reeves84
December 23rd, 2002, 3:53:29 PM
http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1503432
Is Steven Spielberg right to fear technological change in the movie business?
“I AM a Luddite!” declared Steven Spielberg after a recent preview screening of his film, “Catch Me If You Can”, which opens on December 25th. Digital cinema, he insisted, was not the revolution around the corner that its apostles proclaim: that world was still as much as 20 years away. In ten years, he conceded, digital projectors might sit alongside mechanical ones in cinemas—but there would still be old-fashioned infrastructure to satisfy directors like himself who love the look of 35mm film.
Few directors make hits (“ET”, “Jaws”, “Saving Private Ryan” and so on) as consistently as Mr Spielberg. As a Hollywood mogul, he also embodies one of two competing visions about how movies will be watched in future. Mr Spielberg shudders at the notion of atomised viewers calling up a film on their laptops at the touch of a button, home and alone. A romantic, as his pet cinematic themes of fantasy, escapism, discovery and redemption show, Mr Spielberg prefers the idea of strangers huddled together in the dark, watching a flickering image on the screen.
The alternative vision belongs most famously to George Lucas, a champion of digital cinema, who helped to inspire Mr Spielberg's film-making craft in the 1960s. His voice is powerful, too: when he urged cinemas to show “Star Wars: Episode Two—Attack of the Clones” on digital screens, the industry jumped. The big studios agreed to set up a consortium to look into digital quality-standards. Digital, say its advocates, does not squelch artistry, but creates new visual options (think of “The Blair Witch Project”), and, because the recording equipment is cheaper, does so for a wider movie-making population.
Is Steven Spielberg right to fear technological change in the movie business?
“I AM a Luddite!” declared Steven Spielberg after a recent preview screening of his film, “Catch Me If You Can”, which opens on December 25th. Digital cinema, he insisted, was not the revolution around the corner that its apostles proclaim: that world was still as much as 20 years away. In ten years, he conceded, digital projectors might sit alongside mechanical ones in cinemas—but there would still be old-fashioned infrastructure to satisfy directors like himself who love the look of 35mm film.
Few directors make hits (“ET”, “Jaws”, “Saving Private Ryan” and so on) as consistently as Mr Spielberg. As a Hollywood mogul, he also embodies one of two competing visions about how movies will be watched in future. Mr Spielberg shudders at the notion of atomised viewers calling up a film on their laptops at the touch of a button, home and alone. A romantic, as his pet cinematic themes of fantasy, escapism, discovery and redemption show, Mr Spielberg prefers the idea of strangers huddled together in the dark, watching a flickering image on the screen.
The alternative vision belongs most famously to George Lucas, a champion of digital cinema, who helped to inspire Mr Spielberg's film-making craft in the 1960s. His voice is powerful, too: when he urged cinemas to show “Star Wars: Episode Two—Attack of the Clones” on digital screens, the industry jumped. The big studios agreed to set up a consortium to look into digital quality-standards. Digital, say its advocates, does not squelch artistry, but creates new visual options (think of “The Blair Witch Project”), and, because the recording equipment is cheaper, does so for a wider movie-making population.