Marooned in the Filmless Suburbs - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 2000 by Christopher Sharrett

A NUMBER OF MOVIES of the past two decades have dealt with the ennui of postmodern suburban life, with a corresponding amount of articles deconstructing both these films and the tract-housing misery they explore. However, there has yet to be a "Blue Velvet" or "American Beauty" that explores a very palpable suburban crisis: If you live in the suburbs, you don't see very many films.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that there are no movies outside the big cities. On the contrary, there's no shortage of eye candy in the multi-screened cineplexes that take up vast acreage near equally vast shopping malls. The problem is that, if you are a film scholar or even an astute buff who wants to see works many would regard as arcane, you face an increasing problem if you don't live near New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago.

A while back, a few colleagues of mine suggested I see Erroll Morris' "Mr. Death," a documentary about Fred Leuchter, a nerdish execution specialist who becomes a spokesman for some Holocaust revisionists. It had good word of mouth, and I expected it to pop up at a venue near me sometime during the 1999 Christmas season. I should note that I live very close to a university town containing a couple of repertory cinemas noted for their independent, third-stream fare, but "Mr. Death" wasn't to be found. The closest theater showing the film was more than 40 miles from my home, and its run there was a little over a week. I just recently saw "Mr. Death" on videocassette, over six months after its release. This isn't a very unusual situation. On the contrary, it represents a part of the story concerning film availability in the new marketplace.

It should be noted straight off that a key issue in not being able to find nonblockbuster films is the simple fact that small-scale theaters catering to such pictures are a dying breed. The repertory cinema mentioned earlier is an emblem of the situation. Having gone through a couple of managers after the original owner sold the business, the theater is just now getting back on its feet. Many of us noted that the theater had a rough time filling its several small screens (it's noteworthy how the smaller theater has gone the route of subdividing in the manner of the multiplex, providing some "safe" choices for the consumer to make sure the doors stay open) with anything but mainstream fare, seemingly unable to get cooperation from distributors who might provide prints of the better foreign and independent films.

This theater's problems are few when compared to the fate of a number of the repertory cinema in cities like New York, where a score of well-known small theaters disappeared in the 1980s as the major cinema franchises consolidated their authority over the industry. As the multiplex burgeoned, the concept leeched from the suburban shopping mall back to the city, and show palaces along with repertory cinemas were replaced by vast movie complexes, often attached to even larger complexes selling videos, CDs, toys, whatever.

As the VCR made permanent the notion of the home entertainment center, the very need for a repertory cinema became obsolete. These theaters specialized in showcasing new films made on small budgets by independent artists. When such works weren't available, the theaters would show films of the cinematic canon by the Fellinis, Bergmans, Bunuels, Welleses, Fords, and Chaplins. With these great works now available on tape and DVD, the small theater must offer some realistic competition to the multiplex.

The answer seems to be simply to show Hollywood films the multiplex doesn't want, or must get rid of in order to make room for the next blockbuster. Audiences become acclimated to the small theater recycling mainstream films missed during their first run, and the absence of lesser-known films is less and less noticed. Meanwhile, there are fewer prints of independent films available, especially when we are talking about directors who haven't yet made their bones. People like the Coen brothers and John Sayles usually get good circulation as do hyped-up low-budget pictures like "The Blair Witch Project." Films by directors less well known won't find very many risk-takers among distributors, and only a few prints of their films go to cosmopolitan areas where the most likely consumers will be found. If you aren't a city-dweller, you'll have to wait for the videocassette.

One could argue that the saving grace here is indeed the VCR. No investor is simply going to dump a film not widely screened, since money can always be made from people like this writer on the home market. If you're serious about film, though (and happen to teach the medium), waiting for a cassette to appear makes you feel more than a little out of step, especially in an age when one is supposed to get what one wants at the press of a cell phone button or computer key. People like myself will always find remedies.

The more vexing problem is the state of film culture and its availability to the population. In the age of "vertical integration," with corporations controlling everything from film production to distribution to concession stands, the options for the viewing audience are fewer and fewer, even as audience dissatisfaction becomes more apparent. As big-budget summer popcorn movies like "Battlefield Earth" turn into instant, embarrassing flops, the question "Is that all there is?" resounds. The multiplex theaters are outfitted with huge screens and multiple Dolby speakers, hardware not very complementary to intimate films interested in provoking a thought or two about real human issues.