On Wednesday, Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated return to the gangster genre, The Irishman, released worldwide on Netflix. It boasts of an acting ensemble right out of a film lover’s wildest dreams. Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, Anna Paquin, Ray Romano, and Joe Pesci — whom Scorsese coaxed out of retirement— headline the director’s first film after the meditative, deeply personal Silence.
A still from The Irishman. YouTube
The Irishman is reportedly budgeted at over Rs 150 million dollars, and has been gathering rave reviews during its festival run. Not unlike Roma last year, another Netflix film, it is being considered a major player for the upcoming award season. It will be fair to declare Scorsese’s latest film the talk of the town. Despite all the laurels coming its way, however, The Irishman is a film which, had it not been for Netflix, might never have been made.
Last month, The Hollywood Reporter assembled producers from the biggest American studios for a roundtable. A major takeaway from their conversation on the state of the film business was regarding Netflix green-lighting The Irishman. A serious themed film costing a 150 million dollars, running three hours plus, and featuring a wizened star-cast, the major studios conceded, would not have flown in a climate where superhero themed movies rule the roost. Despite the presence of a legendary director and acting talent to fill film museums of the future, the project would have been too ambitious to take on. But Scorsese directing a Netflix film was an extremely lucrative proposition for the streaming giant. And if the awards chatter it generated even before its release is anything to go by, Netflix cannot be blamed for expecting another Roma-like haul, or more, during the awards season.
The Irishman is not the only Netflix film that is gearing up for the Oscars. Noah Baumbach’s latest directorial venture, Marriage Story, is right beside it, and at a fraction of the budget of the gangster film. From documentaries to smaller, independent films, Netflix is attracting filmmaking talent from across the spectrum. This year itself has seen the release of films as diverse as Paddleton, The King, High Flying Bird, and Knock Down the House. Filmmakers are drawn to Netflix for its 130 million plus subscribers across the world and more creative control, although it means that their film may never witness a traditional theatrical run.
That last point is key to Netflix’s rapidly increasing significance in the film business. If they feel a film has potential to net awards, they give it a limited run in theatres, mostly to qualify for the awards and generate chatter. But a majority of the films are bound to go straight to streaming, where the viewers are expected to watch them on a device of their choice, ranging from mobile phone to television. For more than a century, films have been viewed inside cinema halls, where hundreds of people gather to undergo a collective cinematic experience. The romance attached to this experience is being bypassed to yield to the comfort of home viewing from an endless array of choices. Netflix is not alone. Amazon is mulling over shrinking the theatrical window for its original releases on Prime Video. In India, Jio is making plans to launch a service where films will hit their streaming platform on the day of the theatrical release. Now that Disney has entered the fray with their own streaming platform, the clamour for viewers’ attention is set to get louder.
Streaming services run on the increasing numbers of their subscribers. It makes market sense for them to limit the release of their films in theatres or dispose of it altogether. The more exclusive a film is to a particular streaming provider, the more subscribers will flock to watch it on their platform. And so you have films that should traditionally have been running in theatres — The King, The Two Popes, 6 Underground among others —going straight to streaming. Plans are afoot at Netflix to commission multiple blockbusters for the coming year.
The way we watch movies and where we watch them is undergoing a singular transition. It can appear like a win-win scenario for the typical consumer of content. Why go to the movies after spending on transportation and a ticket for a single film when you can choose from an entire library by paying a set amount each month?
On 1 November itself, for instance, Netflix released four original films produced in three different countries. If you could not stand one of them beyond the first 10 minutes — a feeling common to those who started on Drive — you could simply switch to The King instead. Oh and you can always pause them if you need to go to the washroom or take a smoking break. With more and more streaming platforms cropping up every year, one could simply feel spoilt for choice.
What you miss out on is the film-going experience, the gradually gathering darkness of the theatre, the human hush and hum that underscores the film, and, of course, the big screen to look up to and marvel at. A great number of filmmakers would blanch at the idea of their films being viewed on smartphones and laptops, stripped of the majesty afforded to them by the big screen. But in order for a film to be watched, it needs to be made first. When faced with the choice of making a film for streaming platforms or not making the film at all, most filmmakers will choose the former. Scorsese did. One can expect others to follow in the near future, in order to bring their long cherished dreams to the screen. It is a clear trade-off. Their choices and ours will determine the course of things to come.
from Firstpost Bollywood Latest News https://ift.tt/34vDFAk
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