Art house cinema is dying

[jguitar]

As others have noted, I think that there is reason to be sceptical of the "death of (arthouse) cinema" claims, although cold hard numbers might make me revise that opinion. The Guardian article is referring to only new films, and French ones at that. While rep houses have been declining in most places, one place where that doesn't seem to be true is Paris. This is purely anecdotal--based on my experiences in 2001-2002--but the rep houses in Paris always seemed well attended. I remember seeing Garrel's Les Hautes Solitudes in a packed Left Bank theatre with an audience so quiet you could hear a pin drop (or, given Nico's presence in the film, a syringe). Again, actual audience numbers may put the lie to my anecdotal memories of well-attended older films, but I remember having to wait in line a lot for things like 40 Guns and Clint Eastwood's Breezy.

It's just possible that recent French films aren't that good. Arty fare can be popular still. The example for me is Glaneurs et la Glaneuse: at the cinema near where I was living (not far from where Mme. Varda herself lives) there were always tremendous lines for that film for weeks.

After re-reading all this, it sounds a bit old-codgerish: "In my day . . .", even though it was only a few years ago.

[MichaelB]

At the very least, contemporary figures would need to be compared with those from several years ago.

Which is considerably easier to do in France than in most other countries, as they've always traditionally measured box office success in ticket numbers rather than hard cash.

[zedz]

Ingmar Bergman triple bills ranked alongside recent mainstream titles for the reliability of their income potential

I saw the Winter Light / Silence trilogy at the Everyman back in 1991, and Pasolini's Trilogy of Life a couple of weeks later. Within the course of a month I managed to see half a lifetime's worth of unseen cinema in London: almost all of Pasolini's features, a couple of Bressons, Lucifer Rising, Walkabout, Testament d'Orphee, plus classic Hollywood and recent / new European arthouse films filling in the gaps. On subsequent visits, the variety of available cinema declined drastically each time, and what used to be a major exercise of coordinating the programmes of up to ten lively cinemas competing for my attention has become a depressing scan of what the NFT and a couple of other screens have on offer.

[Arn777]

French films have only enjoyed 5-20% of French B.O.

Eh? where did you get your stats? From Jan to Nov 2006, French films had a 44.2% market share (38.1% in 2005) according to CNC, US films had 46%.

Over the past 10 years, french films have attracted between 40-50% of audiences. The problem is that this 44.2% is thanks to a handful of commercial films, and you have over 100 French films which attracts low numbers. 10 years ago the number of French films produced was around 100. In 2006, there were over 180 films produced in France. Total budgets have exploded from Euro 385 million 10 years ago to nearly Euro 1 bn last year.
The people who have gained the most are mainstream producers backed by TV/Media groups, and the independent ones are struggling or killing themselves cf Humbert Balsan.

The main difference is that films have become like other fast moving consumer goods (and the DVD format has probably accelerated this, if you go to an HMV or Virgins you see piles and piles of films like cans of food in a supermarket and studios and retailers use the same methods to shift them).

[GringoTex]

I've been out of the arthouse cinema business for over a decade, but from 1989-95 I was a first-hand witness to declining audiences.

I ran a repertory operation from 1994-2000 and also saw a decline. We had an incredible funding infrastructure, however, and were able to show many films with free admission. Charge $4 for a brand new 35mm Fassbinder print and 60 would show up. Show it for free and 600 people would show up.

[Le Feu Follet]

I have been very interested to read this discussion, but I think that there is another reason which has not yet been touched upon.

I can remember how it was in the '60s, when awaiting the next Godard, Bergman or Satyajit Ray film was surrounded by the same sense of excitement as the next Beatles or Rolling Stones album. Now it is no longer the case, and I know some people of my generation who think that this is because there has been a decline in the quality and interestingness of films. I disagree. I think the parade has moved on, and it has moved eastwards. In more recent times there have been extremely interesting, challenging and affecting films from the likes of Abbas Kiarostami, Bela Tarr, Hou Hsaou Hsien, Wong Kar wai, etc. South Korea is now a considerable film-making country, but my friends don't seem to want to know. They seem to have a 'European' mind-set. They know what they know from the formative years of their youth, and haven't found it in themselves to swing the searchlight in a slightly different direction.

Some younger people are open to Asian cinema, but they expect to find there only anime or vengeance blood-fests.

I believe that behind all this is the very destructive effect that Hollywood has had on film, in turning an art into a channel for profit, so that a film needs a qualifying adjective and is called an 'art-film', while a commercial, channel-for-profit, film is called just a 'film'. In the ordinary punter's mind, film = Hollywood film, and it had better be mindlessly entertaining while they eat their popcorn.

