To Stream or Not To Stream: The Ongoing Relevance of The Big-Screen Experience
4 Week Course, 7-9pm, Tuesday 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th November.
This course will take place in the cinema event space, on the top floor of the Little Theatre. Snacks and hot drinks are available for purchase from the downstairs kiosk.
Course Leader: Author, journalist, digital editor and podcaster Sean Wilson
To say that theatrical distribution is experiencing challenges at the moment is an understatement. Amid profligate budget spending, cinema audiences have apparently been declining, faced with an ongoing COVID pandemic, a cost of living crisis and impactful actors’ and writers’ strikes. Above all, streaming content has made devastating incursions to the public’s perception of movie content and the theatrical release window. But does all of this mean that we should permanently write off the big-screen experience?
Week one: Challenges to theatrical supremacy in the age of COVID-19
In March 2020, COVID-19 shuttered the doors of millions of people across the planet and, in some quarters, is credited with forever changing peoples’ perceptions of the cinema experience. We examine where this began, how studios and filmmakers responded and whether cinema faces a positive or negative future.
Suggested viewing:
Rob Savage’s Host
Rose Glass’ Saint Maud
Week two: The rise of streaming
Streaming services had been on the rise well before COVID-19 was even coined, but during the pandemic streamers capitalized on a unique opportunity to seize peoples’ attention. Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, Paramount+ and more have ploughed massive budgets into prestige productions that would once have been written off as ‘televisual’. We examine how this has further highlighted the shortcomings in the theatrical experience.
Suggested viewing:
Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma
Bong Joon-ho’s Okja
Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Week three: Recent big-screen success stories
It’s not been all doom and gloom over the last couple of years. There have been hit productions across both the blockbuster and art-house circuits that have unified an audience. In their own unique ways, these films continue to remind people of what is so special about going to the cinema and escaping into another world.
Suggested viewing:
Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick
Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie
Week four: Putting it in context: how the big screen has weathered similar challenges before
This is not the first time that seemingly invincible movie studios have seen their supremacy challenged. The final module contextualises recent developments in line with the New Hollywood development of the 1960s whereby the youth movement helped counter bloated, overblown filmmaking amid the collapse of the studio system to arrest the attention of a new audience. Can cinema in the 21st century hope to do the same?
Suggested viewing:
Peter Fonda’s Easy Rider
Mike Nichols’ The Graduate
Tickets are £70 for the full four-week course (£65 concession / £60 Picturehouse Members).
