Why did this movie disappear? Welcome to the streaming memory hole era –

French director, film scholar and passionate cinephile François Truffaut once proposed a thought experiment. Imagine, he said, that there was only one copy of a book, and that copy was kept in a library, and you could only read it while you were in the library. This is how cinephiles were forced to reconsider the objects of their desire, before repertoire theaters, videotapes and streaming platforms put the elusive history of cinema within our grasp.

A record of an elusive film could be the legacy of a film, and when it depends on the whims of a corporate magnate, appeared on August 2, when related news arrived at the entertainment trade sites with the power of a martillo between eyes: bat girl, the latest entry in the DC Universe pipeline, a film that was basically in the can (to use a dated analog term), was not supposed to have a commercial release, whether in theaters, streaming, or direct-to-video, but . On the temporary shelf (like this) your Warner Bros. on Discovery. funeral decision bat girl – We’re not going to say anything Scooby! vacation spot, because nobody does, it was a business, not personal. Mel Brooks MaxBialystok Max producers (1967), Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav calculated that a $90 million production would be more profitable as a tax deduction than as a source of revenue. that the risk bat girl It became a hit on opening night, Spring for HitlerHe decided to hit the delete button.

The bat girl The signal coincided with Warner Bros.’s plans. Discovery to merge the Discovery+ and HBO Max streaming services. At the time, subscribers noticed another drop: some titles from the HBO Max back catalog were mysteriously disappearing from the platform. Yea wizards s american pickle Falling into a black hole, could the following titles be selected from the HBO and TCM catalogs? Suddenly, a generation hungry for instant access and unlimited choice has learned that the corporate entities that own the movies, sorry, the “content”, can dispose of them as they please. In fact.

This can’t be bad. Uncomplicated access to the canon of world cinema is a very recent phenomenon. For generations X to Z, realizing that the never-ending stream of movie titles can be extracted from the source can be a life lesson.

History, like the experience lived by cinephiles of a certain age, is a learning process. For most of the first century of cinema, spectators of the material world entered the cinema and watched what was projected on the screen. Television brought the screen indoors, but you still depended on the station’s programming decisions. Then, starting in the 1980s, VCRs delivered a paper copy of the film to the consumer, who could now watch the playback at home. Finally, in the early 21st century, the relationship likely came to a head when high-definition digital streaming opened up a virtual library, both ways. If you’re under 30, you’ve probably never known an entertainment environment where you weren’t allowed to download just about any movie you wanted from the clouds.

Perhaps only viewers raised in an alternate cinematic universe can appreciate the miraculous leap. In the days when Hollywood offered a set menu of seasonal offerings, it was take it or leave it. Film archives as such did not exist and no civilians could enter the vaults of major studios. The uneven arrangement changed in 1935, with the establishment of the Cinematheque at the Museum of Modern Art. “The vast majority of all films, foreign or domestic, new or old, historically or aesthetically significant, are not only overlooked in the current situation, but are in grave danger of being lost or destroyed forever,” say Jack Abbott and Iris. Barry, the library’s founding dreamers. Like Truffaut, they made an apt comparison: “The situation is as if no novels are available to the public, except for the current year’s productions.” Films could not be taken out of the library, but the range of possibilities expanded exponentially, even the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès.

With studios managing their inventory, the film industry really needed a trusted curator of their legacy. In 1937, in a fire still mourned by viewers, the Twentieth Century Fox warehouse in Little Ferry, New Jersey, burned down, destroying irreplaceable negatives of Fox’s silent classics. Don’t worry, a Fox rep said, the firewood consisted of “just old movies”.

Museums and repertory houses have taken curatorial duties more seriously. Since the post-war era, a cinephile, especially one in a big city or on a college campus, could get a good education in classic Hollywood cinema by flipping through the monthly calendars of the local art house. Boston’s Brattle Theater was one of the pioneers. In 1962, the first of a series of Humphrey Bogart film retrospective programs began, a strategy that created a national revival, films by WC Fields, Mae West and the Marx Brothers were consistently popular. In 1977, critic and programmer Arthur Knight reviewed the circle of revivalist houses and declared the hollywood reporter that “interest in old movies has reached an unprecedented level” and many viewers prefer “old to new”.

While viewers still trusted the programmer’s drones, there were emotional tradeoffs: waiting for the movie you wanted out, hunting down rarities, and finally getting the title date of your dreams. At that time, the most surprising buzz was generated by the screening of a film that was not legally distributed and that was shown by a private collector. I saw Walt Disney for the first time southern song (1946) by Alfred Hitchcock A man who knew too much (1956).

The arrival of VHS in the 1980s and DVD in the 1990s changed the hierarchy. For studios, cassettes and records were ancillary sources of income, but for viewers they meant property rights. While few private collectors had the space, money and experience to collect and preserve 35mm prints, anyone with a library had room for a personal stash of select titles. You may know or be one of those people who lovingly arrange CDs and alphabetize them on the shelves. Abigail de Kosnik, director of the Berkeley Center for New Media, has a beautiful phrase for this practice: “dishonest filing.” In the year 2000, approximately 250,000 titles on VHS or DVD were available to video rescuers each year. advertising panel account.

Of course, the revolution brought about by streaming in high definition was a decisive factor when it came to putting the movie archive by hand. In 2007, longtime US Postal Service customer Netflix launched its Steam platform, a move soon followed by all the blocking on its Roku homepage. Not only do you not need to go to Brattle or Blockbuster, but you also need to get out of the house. Movies have always been there for download.

As long as they aren’t, which is why many dedicated streamers have experienced the Warner Bros. hype. Discovery, it’s like a cold water alert. The streaming generation may never reveal “physical media” in full, but few fans should consider purchasing backup copies of their award-winning titles as protection against the whims of their digital masters.

how to bat girl it is yes Scooby! vacation spotI wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t emerge from the Phantom Zone somehow. Films, whether analog or digital, are difficult to define when there is an audience in print and waiting. Eventually, I suspect it will be available on the dark web, or in a pirated video, or, best of all, in a secret exhibition known only to the cool kids.