Defining cinema

While traveling recently, I decided to indulge my consumerist, carnivorous and nearly shameful self by pulling over to enjoy some McDonald’s. While waiting in the seemingly endless line and wondering if something such as enjoying McDonald’s is actually possible, my mind was on anything but the motion picture industry – that is, until I saw a man stroll over to a vending machine look-a-like, his Quarter Pounder with Cheese in hand, and rent “Evan Almighty” for $1 from the world’s largest fast-food chain.

I had seen these “DVD vending machines” before, though the sightings had been limited to grocery stores mostly. They’re called “Redboxes,” and they allow you to rent DVDs for $1 per day, with no hidden late fees other than that $1. After 25 days of not returning the movie to another Redbox location, the $1 daily charge stops, and the movie is yours. 

It seems that today’s motion picture industry is almost nothing like that of the golden age of cinema during the 1940s and ’50s.  It was then that moviegoers would get dressed up in order to go to the movies, traveling to the nearest “movie palace” as they were called, vast buildings full of luxury, suited ushers, dazzling lights and lush carpet. For the price of admission one could see a newsreel; a short comedy film, such as the “Three Stooges”; a serial, such as “Flash Gordon”; animated cartoons, such as “Bugs Bunny”; a B feature, such as a Western; and finally, the main attraction. 

The movie industry’s main source of revenue today is DVDs, a format that seems to be at the center of the entire business. 

Studios change the content of movies for specific DVD releases, such as a director’s cut, an unrated version or the always bland and boring theatrical cut. Movies are being increasingly released with ungodly amounts of special features, such as deleted scenes, outtakes, character biographies, behind the scenes sequences, Academy Award acceptance speeches and – my personal favorite – character family trees.

This bonus material, these altered versions of the movies we know and love, these nearly absurd locations of places where you can rent DVDs – they’re all apart of today’s DVD culture. This culture is obviously captivating and informative for a million different reasons.

Of course we enjoy the DVD bonus features; we get to experience different aspects of movies that we love. These little features let us enjoy our favorite movies in ways that are different from our initial viewings, keeping the movies fresh. For the length of the bonus material, we normal folk are able to step inside the making of an actual feature film and see the inner workings of movies that we love.  

Of course getting movies from Netflix or Redboxes at McDonald’s or Kroger is great. Never before has the general public been able to sit at their house or stand in line at the grocery store and let the movies come to them. 

However, therein lies the DVD culture’s weakness when considering a viewer’s cinematic experience as a whole: sure, bonus material enables movies that we love to become more tangible to us, but it also disassembles the illusion that those same movies impose upon us, nearly destroying the one thing that movies were created for in the first place: escapism. 

Immersing ourselves in this DVD culture breaks apart that mythical quality of movies and shows us the truth and the fact behind the actual production. No longer can we watch “The Godfather” and think of Sonny Corleone as a real person when we are listening to James Caan’s commentary about how he prepared for the role.

In the age of DVDs, it’s obvious that cinema is a much more universal medium than what it started out to be.  What’s left up to us is the way we choose to enjoy it.  Call me old fashioned, but I pray that I will never rent a movie from McDonald’s. 

Instead, let’s splurge every once in a while. Go ahead and buy those tickets to the midnight showing of “The Dark Knight.” Travel out to the drive-in and watch an old movie with your friends the way our parents did.

Believe me, in our generation that deems the 2.5-inch display on your iPod as an acceptable place to watch movies, this is about as close as you’re going to get to the old-fashioned lights, camera and action.