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NEWS OF ATHENS' CINEMA SCENE
Back to the Well: I'm starting to sound like
a broken record, and I'm sorry. I've placed
way too much focus on the vagaries of online
streaming video as a medium for film viewing,
but I'm going to make one more point, then I
promise to stop for a while.
Sometimes Netflix, despite using the DVD
cover image of an exciting recent restora
tion of an older film to showcase the film's
availability for both DVD mailing and online
streaming, offers a different and often inferior
transfer for streaming. One example of what
I'm talking about is Roman Polanski's Cul-de-
sac. Netflix has Criterion's newly restored DVD
of the director’s 1966 follow-up to Repulsion.
but if you try to stream it, you're going to get
a crappy, cropped version of the film that
couldn't be further from what you were hoping
for when you got all worked up about it finally
being out on home video in pristine form.
Basically, the message is that Netflix doesn't
think people who stream movies give a damn
what they look like.
That's the deal with Jean-Luc Godard's
A Woman Is a Woman, too. When I tried
to watch Netflix's streaming version, I was
treated to a transfer that had been "squeezed"
from the film's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio to
fit the 1.66:1 ratio of an HDTV screen. Not
just for the title sequence—the whole movie!
I don't know about you. but the thought of
someone empowered to make this kind of
decision being handed a version of an impor
tant European art film in which the image has
been vertically elongated in a way that's abso
lutely impossible to ignore, and saying, "This
is what we will offer to our paying customers,"
just strikes me as totally crazy. But that's
apparently what happened at Netflix in this
case, and in many other similar ones.
Of course, it was easy enough for me to
just put A Woman Is a Woman in my DVD
queue and have the beautifully restored
Criterion version mailed to my house the
next day—this time. But if "hard" media are
going to continue their trend toward obsoles
cence, and a company like Netflix continues
to slough off its commitment to offering the
highest quality and widest array of products
with the least possible hassle, solutions to
problems like this one are going to get more
and more complicated. And isn't that the
opposite of what rapidly advancing technolo
gies are supposed to achieve?
Speaking of Which: Did anybody else see Matt
Zoller-Seitz's Oct. 13 Salon article, "R.I.P.,
the movie camera: 1888-2011"? It's a nice,
1,000-word rumination on the news that
Aaton, ARRI and Panavision—the world's
three major manufacturers of motion picture
film cameras—have all stopped making them
during the past year. I don't think anybody
needs me to mount an Italian opera about
what that signifies, so in the spirit of nos
talgia, I'll just allow myself the indulgence
of publishing one of my favorite photographs
of all time, with apologies and gratitude to
the anonymous Goldwyn publicity hack who
snapped it 75 years ago. Thanks for the mem
ories, analog cinema—you had a hell of a run.
But They Still Call Them "Film" Festivals: I'm
moderating a panel discussion at Cine Tuesday,
Nov. 1 at 7 p.rn. entitled "Meet the Festival
Organizers: The Inside Scoop on Film
Festivals and Film Festival Programming."
It's co-sponsored by EcoFocus, the UGA
Filmmaking Union, Film
Athens, Cine and 6X6.
and will feature directors
and programmers of half
a dozen Georgia festivals,
including the Atlanta
Film festival, the Robert
Osborne Classic Film
Festival and the Athens
Jewish Film Festival.
Should be fun and infor
mative, if I do say so
myself, so come on out
and hear some interest
ing people talk. Details
are at www.ecofocusfilm-
fest.org.
Cine Lightning Round:
Quick hits, folks; go to
www.athenscine.com
for the full scoop on all
the following events.
UGA CineClub is hosting
a panel discussion on
music in film Oct. 26 at 6 p.m., featuring
a bunch of local heavy hitters exploring the
topic from an excellent variety of angles...
That same evening at 8 p.m., you can catch
the latest installment of Bad Movie Night: the
1985 comic gore-fest Nail Gun Massacre...
The Cine Classics series is underway right
now, with Psycho playing through Halloween.
The series' next chapter is a one-night-only
screening Nov. 4 of George Lucas' 1973
American Graffiti in an archival 35mm print.
This is the kickoff event for the Athens Film
Arts Institute's fall membership drive, and will
include a reception catered by The National
and served by the Classic City Rollergirls...
Nov. 6 is a one-night engagement of the new
documentary From the Back of the Room.
which chronicles the involvement of women
in the DIY punk scene before, during and after
the 1990s Riot Grrrl movement... Finally, don't
miss the next installment in the Cine Directors
Series Nov. 8: 2046, Wong Kar-Wai's strange,
beautiful 2004 semi-sequel to his masterpiece
In the Mood for Love. UGA film studies profes
sor Chris Sieving (whose book, Soul Searching:
Block-Themed Cinema from the March on
Washington to the Rise of Blaxploitation, was
recently published by Wesleyan University
Press) will introduce the screening.
Dave Marr lilm@flagpole.com
480 East Broad St. Ste. 102
Downtown Athens across from BB&T Bank
www.suno-dessert.com
706.850.8300
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OCTOBER 26.2011- FLAGPOLE.COM 11
