Neil Calloway looks at a media debate for our times (and the early 1950s, if you’ve ever looked at Hollywood’s output during that era)…Television vs Film.
In a recent interview James Spader said that film was no longer a superior medium to television.
It’s easy to agree; we binge watch TV shows in the comfort of our own homes and rarely venture to the cinema; you can see why Spader, riding high as the star of The Blacklist rather than as an actor in forgettable films (come on, Sex, Lies and Videotape was more than twenty years ago; what’s he done recently? When did you last say “let’s go and see the new James Spader film”? When did you ever?) would think that. Coming out of Gone Girl last week, in which Neil Patrick Harris has a small but pivotal role, the two blokes in front of me called him Doogie Howser. TV stays with people, even if that TV show is more than twenty years old. In her excellent memoir of the making of Natural Born Killers, producer Jane Hamsher (now a successful political blogger) initially baulks at the casting of Woody Harrelson in the role of a serial killer, not believing that someone famous for playing a dumb barman in a sitcom would work in the role. More people, Harrelson tells her, watched Cheers every week than had ever seen Gone With The Wind. This tells us two things: 1) lots of people watched Cheers and 2) more people need to watch Gone With The Wind. We invite TV into our homes every week (or every night if we’re on a box set binge), where as films are a trip to the cinema away.
If TV is now superior to cinema, how do you explain the continued presence of the Kardashians on the small screen? You can make a case for the best TV being as good as the best films, but cinema is not dead. They fulfill different needs we have.
We watch films for plot, we watch TV for character. You can do things on TV over five series (it’ll be a cold day in hell before I start talking about TV seasons) that you can’t do in two hours on a cinema screen. Over 100 odd episodes you’re going to have some mis-steps when it comes to storylines; actors are going to leave, or die, or get arrested and have to quickly disappear. We stick with it because we like to spend time with the characters.
We don’t do that with film; we’re thrust into the action immediately. We watch because we want to know who did it, or how they are going to get out of the situation. Characters are not drawn as deeply, but we are carried along for the ride, before being spat out into the street after a couple of hours.
But, I hear you cry, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann and Ridley Scott, to varying degrees of success, have all dabbled in TV these past few years. If these cinema greats are working in TV, surely that proves it’s superior? Well, no. They’re still making films. The return of Twin Peaks will be the biggest thing David Lynch has done in years (since Twin Peaks, probably) but it is an event precisely because these are film directors working in TV. A few notable showrunners aside, few people get excited when a behind the scenes creatives moves from TV to film.
What happens when an actor stars in a successful TV show? Do they go on to another TV show? No, of course not; they star in films. You cannot move right now for Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston being linked with one film or another. Cinema is where actors want to work; TV is a regular paycheque, but it’s often nothing more than a stepping stone.
TV and films reflect how we watch them. TV is for home, Film for an evening out. Box sets are like a relationship; you’re in for the long haul, sometimes they disappoint, sometimes they go on too long, sometimes you’re devastated when they end, sometimes you stick with it purely for the sex. Films are a night out with your friends. They come and go in an evening, sometimes they cost too much, sometimes they are too loud. The ones you’ve been looking forward to for weeks often disappoint, others will surprise you with how much you enjoy them. You and your friends will be quoting the best and the worst for the rest of your lives. Sequels, the equivalent of trying to recreate a spontaneous pub crawl, are rarely as good as the original.
Too many nights in and you need a night out with the lads. Too many nights out and you yearn for a night in with something familiar and comforting. Cinema ain’t dead; TV just caught up.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future installments.
Originally published October 12, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
