set right next to all the Everybody Loves Raymonds and the Yes, Dears and the King of Queenses and the third season of The OC.  But good film is out there.  Here’s a few great films I’ve watched this calendar year: Match Point, Good Night and Good Luck, Cache, Pickpocket (a bit of a cheat, since it’s from 1959, but I did see it in a theatre, so there), Primer, Wallace and Gromit, Walk the Line, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, Inside Man, Thank You for Smoking, The Constant Gardener, Brick, Downfall, Thumbsucker.  Only three of those played at the multiplexes.  I think three of them didn’t even play in St. Louis at all.  I realize I sound elitist.  But I think the dichotomy of film distribution is making people think that good film is more scarce than it is.

Randomosity

Warning: This post is going to be random. I feel like writing, because I haven’t for a while, but I really don’t have anything substantial to say. End of disclaimer.

Back from Florida. And I didn’t get a sunburn this year! Maybe the first time ever. My coworker has been teasing me for weeks about using sunscreen, so there was no way I was going to come home burned. Granted, I’m not hugely tanned, either, but then I don’t tan well. I got a little, so I’m happy.

Back to work. Well, since I’m leaving in a month (!), my main responsibility right now is training someone else to do my job. Since I’ve been working with her for like three weeks now, and my job isn’t hard, she’s largely got it and is doing it. So, I’m filling time catching up some requests from other banks, stuff like that. It’s just sort of weird, not doing the the work that I’ve been doing since I started.

And tomorrow, off. But what the heck is going on with Fair St. Louis this year? No airshow? NO FREAKIN’ AIRSHOW? The hell? We go to the fair EVERY YEAR to get a funnel cake, see the air shows, and watch the fireworks. And I was especially looking forward to it because I won’t be here for the St. Louis County Fair and Air Show this September. Grumble. I’m boycotting Fair St. Louis.

So, with my long-proclaimed disdain for reality shows, guess what my summer TV lineup looks like? So You Think You Can Dance, Treasure Hunters, America’s Got Talent, and reruns of Who’s Line Is It Anyway? and What Not to Wear (the BBC versions, natch). Heh. But I can’t help it if TV stations don’t run real shows in the summer, can I? I suppose I could concentrate on catching up on Gilmore Girls so I can watch the new season this fall…I’m only five seasons behind. I even DVR’d Tuesday Night Book Club, but I watched the first ten minutes and deleted it. It was crap. SYTYCD, though, is not quite up to American Idol-level interest, but it’s getting close. I don’t know that much about dancing, and I have trouble enjoying contemporary dance because it just looks dumb to me, but the ballroom stuff and the hip-hop stuff is great fun to watch.

I’ve noticed something about me and hip-hop (/rap/r&b). I don’t like listening to it. Can hardly stand it sometimes. But I really like some of the hip-hop-style dancing. And I also often find that I like rap songs when they’re used in movies and commercials and stuff like that. Here’s my new theory. Rap is harsh and feels like it’s born from pain…like krump, it’s a lashing out in frustration, in anger. It feels heavy and intense. So when it’s put in a context like that, like the use of “Jesus Walks” in Jarhead, or “Lose Yourself” in 8 Mile, it fits. It raises the intensity. And later, when I hear the same song out of context, I’m reminded of that intensity, that unleashing of harsh feeling, and it’s meaningful in some way. But when I hear a rap song on the radio first, with no context, it feels overwrought and just seems noisy. I don’t know if that makes sense at all, but I’ve been thinking about why I do like rap songs that I first heard in a movie so much more than ones that I first heard on the radio.

Aw, no more grad students on Treasure Hunters. So, since they dropped out, does that mean there’s no elimination this round? Oh, no, the Browns are back. Okay. Hee…the Hanlons are worried. That’s because you suck only slightly less than the Browns! Heh. But I’m sad for the grad students. She tried so hard to keep going, and the other two worked so hard to carry her. Yay, more Ask.com product placement. Normally I’m not against product placement at all, but this show is a bit overboard. You know all the contestants are thinking, damn, I wish they’d let me use Google. And can I just say how disappointed I am in the Fogels? Come on, preacher man, quit being a jerk. Honestly. Okay, I’m done now. Nobody but me is watching this anyway.

Vacation

I love being on vacation. I want to do it all the time. But then I might get bored of it.

Good drive down to Florida this year. We did a couple of hours Friday night after I got off work, and then the rest on Saturday. I ended up driving most of Saturday, because Dad was reading. Yep, that’s right. My Dad, the man who rarely reads more than a magazine every now and again, is now almost halfway through Catch-22. I recommended it to him after I read it and loved it last year, and we finally decided that this trip was the time he should read it. To be honest, I was completely prepared for him to give up, but he’s really enjoying it. Mom pointed out to me that he really does enjoy reading when he’s got time and doesn’t feel like he should be doing something more productive, which is really right. I’m just really glad he’s liking it. And I finally convinced Mom that Reading Lolita in Tehran isn’t really about Lolita and that she might like it and not get corrupted by the presence of Lolita. And she is liking it! So far my book recommendations this trip have really panned out nicely.

Meanwhile, I read an entire Agatha Christie mystery today. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I’ve read a lot of Christie novels before, but not this one…and I saw it written up on a few “best of” sort of lists recently, so I thought I’d check it out. Really great detective novel. Agatha Christie is such good vacation reading…light, easy, fun, and makes you think only in an enjoyable “solve the mystery” sort of way. So now I only have seven books left to read on the trip. Yeah, I way overdo it. Always have.

I haven’t been down to Pensacola Beach since Hurricane Ivan devastated the place two years ago. My parents were down last year, so I’d heard about it, but even now it’s still pretty bad. The beach is completely flat in most places, no sand dunes. About half of the condos are still out of commission, and the road is in the process of being completely redone. Construction equipment everywhere, and piles of sand and debris that have been sifted out of one another. I’ve seen it after hurricanes before, but never like this. And this is two years later! Dad’s amazed that it’s taking so long to get stuff fixed…I’m speculating that some of the labor force has been siphoned off to New Orleans, but who knows. Maybe the condo owners are just still arguing with the insurance companies.

The condos we used to rent aren’t opened back up yet. The ones we’re in are pretty nice, but there’s no pool or tennis courts. But there’s a great balcony overlooking the Gulf, and I get to sleep in where the TV is, which is fine with me. ;) And I’ve just discovered that there’s a wireless internet connection (obviously!). Although I probably would’ve gotten more reading done had I not discovered that I can use the internet. Oh well.

The Aesthetic of the Moment

To ponder: The majority of independent film as an aesthetic of the “moment.” A series of memorable moments more than a cohesive whole. Opposed to mainstream film, in which every moment must serve the main point of the movie, whether it be plot, humor, or action. Generalizations, of course. Needs more thought. (This has been brought to you by Things I Think About While Driving Into Work.)

May Reading/Watching Recap

Including my reactions to Rize, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Downfall, The Canterbury Tales, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, among other things.

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