Ernest Rister May 25, 2019 @hndson "Where ELSE would one have the opportunity to see such films as Fellini's LA STRADA....Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE....or Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday?"



Well, I can't speak for anyone else's situation, but the San Antonio Public Library System has a pretty bad-ass media collection spread throughout their respective branches. As for introductions by commentators, sometimes those are welcome, sometimes I feel they can be imposing, framing how to view a movie. The best of both worlds would be a simple introduction with some production background, and then some personal opinion and commentary after people have had the chance to experience and witness the films for themselves. For example, Leonard Maltin introduced The Black Hole with his personal criticism of the movie (which I happen to agree with -- it's a 1950's Disney film sci-fi film released in 1980), but then that frames how everyone is watching it, watching it from that prism. Fathom Events showed Lawrence of Arabia here in San Antonio, but it opened with Martin Scorsese's personal opinion of the film. My wife had never seen it, I didn't want her first-time experience with that movie filtered through Scorsese's lens, I wanted her to reach her own attitudes and opinions. So check this out, we go see it, with mother-in-law in tow. No less than Robert Harris said first-time viewers should skip the pre-show features with Scorsese, so my wife and I waited in the lobby until all that was over, while my mother in law watched the whole shebang. So we're driving home and my wife is contextualizing the film, sharing her thoughts, and all my mother in law did was constantly refer to Scorsese's interpretation. Sure, opinion and insights are valuable, but they can also have a sort of analytical imperialism. I'd rather they save all that stuff for after the films on TCM. And sure, it's great they give a platform for films to be seen, but lets not kid ourselves that TCM is all caviar all day long. Whoooooooole lot of junk on that channel bought off the barrel for cheap to fill air time. The Golden Age of Cinema wasn't so named because everything made was of substantial quality, it's so named because of the massive volume of product pumped out, and a lot of that massive product dump was forgotten for a reason.