What is TV?

If you are sitting at home watching an episode of Frasier (1993-2004) on your flatscreen TV it is reasonable to assume that if somebody asked you what you were doing you would answer "I'm watching TV." Let's say that next in the TV schedule came the film She's the One (Ed Burns 1996), and you continued to watch that. If somebody now asked you what you were doing you might still answer "I'm watching TV." or "I'm watching a film." But imagine instead that you had not being using your TV at all, you might not even have one, but found She's the One on BBC iPlayer and watched it on your computer. If somebody asked you now what you were doing you would in all likelihood not answer "I'm watching TV." Probably not even if you were watching Frasier, despite it being a TV-series. You would not say "I'm watching the computer." either. You would say "I'm watching Fraiser." and potentially add, "on the computer." to clarify.

Now, what is the point of this example? To illustrate that TV is loose term. It can mean the square box in the living room, it can mean all the things that are being shown on that square box, and it can mean a typical kind of moving images. But what they all have in common is that box. If nobody watches anything on a particular device called a TV, if instead all that is being watched is watched on computers or smartphones, then TV will cease to be, and we would no longer call a follow-up to Frasier a TV-series, but something else. Maybe just a series. To some extent, TV is just the tableau in the newspaper or the TV Guide.

This is not just hair-splitting, it raises some interesting questions. Today it is very popular to say that this is the golden age of TV, that TV has never been more important or better. I have never understood this, and it is very tempting to dismiss it as confused hogwash. The way I see it there are two flaws with the argument. One being that those making the argument are often depressingly ignorant of the last 60 years of TV history (see below). The other flaw is that you compare wildly different things. TV today, as has pretty much been the case since its inception, consists of news, documentaries, sports, soap operas, weather forecasts, movies, sitcoms, children's programmes and so on. In effect, this means that in order to say that TV is better today you would have to explain, for example, how children's programmes today is better than documentaries about nuclear waste from the late 1970s. If TV today is better than ever before, does this mean that Jersey Shore (2009-) is better than Scenes From a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap Ingmar Bergman 1973)? It was a silly question yes, but so is the argument.

But what people mean in general when they say that TV is better now is only that TV-series are better now. The problem here though is still one of comparisons. First of all, how many TV-series of yesteryears have today's writers actually seen? Secondly, there are a wide variety of TV-series being made, in different genres, and comparing them might be strange. It makes little sense to compare a series like The West Wing (1999-2006) with a show like Kojak (1973-1978) for example. But it would make sense to compare CSI (all of them, 2000-) with Kojak. Which one is the better one would be hard to argue about though, because although CSI is more modern, style-wise, that is not a sign of quality. If it was that would also seem to suggest that, say, This Means War (McG 2012) is automatically a better film than, say, The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford 1940).

So, considering that TV is so much more than just TV-series, and that TV has a long and rich history, I do not think it makes any sense to say that TV is better than it has ever been. However, I think it does make sense to argue that TV is coming to an end, and that one sign of this is that when people talk about this being a "golden age" of TV they do not really mean TV but HBO (and a few other studios). Maybe this is actually a golden age for a studio system while simultaneously being the demise of TV. Since these TV-series are often watched on DVD box sets or downloaded on to a computer they might even help accelerate the fall of TV. I would actually suggest that TV today, in general, is worse than it has been for quite some time. If you turn on the TV on any given day or night, chances are that you will only be able to chose between some game shows, some reality soaps, some talking heads shows and some sport events, regardless of how many channels you have got. If you want to see the good stuff you would not just turn on your TV but only together with your DVD-player, or just your computer.

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In 2010, I wrote a post arguing that TV was a vital area of studies for film scholars and I also said a few words about TV history. To elaborate on TV history I will say this today:


There are many brilliant TV-series today, and some of them are among the best things ever done for TV. But today's TV-series do owe a lot to what came before. A key series is Hill Street Blues, which ran from 1981 to 1987. It had complex characters, it was set in the real, and very gritty, world of Brooklyn a generic American inner city, it was unpredictable and it was filled with political themes, it discussed topical issues and it had outbursts of anger and bitterness. It was followed by a number of other law and order shows, especially NYPD Blue (1993-2005), which style of filming has been a major influence on the likes of Lars von Trier. These shows were in contrast, in style, quality and ideology, to the more soapy series such as Dallas (1978-1991), Dynasty (1981-1991) and Falcon Crest (1981-1990), even though they were also influential and had sometimes baffling complexity. A TV-series which was somewhat in-between, but closer to the cop thrillers than the soap operas in its honesty, was L.A. Law (1986-1994). It is worth pointing out that Steven Bochco was co-writer, co-producer and creator of Hill Street Blues (together with Michael Kozoll, and David Milch as co-writer), NYPD Blue (together with David Milch) and L.A. Law (together with Terry Louise Fischer, and David E. Kelley as co-writer). If we look further, it is clear that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, American TV had an extraordinary period, when for example Arthur Penn, John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet and Don Siegel made made-for-TV films and live TV-shows, and film was very much influenced by TV. Some of these TV-films were considered so good, or so violent in the case of Siegel, that they were given a cinema release, such as The Killers (1964).

