In 1973, E.F. Schumacher wrote, “Small
is Beautiful,” subtitled, “Economics as if people mattered.” The
book’s theme resonated with people because the concept made a good
life seem possible in a world quickly running away with bigness. In
many ways his work defied traditional economics. The book had lines in
it such as, “Man is small. Therefore small is beautiful.” Schumacher’s
work attracted conservatives, libertarians and even tree huggers. Were
E.F. Schumacher alive today I wonder what he would think about the
recent move to downsize all visual media, not because small is
beautiful, but in the hopes of attracting an audience only for the
sake of making money.
This is about the movies, though, not other commerce, and of course
Hollywood, the real and the virtual world, where people make them.
Movies made in Hollywood usually succeed for the bean counters when
they make money. Art works in Hollywood when the box office responds
to a film with high receipts. The goal of almost all movie making is
to amortize and maximize. The goal is to make the most of money spent,
effort put forth, and time in production from beginning to end and
perhaps the hope for art instead of popular schlock. Lately in
Hollywood, it seems the goal is to minimize, that is fit the film into
the smallest possible frame to get the biggest possible audience and
hopefully not to lose money along the way.
Just because the attitudes of younger consumers might be changing
toward viewing moving images on hand-held devices– and I say that
cautiously – it does not mean it is how I want to view movies, TV
shows, sports or even commercials. Sports scores work. The weather
works. Stock market quotes work. Faces and subtle movement do not
work, but I’ll come back to that in a moment. I grew up in an age
before TV when the biggest changes in movies came with the development
of cameras that Hollywood used to record and then project images on a
wide screen. The old West came to life on the big screen, as did many
epics and historical dramas. The fun then was to see so much more in
the theater than I and everyone else I knew could ever have dreamed
possible.
Edward Burns recently directed a romantic comedy, “Purple Violets,”
that had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this year. That is
important. It is worth noting the film received good reviews but no
distributor made a move to release it in theaters. That is important
as an obvious blow to the filmmaker, his art and craft. All of Ed
Burn’s work, the work of his cast and crew, went down the rabbit hole
of potentially dead movies. What is a moviemaker to do? Where does he
go in today’s fractured world of media?
In an attempt to make some money so they would not lose all the money
they invested in the film, Mr. Burns and his backers decided to try
something new. They made a deal with Apple to release the film on
iTunes in an exclusive arrangement that bypasses theaters, the
traditional path for a movie. If you as a viewer want to see the film,
you have to download it on Apple’s digital download service. Starting
November 20, the film “Purple Violets” will be available exclusively
on iTunes on your iPod, if you have one, which I expect you do,
especially if you are of a certain age. It will take some weeks or
months to see if the move is financially successful. How do we judge
its artistic success? That could be an impossible task. Originally,
Mr. Burns made the film for a normal screen in a normal movie theater
at the local multi-plex. But that is no longer the path for “Purple
Rain,” unless, of course, it goes into theatrical release or appears
on TV at a later date.
Let me be perfectly clear. I do not begrudge Mr. Burns the chance to
recoup his investment and to see his film reach the widest possible
audience. As a consumer of films, seeing a movie on a cell phone or an
iPod seriously limits my engagement, thus my enjoyment. On the small
two or two and half inch screen, because the canvas is so tiny, much
of the film’s detail will be lost. It is impossible to see all the
information captured by the camera, by how the actors perform, and how
the editor made the movie come together. This, then, becomes my vision
of esthetics. Can I see the face, the lips, the eyes, even a possible
tic and the emotion an actor brings to his or her part? Can I see the
broad vistas that opened my young eyes to the excitement of places I
saw for the first time -- a desert, a mountain or a flowing river?
Will I be able to observe the background of the movie; its depth,
width and breadth, so I can better understand its context, its sense
of place? If anyone can tell me that all those details and more will
be possible on the tiny screen, I will give up my fight for more
space. Somehow, I doubt anyone can do that, and then where am I and
the enjoyment I seek from a movie? ........................................................................................................................
At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002.
Small
is Not Better