Recently, Martin Scorsese made some waves on the internet when he said, more than once, that Marvel movies were “not cinema.” Those anchors of the Disney entertainment empire are widely seen in theaters around the world, fulfilling at least one basic criterion of what “cinema” might be.
Scorsese’s latest film, “The Irishman,” which for my money is about as good as cinema gets, is playing in theaters for just three weeks before taking up permanent residence on the Netflix streaming platform.
It will join Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” a multiple Oscar winner earlier this year, and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” as well as “Atlantics,” by the French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, an award-winner at the notoriously Netflix-hostile Cannes Film Festival in May. That’s a small sample, limited to just one streaming company. There’s a lot of cinema out there — maybe more than ever before — even if most viewers will have to stay home to experience it.
Which is no small matter, and nothing new. People have been watching movies at home since the early days of television. I doubt anyone is enough of a purist to refuse to watch them that way, but you don’t have to be a film snob to prefer the big screen, the dark room full of strangers, the community and communion of what is now half-dismissively called “theatrical.” The pictures look better that way.
Sometimes.
But you might have to endure under-illuminated projection, muddy sound and the threat of bedbugs. Not to mention the distraction of texting, talking, screaming babies, loud popcorn-chompers or — in the new, reserved-seating, cine-gastro-plexes — the aroma of someone else’s fish tacos. A decent flat screen can deliver a perfectly adequate, even superior, aesthetic experience — one you can control.
So you have to provide your own distractions. You can pause the picture, check your email, wander into the kitchen for a snack, fast-forward through the slow parts, switch over to the news. You’re free to desecrate a work of art on your own terms, in the privacy of your own home.
But at least you have access to those works. You can feast on masterpieces of world cinema with your Criterion Channel subscription, on blockbusters and family movies with Disney Plus. Your television will be a universal cinematheque, a big-box video store with no late fees.
Source: Will Streaming Kill the Art of Cinema or Grant It New Life? – The New York Times