Episode 1: the decline of cinema
One year ago, Ross Douthat wrote a piece in the New York Times called “We Aren’t Just Watching the Decline of the Oscars. We’re Watching the End of Movies.”
In it, Douthat engages the question of movies as a communal experience and cultural art form, and explores why Hollywood no longer produces the caliber of movies that were a commonplace just 20 years ago.
The internet, the laptop and the iPhone personalized entertainment and delivered it more immediately, in a way that also widened Hollywood’s potential audience — but habituated people to small screens, isolated viewing and intermittent watching, the opposite of the cinema’s communalism.
With an exponential rise in smartphone usage, and therefore the ubiquitousness of “isolated viewing,” there is an inverse decline in the quality and experience of film as a medium.
Movies become “just another form of content,” and studios are forced to create increasingly “click-baity” films that compete for viewers’ attention and keep them watching amidst the of entertainment options available in the palm of their hands.
To save film, according to Douthat, something needs to be done. And while we don’t claim to have all the answers, we are committed to furthering the conversation.
We are excited therefore to announce the inaugural episode of our newly launched Film & Culture Series with our Advisory Board Member and NY Times Columnist, Ross Douthat. Ross will speak on the condition of the movies and the cultural relevance today. This event will also reflect on our spring Rom Com screening of the 1982 film, Tootsie.
Why Tootsie?
It’s a stellar example of the kind of movie Hollywood struggles to make anymore—a rich comedy for adults that runs on a mixture of great casting, great screenwriting and gentle slapstick. It’s a case study in how movie stardom used to be the province of charismatic adults rather than jacked-up cartoon characters. And it’s a story that’s all about the balance between artistic ambition and the demands of making entertainment for a mass public, with the movie itself as example of how Hollywood used to strike that balance consistently—and an exemplar of how it might do so again.
The Paradiso Bar will be open and serving your favorite craft beers, cocktails, and a curated wine list.
