Arthur Radcliffe Castlebottom is a prospective arts writer for “Smile Politely, Fella!” His interests include arts of the higher-brow, the theater, his penny farthing collection, and Boston Braves baseball. Born in 1881, he moved to Urbana in 1925 when a freak accident involving an electrical experiment abruptly transported him across time and space to 2010.
Let me preface my remarks about the state of modern cinema by stating that I have never been particularly keen on the motion picture and, frankly, I am suspect of those who get their jollies from it. For ever since the art form rose to prominence in early 20th century, it has been not more than slapstick buffoonery, overwrought dramas with acting not even fit for the stage, and garish period pieces esteeming an archaic world no longer relevant in the modern, industrial era. And now, rumours run afoul of using sound in the cinema? Well strike me silly!
Perhaps I am acting as something of a killjoy on the subject, but what has the theater done to earn such judgment from the fickle public? Now that was art! Back when art was a gentleman’s endeavor, at least. Now the film-houses swarm with the most unsavory of sorts, particularly the youth with their ceaseless necking, looking to spend their hard-earned nickels on vulgar smut. Art was once a noble practice requiring an age of practice to master, as well as a discerning eye for beauty and drama. Now any jane can heel away in front of a camera, and it’s art. Baloney, I say.
And, to think, that was in 1925! How contemptible you, the reader, have it now in 2010.
Sick am I to behold the triumph of the talkie, let alone color film stock! In my time in this dystopian future, I have witnessed many vulgar things on the screen: Men (and children even!) publicly pinching hooch on-screen, couples exchanging intimacies in pornographic detail, [EDITED due to heavily prejudiced content], [EDITED due to heavily misogynistic content], and less than subtle criticisms of capitalism. Can you fathom it? The very principles on which these 48 states were founded under attack by crass filmmakers! This is not art; this is propaganda of the first degree!
For instance, take the newest James Cameron picture, Avatar, the story of a man’s attempt to protect the environment and native population of a far-away planet from a “dastardly” plot to mine its resources. We are told to feel sympathy the cerulean Na’vi tribe, but what of the mining corporation, whose only interest was in a delivering goods to market? Let me put it this way: if you, dear reader, were told to give up the fruits of our imperial labors — a roasted cup of joe, fuel for your auto, the luscious ivory keys of your grand piano — could you even dare pull your dribbling lips from the teat of capitalism? Yet James Cameron, the old egg he is, is underhanded enough to endorse such an ill fate.
And then there is the matter of this “Three-Dimensioned” film technology predicted to take the world by storm. The idea is the viewer wears a pair of glasses for the length of a film for the purpose of having the images appear to leap from the screen and into the theater. For what purpose, I say? To interact with the characters? I have plenty of realistic interactions in real life; I need not more from film. Moreover, I wore those blasted spectacles a mere five minutes before the hallucinatory visuals struck me ill. Imagine how long your children or wives may last. No, unless the film-houses are prepared to install fainting couches, I do not expect this sorcery to last the year.
Film has certainly followed a sorry trajectory since I left it in the 1920s. Its many flaws as an art form have held steady despite the drastic technological changes. Truly, the interpretative beauty of static art is lost in the ether, and film will continue its progression, like a lumbering dinosaur, adding things like “dimensions” and other gimmicks, until it finally collapses from within. Maybe then the public will return to the higher arts. So, Champaign-Urbana, I beseech you, recognize the cinema for what it is: pseudo-artistic pinko devilry.