That was just the obvious ones, but there are a number of other series which also have considerable qualities and have been very influential. In addition, so far everything has been American TV. There are many other TV-producing countries. In the 1970s British and Swedish TV was very exciting, and it continued to be so into the 1980s at least. In the 1970s for example many of Sweden's best filmmakers made TV-series and films directly for TV, including Bergman and Jan Troell.

But still, something has changed in recent years. One thing is obviously HBO (Home Box Offfice) which have managed to produce one fantastic series after another since 1998. (HBO was around before that but beginning with Oz (1997-2003) they entered into a new phase of making high-quality series). Another thing is the status of TV. In the 1980s and early 1990s TV was a place for TV-only stars, or new faces or retiring movie stars, but if you were a proper movie star you would not be in a TV-series, it was undignified. But that eventually changes so that, to take one example, in the second season of Friends (1994-2004) big movie stars were lining up for a guest part, such as Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. But that does of course not make TV better, only its hip factor higher.

I wrote a short piece on CSI in 2010: http://fredrikonfilm.blogspot.com/2010/08/csi-miami.html
And here is the link to my old piece on TV: http://fredrikonfilm.blogspot.com/2010/08/tv.html

I forgot that Hill Street Blues does not take place specifically in New York...

Some recommended readings (2)

Last year I recommended five good books for somebody who wanted to get a good introduction to the field of cinema studies. Today I will recommend five new books, which are more specific, but very good. Especially Alexander Mackendrick's book should be required reading for all film students (and quite a few scholars as well).

 On Film-Making by Alexander Mackendrick (both analysis, theory and practice of the art of cinema)

Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion and the Cinema by Murray Smith (on how we engage with characters and a theory on how fiction film works)

Film Fables by Jacques Rancière (essays on different films and filmmakers, as well as on film history)

Bazin at Work by Andre Bazin (selected essays and reviews by Bazin from the 1940s and 1950s)

Hawks on Hawks edited by Joseph McBride (interviews with Howard Hawks)

Wes Anderson

I forgot to include Wes Anderson on my favourite filmmaker list. I have added him now but this is unforgivable. Since all his films without exception are brilliant he must be there and these clips might go a way as apology!


It is possible that Bottle Rocket is the one I love the most.








(Aquatic alienation)

My favourite filmmakers

I am frequently asked what my favourite film is, or my favourite actor, or my favourite filmmaker. In order to humour these people, and those who have been afraid to ask, I thought I write some blog posts on the subject. Today I will list my favourite filmmakers, actors will come later in the spring. As for favourite films I tweet one every Monday during 2012 (with the hashtag #mytop52) and at the end of the year I will blog about them here too.

Before the list I better say a few words about it. First of all, and obviously, all those listed have made great films. Films that move me, thrill me and dazzle me and films that I want to watch again. And again. But to qualify on this list there is more to it than that. They must have made great films over the whole of their careers. As an example, Michael Ritchie made some fantastic films in the 1970s but he then unfortunately fizzled out so he will not be listed. Some other filmmakers did not make the list because either they have made too few films or I have not seen enough of their films (which is the case with for example Jacques Becker and Abolfazl Jalili, even though their films that I have seen have been fantastic). Then of course there are a few filmmakers whose films I have not seen at all but that I am must eager to explore, such as Sacha Guitry or Fred Niblo. Maybe there will come a new list in the future.

Another important factor is that the listed filmmakers have a strong presence in the films that they have made. This presence is stronger with some (John Ford for example) and lesser with others (such as Satyajit Ray or William Wyler), but it is almost always there. These are also filmmakers who had (or still have) an idea about their work, conscious artists with a way of looking at the world and something to say about that world.

Finally, before the list, remember that these are my favourite filmmakers. If your favourite filmmaker is not listed, do not get upset. Make your own list instead. Also, I have listed 58 filmmakers. Instead of doing a top 10 or top 50 or any other neat, even number, I just listed all those that I felt must be on such a list. Restraining myself because of numerical reasons did not seem necessary. This is not science, it is for fun.

