I would like to thank the Film Board and Will DiNovi in particular for responding to my concerns about the inclusion of lots of recent movies in the Wesleyan Film Series (WFS). I hope in this Wespeak to respond to some of the points he makes and to clarify my primary argument.
DiNovi mentions that the WFS has a “responsibility to highlight important trends in contemporary cinema.” He offers “Old Joy” and “Iraq in Fragments” as examples to support his claim that “many of the films from 2006 that [I] lumped into [my] broader misgivings represent vital currents in modern movies.” First, let me say that I did not intend to imply that the WFS should not include any recent films whatsoever in its lineup, and I’m not sure how DiNovi came to that conclusion, if he did. On the contrary, my aim was to stress the importance for the WFS of presenting the Wesleyan community with fresh movie-going opportunities. To that end, I argued that the WFS should think twice before including in its program well-marketed Hollywood films that are just out of or still in general theaters. Neither “Old Joy” nor “Iraq in Fragments” was released wide in the US, making it likely that many students have not seen or even heard of them. I think they are fine additions to the lineup. (Incidentally, because “Old Joy” is listed as a film from 2005, I actually did not include it in my statistic about the number of films from 2006 currently in the WFS.)
Dinovi also writes that “the four best-attended films in the series this year were all released in 2006. Clearly there is a demand for recent movies.” Technically, what the “top four” data indicates is that there was a greater demand for those recent movies that the Film Board decided to screen than for the older movies they decided not to screen. Name recognition, I think, is the primary reason behind this trend. In fact, data supporting the opposite conclusion–that there is little demand for recent movies on the Wesleyan campus–could be generated quite easily by designing a WFS program that screened lots of bad 2006 films and lots of legendary older films. That the four best-attended films were best-attended *because* they were from 2006 is not clear; I think it’s unlikely to be the case. That said, it is obvious that there was a significant demand for those four movies, and they were all from 2006–that alone lends support to the idea of showing films from 2006. Still, I am curious what those films were, and how many of them were wide-release Hollywood films just out of or still in theaters. If a film like “Iraq in Fragments” (cited by DiNovi as drawing an audience of over 400) is among the top four, it should be noted that its success does not support the case for screening well-marketed Hollywood films. In addition, because admission at that screening was free, the film did not help alleviate the “financial considerations” that DiNovi mentions.
Toward the end of his Wespeak, DiNovi defends the showing of recent blockbusters like “Borat” and “The Departed” by appealing to critical acclaim and pop culture controversy. Say what you like about the aesthetic or social merits of “The Departed” and “Borat” (or “Dreamgirls” and “Casino Royale,” for that matter), my point is that they are widely accessible and still playing in nearby theaters. In fact, “The Departed” is playing right now at Destinta in Middletown, raising the number of films on the most recent WFS calendar screened downtown this semester to three. That number nearly triples if we include films screened at Destinta over the past couple months, and that is only for the first half of this semester’s WFS selection.
When I look at the other movies Destinta is showing right now, I can’t help but recognize several likely candidates for the second half of this semester’s WFS: “Babel,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Queen,” and “Volver.” I’ve always thought that having a movie theater within walking distance is one of the big plusses of Wesleyan’s campus, and I strongly agree with Tessa Williams and her recent Wespeak in thinking it is a mistake to make the WFS redundant with Destinta’s offerings. Once again, I’m not suggesting that no recent films should be included in the WFS, or even that no recent Hollywood blockbusters should be included. But I think the trend of the past few semesters, culminating this semester with five of the six Friday movies being from 2006, four of them still in theaters, is going in the wrong direction. If my memory serves me, when I was a freshman, films still in wide release simply were not shown in the WFS at all.
DiNovi concludes his article by saying, “there’s no shame in showing a recent, crowd-pleasing film in one of the finest screening facilities in the entire country, especially when it’s being shown for a third of the price that all us cash-strapped, loan-wielding collegiates would shoulder at your local multiplex.” My point is that there IS shame in having films of this sort dominate the Friday night lineup of the WFS, especially when they are playing all over the country and it is not clear how “crowd-pleasing” they really are (consider the failure of “Pirates of the Caribbean 2”). Also, all Wesleyan students can get $5 tickets to Destinta at the Campus Center.
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