I have seen the shrinkage in the number of 'specialist cinemas' in London and in Paris. I think for a movie lover like me the advent of the DVD is the best thing that has happened. I no longer have to wait ten years for some cinema to decide to show a few Angelopoulos films, I have them on my shelf. Also, I no longer get a high art/low art frisson as I penetrate the trash aesthetic of a typical cinema, surrounded by buckets of Coke and popcorn, to gain access to the possible art within, and am just as happy to stay at home. I think there is a lot many cinemas could do to accommodate the needs and opinons of the customers who actually care.

I say all this without even touching on the old war-horse of the destructive effect of cinema distribution, at least in the UK, which has meant that on most cinema-going occasions all the cinemas within reasonable distance are showing the same sad selection of potboilers.

[Barmy]

Abbas Kiarostami, Bela Tarr, Hou Hsaou Hsien, Wong Kar wai, etc.

Maybe because, compared to Godard, Truffaut, Fellini, Antonioni, etc., their films are boring as batshit. The classics of the 60s and 70s may have been (somewhat) difficult, but at least they had stars and, to some degree, plots.

The very idea of standing in line to see a Kiarostami (or any Iranian film) is laughable.

I might add that the Antonioni retro at BAM last summer was HUGELY popular. It had to be moved to their largest theater and even then many shows sold out repeatedly (including such alleged obscurities as "The Eclipse"). Bergman's "The Silence" screened at MoMA the other day and completely filled their larger theater.

[Le Feu Follet]

I agree, it's the plot that made l'Avventura the film it is. L'Eclisse, too, with its really punchy ending.

[Barmy]

Those films DO have recognizable plots. Maybe they seemed plotless at the time of release, but there is a story arc in each of them that you could even put in a 3 sentence pitch. Try doing that for a Hou film.

[Antoine Doinel]

Abbas Kiarostami, Bela Tarr, Hou Hsaou Hsien, Wong Kar wai, etc.

Maybe because, compared to Godard, Truffaut, Fellini, Antonioni, etc., their films are boring as batshit. The classics of the 60s and 70s may have been (somewhat) difficult, but at least they had stars and, to some degree, plots.

The very idea of standing in line to see a Kiarostami (or any Iranian film) is laughable.

I might add that the Antonioni retro at BAM last summer was HUGELY popular. It had to be moved to their largest theater and even then many shows sold out repeatedly (including such alleged obscurities as "The Eclipse"). Bergman's "The Silence" screened at MoMA the other day and completely filled their larger theater.

Your feelings on contemporary "arthouse" directors aside, using New York as a barometer of arthouse popularity is completely biased. It is one of the most cinephile friendly cities in the world. Any niche you might be interested in has a theater dedicated to it.

[Barmy]

The point I was trying to make was a comparative one. No one in NYC gives a sh*t about Hou or Iranian cinema. Even Tarr's shorter films draw minimal audiences in NYC. Show something good and people will come out in droves.

[Michael Kerpan]

Virtually all Hou films have rather dense underlying plots -- but the presentation of the films follow the character's moods and reactions and not plot details.

In any event, so nice of you, barmy, to let us know which films are worthless.

[miless]

In any event, so nice of you, barmy, to let us know which films are worthless.

exactly... and the films of today are an extension of those "more traditional" works of the 60's and 70's (by those directors that Barmy mentioned, but he ignored Paradjanov, Tarkovsky, Resnais, Angelopoulos, Herzog, Jancsó who all created "difficult" films).

a good example would be Alain Resnais, who is guilty of creating a handful of films that (at the time) many considered to be terrible, boring and confusing works (just read Pauline Kael's review of Last Year at Marienbad) which are now considered to be hugely influential and beautiful.

[Le Feu Follet]

I would argue that these films are only difficult when compared to mainstream anglo/american film, which usually hands it all to you on a plate - beginning, middle, end and meaning, because in the interest of profit it has all become dumbed down.

In the world of art generally, whether it be novels, paintings, plays, it is not unusual for a work to expect some effort on the part of the reader or viewer.

[Felix]

I always used to laugh whenever I read the rumour - which has found its way into at least one book - that the Scala cinema closed entirely because of a single illicit screening of A Clockwork Orange! It's a great story, but almost entirely untrue: it's actually a miracle that it lasted into 1993 in the first place, and any one of a dozen possible factors could have delivered the killer blow.