But enough said, here are the 58 filmmakers. First comes Howard Hawks, who is in a league of his own. The rest is alphabetical. Some of them I have written about before, and when I have there is a link after their name to one of these posts (on some of them I have written several posts, but I just link to one anyway). Some of the others I will write about, sooner or later.

Howard Hawks (read more here)

Akira Kurosawa
Woody Allen (read more here)
Wes Anderson
Ingmar Bergman (read more here)
Budd Boetticher
Jane Campion
George Cukor (read more here)
Claire Denis
Clint Eastwood
Hasse Ekman (among many posts, here is one)
John Ford (read more here)
Sam Fuller
Hal Hartley
Henry Hathaway (read more here)
Alfred Hitchcock (read more here)
Nicole Holofcener
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Buster Keaton
Abbas Kiarostami
Fritz Lang
David Lean
Sergio Leone
Joseph H. Lewis
Ernst Lubitsch
Anthony Mann (read more here)
Michael Mann (read more here)
Jean-Pierre Melville
Mikio Naruse
Vincente Minnelli (read more here)
F.W. Murnau
Max Ophüls (read more here)
Sam Peckinpah
Michael Powell
Otto Preminger (read more here)
Nicholas Ray
Satyajit Ray
Carol Reed
Jean Renoir (read more here)
Jacques Rivette (read more here)
Roberto Rossellini
Robert Rossen
Martin Scorsese
Don Siegel
Douglas Sirk
Aleksandr Sokurov
Steven Spielberg (read more here)
Josef von Sternberg
Arne Sucksdorff
François Truffaut (read more here)
Orson Welles
Peter Weir (read more here)
Billy Wilder (read more here)
Luchino Visconti
William Wyler

Wong Kar-Wai
Yasujiro Ozu
Fred Zinnemann

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addition after posting: it occurred to me that Sarrisians might be interested in this list. If any should drop by, my list here would be a combination of those directors suitable for Pantheon Directors and those suitable for The Far Side of Paradise. The implication of that is of course that I could narrow the list done to just Pantheon Directors, but it would be too short a list.

Corrections: 2012-02-16 I forgot Wes Anderson. This is unforgivable and unacceptable. But he is there now, and the list now has 58 instead of 57 names.

François Truffaut

I have loved the films of Truffaut since I was very young and I hope I will still love them when I am very old. Truffaut is also one of those filmmakers where I am not content with just the films. I need more. I think I have more books about, or by, Truffaut than any other filmmaker. His is a cinema of people who love too much, and Truffaut himself might have been a man who loved cinema too much. If such a thing is possible. It would have been his 80th birthday today, had he still been alive, so I will celebrate him with some clips. Now watch, and listen to the music of Georges Delerue. Le cinema règne.

Mann and Animal

The body of work of Michael Mann is one of the greatest in modern cinema, or indeed any cinema. There is too much to write about for just one post, but today I will highlight the presence of animals, metaphorical and real, in his films.

In Heat (1995) Justine Hanna (Diane Venora) says to her husband Vincent (Al Pacino) "You sift through the detritus, you read the terrain, you search for signs of passing, for the scent of your prey, and then you hunt them down." It is one of many examples of links, implied or explicit, between humans and animals in Mann's films.

There is for example a visual link between Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) in The Last of the Mohicans (1992)  and Vincent Hanna in Heat. In the beginning of the film Hawkeye is running through the forest, hunting a deer, and eventually he shots it with a rifle. Just after the shot is fired there is a close-up of his face, and in slow motion he lowers the weapon. In the end of Heat, there is the same shot, this time of Hanna's face after he has just shot his prey, Neil McCauley (Robert de Niro).

In Manhunter (1986) there is an amazing scene where the blind woman Reba McClane (Joan Allen) caresses a sedated tiger at an animal hospital, while the man who is her would-be killer (Tom Noonan) is watching, acting like if it was him she was caressing.

In Collateral (2004) when Vince (Tom Cruise) and Max (Jamie Foxx) are driving through some L.A. wasteland they encounter two wolfs, crossing the street. In one sense the two wolfs are Max and Vince, and at the same time their appearance changes everything because it happens right before there is a switch in the power structure between Vince and Max, with Max getting the upper hand.

These connections between animals and humans, and the transferring of the roles of hunter and hunted from one character to another, says a lot about Mann's view of his characters. It also seems to suggest that in this world, if you scratch the surface, you will find we are all animals, with basic predatory needs. Perhaps there are only two kinds of men in this world, savages and noble savages.

