I have always been a big fan of the Wesleyan Film Series (WFS). Few colleges can match the breadth of the film selections, the number of screenings per semester, or, since the spring of 2004, the quality of its theater. But when I pulled the WFS January-March 2007 pamphlet out of my mailbox today and read through it, I couldn’t help feeling some disappointment. Ten out of the twenty-four listed films were released in 2006. Many of them are still in theaters. Two–“The Last King of Scotland” and “Dreamgirls” – are playing at the Destinta Theater in Middletown as I write this. I have noticed the trend of including more films still in or just out of theaters over the past couple of semesters, but the lineup for January-March 2007 finally prompted me to write something about it.
When I first came to Wesleyan, there was no shiny new Center for Film Studies. The film series was screened in two locations – the Science Center and the CFA. Yet, despite the lack of a state-of-the-art theater, the film series was going strong. In fact, there were more screenings, overall, than there are today. Each film was usually screened twice a night, around 8pm and 10pm, Wednesday through Saturday. In addition, on Fridays and Saturdays two different films would be screened simultaneously, one in the Science Center and one in the CFA. I bring this up not to lament the “good old days,” but to point out that the selection of films shown in a given semester has narrowed.
For me, the primary appeal of the WFS has been its ability to show movies that many students are unfamiliar with and might not otherwise see. As a freshman and sophomore I saw, through the WFS, films I had never heard of that now number among my all-time favorites. I am not suggesting that the WFS has lost this appeal, but I think, given the fewer number of screenings it has now, the decision-makers should be particularly discerning when selecting films for the series. To spend precious film series slots on well-marketed Hollywood movies like “Borat,” “Casino Royale,” “The Departed,” and “Dreamgirls” seems to me a waste, especially if they are still playing in general theaters (as all of these are). The vast majority of students who wanted to see these films have seen them already, recently, and if they haven’t they still have the opportunity to, either in theaters or when they are released, with great fanfare, on DVD.
I understand the desire to bring in audiences with big-name films on $4 Friday nights, but, with all due respect to the great minds on the Wesleyan Film Board, I think they could be a little more imaginative. I advise them to go back a little farther than the previous month in their search for appropriate titles. “Starship Troopers,” listed for January 26th, is a good example—it is both a rocking action flick and a film that a good number of Wesleyan students may not have seen.
Rather than showing recent box office hits (most of which aren’t very good anyway) I think the film series would be better served by lining their Friday nights with older blockbusters. Since films of this sort are not as likely as 2006 films to have been recently seen by students, they are actually, as I see it, more likely to bring in audiences. Furthermore, they offer students the rare opportunity of seeing these older films projected on a big screen.
Admittedly, I am not aware of what role, if any, economics plays in the decisions made by the Wesleyan Film Board. Perhaps Wesleyan obtains films ending their runs in standard theaters at cut rates, or there is some other explanation for the trend. I really don’t know. However, since the film board is capable of getting films like “Starship Troopers,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “The Road Warrior,” I don’t see why they wouldn’t be able to get their hands on movies like “The Terminator,” “Die Hard,” and other replacements for their “Pirates of the Caribbean 2” and “Casino Royale” slots.
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