Not long ago, I grabbed a coffee with a film-maker of my acquaintance. His latest picture – his fourth or fifth – is of a budget that would be considered enormous in any other venture short of warfare but for a feature made in America was fairly...

Not long ago, I grabbed a coffee with a film-maker of my acquaintance. His latest picture – his fourth or fifth – is of a budget that would be considered enormous in any other venture short of warfare but for a feature made in America was fairly modest. I asked what kind of distribution it was getting, and he told me it was due to open in just a few screens in key cities, largely in order to attract the attention of critics. The distributers were in no doubt that their money would be made via online channels. This, they assured him, was increasingly the norm for pictures of this sort, and, doubtless, itself a transitional stage before the whole theatrical bit is bypassed altogether.

 My thoughts turned repeatedly to this conversation as the credits rolled on the screening of Gravity I attended last week at a multiplex in central Paris. From its jaw-dropping thirteen-minute opening shot, everything about Alfonso Cuarón’s latest work demands the full resources of such a venue. It exploits every inch of the vast screen, every degree and decibel of its surround sound, and all the illusory depth of its up-to-date 3D technology more fully and more confidently than – perhaps – any other film I have seen. As a spectacular experience, the picture is practically faultless. Had I, however, first watched this film on DVD on my (quite large) home TV or (somewhat smaller) laptop, or even at one of the many fine independent cinemas that my adoptive home city is so fortunate to possess, I fear I may have struggled to find anything of merit whatsoever.

Read the rest of my thoughts on Gravity and the end of cinema in the latest issue of Verité Magazine.

11/25/13 at 10:10am
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