Watching SUPERMAN
This essay was originally posted to Twitter between September 5, 2021 and September 18, 2021. It was composed of 1,303 words across 28 tweets.
I didn't see SUPERMAN theatrically until nearly 30 years into my life, but I'd seen it countless times at home before that. The first time was copied off of HBO on a VHS tape. Cropped for 4:3 display, extended play setting, the works. I must have been three.
(At least it didn't have commercials.)
There's been some controversy, among movie lovers, about what counts as "seeing" a movie. Do you have to see it theatrically? Have you really seen the movie if you watch it on your TV? On your computer screen? On your phone? Who decides?
There is something to be said for the theatrical experience. It's the biggest screen, the best sound system, the most sumptuous way of experiencing a piece of cinematic art. Indeed, it's the format in which all movies--or, at least most of them--are intended to be exhibited.
But is that really true? Look at movies made prior to the advent of the television set, then look at movies made once the television had exploded in popularity. Generally speaking, there is a sudden simplification of shot compositions, a speeding-up of average shot lengths.
A compelling explanation for this sudden change in moviemaking is that movies now had two lives. They had a relatively brief life of theatrical exhibition, followed by a much longer (and potentially indefinite) second life on the content-hungry new medium of television.
Bear in mind as well that TV screens of the '50s and '60s were generally black and white, low resolution, and small. The same artfully complex, lengthy shots that played like gangbusters at the movie palace would be muddled and overstuffed with information when viewed at home.
Filmmakers began composing their movies with an eye for compromise. They began to employ shots that would be gorgeous enough on the big screen, without sacrificing their legibility once the movie entered a prolonged second career of exhibition at home on the television screen.
This included shortening the length of the shots. On a bigger screen, our eyes will tolerate lingering for longer, while, on a smaller, screen, information must be refreshed more frequently to hold our attention. Likewise, shot compositions were streamlined and simplified.
To further complicate the matter, in the 1950s, widesceen movies began to surpass movies that were made in the more squared-off "Academy" aspect ratio. Filmmakers were trying to offer something that audiences couldn't get at home, and widescreen was one of their strategies.
To show a widescreen movie on a square (4:3 aspect ratio) TV screen, the shots must be either letterboxed (black bars in the unused space above and below) or cropped, meaning the left and right sides of the picture would be removed, leaving it about three quarters intact.
This, too, impacted the way movies were made in a post-television world. Although filmmakers had access to the full width of the wide screen, it was in their best interests not to put anything "important" at both ends of the screen at once, lest it end up being cropped for TV.
This is not to say that movies were being made for TV, with the theatrical exhibition as an afterthought. If so, in the advent of today's high-resolution widescreen TVs, we could expect movies to slide back in the other direction. Alas, this hasn't been happening.
It just isn't correct to assume that movies are made with the big screen in mind. Filmmakers must be savvy about the panopoly of options available to their audience. Some may yet choose to compose for the big screen, but commercial imperatives often speak the loudest.
For me, spending the first portion of my SUPERMAN-watching career with a cropped, lo-fi copy of the movie was not ideal. Yet, it was not an incomplete experience. It worked well enough for me to become a favorite movie for life, long before I had access to a better presentation.
In 2008, someone took footage of David Lynch ranting about people watching movies on their phones and made a great gag commercial about it. In so many words, he does not believe a movie can be experienced on a phone screen.
Contrast his views with those of Martin Scorsese--not only a great filmmaker in his own right, but one of our preeminent movie preservationists. Scorsese will readily admit that many of the classic movies he's seen, he first saw on a small black and white TV as a child.
One might argue that there's some fundamental difference between a TV screen--even a small, low-resolution one--and a phone screen.
But the small black and white TV was the lowest display on the food chain in its day, just as the small handheld smart phone screen is today.
Whatever the limitations that the experience had for Scorsese, watching those great movies in a cropped, lo-fi presentation shaped him into a great filmmaker and a dyed-in-the-wool movie lover. If he didn't "experience the movie," in Lynch's terms, what do we call it?
Though largely settled now, there's also an argument about how we define movies. We all know that movies end up being watched on TV, whether through broadcast, streaming, or--for us luddites--physical media.
But what about the initial exhibition? Must it be theatrical?
This debate was still going on much more recently than one might think. For a long time, made-for-TV movies were a ghetto medium, in a different category, given lesser respect than their made-for-theatrical counterparts. Then came You Don't Know Jack (Levinson, 2010).
The earliest glimmer of what would come to be called prestige TV, or (in some quarters) "cinematic television," was The Sopranos, which debuted in 1999. The Wire followed in 2002, and the era was soon formalized mid-decade by shows like Mad Men (2007) and Breaking Bad (2008).
You Don't Know Jack, a feature length biopic about Dr. Jack Kevorkian, was released direct to HBO in 2010. Paul Schrader, himself a great filmmaker, praised it as the best movie of the year. Because it was not made for theatrical exhibition, it was ineligible for the Oscars.
Less than a decade later, Roma (Cuaron, 2018) was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Though Roma ran in theaters in limited release, it is distributed by Netflix--the first movie distributed by a streaming service to achieve such high honors at the Oscars.
Due to its theatrical run, Roma technically did not run afoul of the Academy's objection to non-theatrical movies. Even so, it's a matter of time. Especially in the era of COVID-19, movies making their debut on home platforms is becoming more and more acceptable to the public.
It's unreasonable to argue that you haven't "seen" the movie if you haven't seen it in a theater, or for filmmakers to demand that viewers must see their movies theatrically. I understand what they're getting at, though. They want you to have the most ideal experience possible.
I don't know if there is an argument to be made that only theatrical screenings count. I do, however, think it's important that film lovers see movies in the highest format available to them. That may be theatrical, or the television screen. Or even the computer or phone screen.
If you love food, and you live around the corner from the best restaurant in town, it's incumbent on you to try it. If you love music, it's incumbent on you, if at all possible, to graduate from ear buds and computer speakers to a record player and speakers in your home.
If you love something, treat it as something to be savored. I sought out that theatrical screening of SUPERMAN, not because I thought I'd never experienced it before, but because I had the opportunity to experience it in its most ideal form. And because I love it.
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Published 3/9/2024
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