True, though I don't recall any serious suggestions otherwise. Kubrick didn't help of course but at the end of the day, it was his film and his right for it not to be shown and they say themselves they were aware of Kubrick's "spies", so they didn't help themselves.

Wooley, IIRC, did blame the video market, even back then when they were expensive compared to DVDs. Combined with a location in London's crack land, putting off anyone in their right mind from attending, and the ultimate failure to get a grant to improve the ancient heating, were all blamed. I never got there, curses, but I used to read the listings in Time Out (in the north of Scotland, starved or what?) and drool. Lino would have loved it, so would David H.

But I am with Caligula, except in very special cases. I have seen too many films destroyed by incompetent projection and dumbass audiences. Recently, a FACETS quality print of the Conformist, dreadful, and the projectionist showed the first ten minutes, realised he'd forgotten the adverts, stopped the film to play them and then started again... And this at a so called Film Theatre. It was not the only example.

Ten/twelve years ago I finally got the chance to see Les Yeux Sans Visage, a film I had longed to see for years. I was so excited. I had to take a day off work and travel 2 hours there and 2 hours back but I didn't hesitate. The audience, at Scotland's foremost film theatre, did not have a clue what the fuck was going on and they sat and laughed, they chattered, they gave inane commentaries. It put me off for years.

Many people here say there is nothing like a film projected, and they are probably right, in the right circumstances, but finding the right circumstances pretty much eludes me. Thank goodness for DVDs. (I was going to say a good wank beats a crap shag but I didn't like to be coarse.)

[MichaelB]

True, though I don't recall any serious suggestions otherwise.

Tom Dewe Mathews' book Censored, published a year or so after the Scala closed, explicitly makes that claim, with no context-setting. In fact, I suspect he's primarily responsible for the story gaining such legendary status. Somehow, repetition in a book makes a story seem that much more trustworthy, even when it's still bollocks.

Kubrick didn't help of course but at the end of the day, it was his film and his right for it not to be shown and they say themselves they were aware of Kubrick's "spies", so they didn't help themselves.

True, but any rep cinema manager worth his salt is going to sail close to the wind like that - I know I did (though I generally didn't mess with the majors quite so blatantly, as a blacklist from them can be disastrous - the Scala couldn't book anything from Warners after the Clockwork Orange fiasco, which amongst other things slaughtered their Mad Max/Blade Runner all-nighter cash cows).

In fact, I know of one very popular arthouse film that wasn't officially in distribution at all - the distributor went bust shortly after it opened - but which had a very healthy repertory life thanks to the only print being kept in circulation by a collusion of rep cinema managers in a kind of pass-the-parcel arrangement. The crucial thing was to make sure that the print never went back to the Rank depot (where virtually all London-based distributors stored their prints), otherwise it would never come out again - because they'd check the rights status and impound it.

And I still treasure the threatening telegram I had from the Madrid-based producer of Chimes at Midnight - unfortunately, Time Out bigged up our planned screening a little too prominently, and he got to hear about it! (Fortunately, we had a print of Citizen Kane on the premises, with a virtually identical running time, so were able to substitute that - and our audience was very sympathetic. Especially when I made a point of showing them the telegram)

(I was going to say a good wank beats a crap shag but I didn't like to be coarse.)

And I'm grateful to you for protecting my delicate sensibilities - but if someone cruder than your clearly refined and sophisticated self drew that analogy, I'd have to agree.

[MichaelB]

Maybe because, compared to Godard, Truffaut, Fellini, Antonioni, etc., their films are boring as batshit. The classics of the 60s and 70s may have been (somewhat) difficult, but at least they had stars and, to some degree, plots.

And Wong Kar-Wai's films don't? As far as local audiences are concerned, virtually all his films are star vehicles with a vengeance - and it's not exactly hard to summarise their plots. In the Mood for Love in particular could easily be got across in the proverbial 25 words or less.

[portnoy]

I would argue that these films are only difficult when compared to mainstream anglo/american film, which usually hands it all to you on a plate - beginning, middle, end and meaning, because in the interest of profit it has all become dumbed down.

Seriously? Besides being an unbearably pretentious cultural statement, your words just completely fail me. The notion that Weerasethakul or Hou or Tarr is not difficult is astonishing to me, and I'm someone who likes these filmmakers. And the notion that a film that utilizes conventional narrative strategies is in some way 'dumbed down' is an infuriating misreading of film's historical position as a largely populist means of discourse.

