I was excited about the new Lisa Cholodenko mini series with Frances McDormand and Bill Murray until I saw the three dreaded letters: HBO. Heres a new cinema problem: if the equivalent of contemporary american cinema is, as some say, increasingly something that happens on HBO and such, that means it is now only accessible - legally, at least - to those can afford the significant cost of a monthly cable subscription that includes HBO (though there are the bonuses of terrible image quality and what appears to be an actual policy of customer abuse). Given what I do, this is a cost I would make some pretty meaningful sacrifices to get. And have in the past. But the cost is now such that I cant, and Im not what youd call poor. Ironically, working in cable / tv is increasingly necessary for independent filmmakers who want to put food on the table. Moving to a platform accessible only to people of a certain monthly bank balance is not a good thing for cinema or the people it needs to reach.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 23:49:57 +0000