Reading Bazin (#1)

There are a handful of writers on cinema that I must have within reach at all times. V.F. Perkins is one, David Bordwell another, and critics like James Agee and A.O. Scott. But none more so than André Bazin, critic, theoretician and poet of cinema (a something of a godfather of François Truffaut). Despite sometimes getting it wrong his ideas are almost always interesting and his sentences almost always beautiful. Therefore I have decided to do a series of posts about Bazin, where each post is about one specific essay, article or review by him. (I was inspired to do this by fellow film scholar Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, an avid Bazin fan.)

Today's post is about the article Will CinemaScope Save the Film Industry, first published in Esprit 1953, and available in English in the anthology Bazin at Work. It is primarily about the way Hollywood is countering the existential threat from TV but it is also filled with Bazin's (usual) musings on the arts, realism, technology and psychology. It is exactly this scope that makes him such a rewarding person to read. In its discussion about the teleological aspects of film, this article is also closely related to his more famous articles The Ontology of the Photographic Image and The Evolution of the Language of Cinema.

1953 was a time of crisis for the cinema, not least Hollywood cinema, since TV had arrived with force. Bazin begins his essay with saying that even though there is a crisis there are still a couple of months left to consider how best to deal with it. At the moment the Hollywood studios themselves are not as threatened as the actors and technicians are, but Bazin suggests that they can work in TV, or move to Europe. That there has been a dramatic decrease in tickets sold Bazin does attribute to the arrival of TV but he also argues that TV only dramatically speeded up a decreasing interest in cinema in general that was already there. (This though was not the case in Sweden I might add, since the early 50s were the most successful years in Swedish cinema history as far as ticket sales were concerned. The peak was in 1956, exactly the year TV arrived in Sweden. I wonder if Sweden was different from the rest of the world or if Bazin is wrong in his argument.)

Then he goes on to introduce CinemaScope. He writes about it from a technical perspective, from an aesthetic perspective and from the perspective of the cinema owners. (Apparently 80% of France's cinema theatres were not fit to show CinemaScope and had to be re-built.) The discussion then changes to film as art and its relationship to technological changes in general. His argument there is that it is never the filmmakers who are agents of changes but instead the industry, the producers. He says that "The filmmaker can profit from innovation but he never determines it." I think that this view is too limited. To an extent it depends on how he defines innovation and technical changes. He says that there were earlier versions of scope formats in the 1920s but that they never caught on due to a lack of interest from the studios, from the money men, and that sound came about only when it was economically relevant for the studios. But I would argue that many filmmakers invent things whilst making films, and perhaps particularly so cinematographers. A lot of famous cinematographers have been awarded many patents due to invention they have made, not because of financial considerations but because it helped them and the directors to tell the story the way they wanted to. The dolly zoom that was first used in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) is one of the more famous examples.

But Bazin goes on to argue that since film is dependent on the industry, the economy, it is different from the other arts. They are eternal, film is mortal. Film is also, according to Bazin "not an art AND an industry, but instead an industrial art that is likely to vanish into thin air as soon as the industry's profit disappear". This is of course also a debatable point. There seems to me to be films that exist outside any industry, and always have been, such as short films, art films and experimental films. But I will leave that for now and instead, like Bazin, turn to TV. For Bazin there is a real danger that TV will kill the cinema, and he argues that TV is "irremediably cruder than the cinema", that "nothing will persuade me to believe, in the spirit of futuristic optimism, that television will take over from an aesthetic point of view". However, Bazin does acknowledge that TV might actually be beneficial for cinema in one way, as it might be used to show films and that this might actually help keep cinema alive.

And on this note Bazin returns to CinemaScope, and now from an aesthetic, and perhaps even moral, point of view. Here the teleological aspect of Bazin's thinking shows itself, as when he says that "the essence of film from the very start (one might even say as early as its seed took root in the inventor's imagination) has been a quest for the realism of the image". (By realism he here means "the greatest number of characteristics in common with natural perception".) CinemaScope will increase this realism, since it will add more depth and width to the images. These new Scope images will lead to "the stripping away of everything extrinsic to the quintessential meaning of the image, of all the expressionism of time and space".

So for Bazin, CinemaScope is similar to the deep focus as used by his heroes William Wyler, Jean Renoir and Orson Welles. It is for him part of the natural evolution of the cinema, of increasing the realism. Cinema will fulfil what for Bazin is its "ultimate aim", which is "not so much to mean as to reveal".

That was Bazin in 1953, looking around in the world, telling the reader what he saw and what he thought it meant. The essay succinctly captures his thinking and is therefore a good introduction, whilst at the same time being a good historical snapshot of cinema at the time of his writing. Next time I will look at another essay, from another year, and see what he saw then, and what he felt it meant.

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Correction 2012-02-01. The name of Bazin's essay is Will CinemaScope Save the Film Industry, not Will CinemaScope Save the Cinema as I had originally written.