He particularly emphasizes the notion of a film’s “theatricality.” According to him, people will go to the cinema if they believe the film is worth seeing. It doesn’t matter what genre it is, as long as the expected experience is unattainable at home. Director Jon M. Chu goes Perceiving cinema even further by perceiving cinema as a social experience . According to him, cinema is difficult to replace with sharing a film with friends, family, and strangers.
But not everyone is so convinced by the social place occupied by cinema. Kumail Nanjiani sees young people as a generation that only watches YouTube and has no film culture . Cinema would therefore no longer have a central place in society. Joe Russo and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, more nuanced, see an evolution in the type of formats consumed by young people to which cinema must adapt to continue to interest them, by serializing films for example.
Hollywood “a cinema” among others
But Hollywood is not representative of world cinema . It is simply its most visible hotels and motels email list form. This is what Indie Wire wanted to remind us by giving a voice to small film distributors, whose opinions were not reported in the New York Times.
Ryan Kampe, president of the distribution company VisitFilms, partly shares Hollywood’s view that the current cinema is not doing well. Especially for “small films” for which the classic cinema model “is broken.” Dennis Lim, director of programming at Film at Lincoln Center, also agrees that Hollywood is in trouble. But according to him, the art itself must be separated from the economic model . He concludes his intervention by asking, “How can an art form sustain itself or even thrive while the economic model that supports it is collapsing?” Even if “cinema is much more than Oscar-winning films and festivals.”
Eric Hynes, curator at the Museum of the Moving Image, speaks of a rather self-centered innovations in technology for software Hollywood . There are other types of cinema that cater to “enthusiasts who want to watch independent or 35mm films.” Richard Lorber, CEO of Kino Lorber, fully agrees and calls for “broadening the discussion about the future of cinema to independents . ” According to him, “there remains a community of enthusiasts who support the movie theater experience . ”
Ted Mundorff CEO of Landmark Theatres
believes this is more of a cyclical problem than a structural one : “We’ve always had to go through challenges and we’ve always bounced back.”
The market is strong enough to hold up, he says. Joana Vicente, executive director and vice-president of the Toronto International Film Festival and TIFF Bell Lightbox, compares the film industry to the book industry, “which many declared dead, but in fact it has never been so healthy in North America . ”
According to Rajendra Roy, MOMA’s chief film curator, programming needs to be revitalized and conditions for direct engagement with filmmakers created . The notion of ” community ” may be one of the keys to the problem. Rachel Jacobson, a cinema director, has implemented a membership system with her community, through which she generates a portion of her revenue. Cameron Bailey, co-director of TIFF, suggests using data, like Netflix, to understand the precise expectations of viewers.
Will cinema survive?
Like every disruption in a sector or industry, consumer behaviors change, new major players emerge, economic logics are no longer the same, and traditional players doubt their ability to cope with a new change. Yes, cinema as we have known it will necessarily evolve. But not disappear. The key to survival lies in innovation . In all its forms. It encompasses both writing work to adapt narratives to new generations, a questioning of existing economic models, the use of new forms of marketing (particularly with better data control), finding new markets or even supporting and strengthening amateur communities.
It’s important to remember that cinema has been a changing industry Perceiving cinema since its inception. Today’s sale lead cinema is not the same as yesterday’s, and yesterday’s is no more the same as the one before yesterday. It survived television, and it will survive Netflix . The key is to accept these changes, adapt, and not get attached to an old fantasy. Otherwise, you’ll end up “doing a Kodak”: sticking with film…