I mean, has it occurred to you that today's festival-ready art films are, for most audiences, completely impenetrable? Which is not to say that these movies are failures - they speak to specialized audiences who have a greater intellectual training and understanding of the possibilities of cinematic discourses, but the notion that the films are only difficult because compared to EPIC MOVIE they might require a little more brainpower is ludicrous. These films are designed to be difficult, elliptical, elusive - that's part of what makes them works of art. I love the fact that I can't grasp all of what's going on in a Hou film as I watch it for the first time - Three Times appeals to different parts of my sensibility as a viewer than an American genre picture, but I love 'dumbed down' genre films just as much.

[Felix]

True, though I don't recall any serious suggestions otherwise.

Tom Dewe Mathews' book Censored, published a year or so after the Scala closed, explicitly makes that claim, with no context-setting. In fact, I suspect he's primarily responsible for the story gaining such legendary status. Somehow, repetition in a book makes a story seem that much more trustworthy, even when it's still bollocks.

I haven't read his book but it is quite well distributed so I see your point. The one I am familiar with is Jane Giles' history in ShockXpress 2. Having just had a quick flick through it again, they really didn't have their troubles to seek. They were doomed.

I was also just having a look at their listings from way back (I kept a year's worth of them from Time Out) and they are wonderful. Pink Narcissus there on the first page, Guy Maddin double bill, Barton Fink with Sunset Boulevard (though I'd have teamed the latter with Performance), The Unknown with Santa Sangre. I had better stop.

[Barmy]

I left Wong out of my diatribe. He uses stars and plots, one of the few artsy directors who does so. Ditto Haneke. Both are popular. Surprised?

When you think of the glittering array of talent that the so-called difficult directors of the 60s/70s used, and compare it to the nobodies that seem to be favored by the current generation of "beloved" arthouse auteurs, it's a bit startling, no?

Don't even get me started on the Dardenne dudes.

[MichaelB]

I was also just having a look at their listings from way back (I kept a year's worth of them from Time Out) and they are wonderful. Pink Narcissus there on the first page, Guy Maddin double bill, Barton Fink with Sunset Boulevard (though I'd have teamed the latter with Performance), The Unknown with Santa Sangre. I had better stop.

The triple bill that really summed up the Scala for me was Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda?, Doris Wishman's Let Me Die A Woman and the immortal Thundercrack!. Can you imagine seeing that trio on the big screen for the first time in the same programme? I think I was about 17 at the time...

(Incidentally, whatever happened to the long-awaited Thundercrack! DVD?)

[Felix]

The triple bill that really summed up the Scala for me was Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda?, Doris Wishman's Let Me Die A Woman and the immortal Thundercrack!. Can you imagine seeing that trio on the big screen for the first time in the same programme? I think I was about 17 at the time...

Well, I can't match the Scala but I did see the divine Christina Linbergh in Maid In Sweden at the tender age of 16 in a scuzzy little cinema called the Tivoli (spell it backwards) perched on a vertiginously high back street in Dundee... And there's not many can say that... Oh Christina...

It showed mostly skin flicks but anything with tits was welcome, so we also had Quiet Days In Clichy, the Warhol horror films, recent MM release Don't Deliver Us From Evil, Larraz's Scream And Die, and lord knows what else, the names long lost but some of them delightfully weird. But all of them with tits. It was the sort of place that would have showed The Double Life of Veronique, just on the offchance that it was that sort of double life...

[toiletduck!]

When you think of the glittering array of talent that the so-called difficult directors of the 60s/70s used, and compare it to the nobodies that seem to be favored by the current generation of "beloved" arthouse auteurs, it's a bit startling, no?

Maybe you're referring to a different set of performers than those that pop into my mind, but the talent that the directors used in the 60/70s have those same films to thank for their place in the arthouse pantheon. To take one from each of your big four: Karina, Leaud, Masina, and Vitti aren't exactly hailed for their work pre-Godard, Truffaut, Fellini, and Antonioni.

And you haven't mentioned Tsai yet, so maybe you have other opinions of him, but I would imagine that, if we were entering a period of arthouse prosperity like that of the 60s/70s, Lee Kang-Sheng would easily slide into that grouping of pantheon soon-to-be's.

-Toilet Dcuk

[Barmy]

Vitti was still a "star" during that period. But even so, think of Alida Valli, Delon, Moreau, Marcello, Lea Massari (sorta) and RICHARD HARRIS! And, later, David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and Jack Nicholson.

[MichaelB]

It was the sort of place that would have showed The Double Life of Veronique, just on the offchance that it was that sort of double life...

There's rather more than just tits in Veronique - it would have been right up their alley! As it were.