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Film: I saw it on my iphone
By Henry P. Raleigh
ART TIMES online May 2013
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There are still those annoying purists around who will tell you that the only way to appreciate a film is to see it as at was originally intended to be seen: you know, in a darkened theater, surrounded by an audience awed by the enormous images projected by a light shining on a screen before them. Well sir, those fusspots are completely out-of-date. You see, we’ve pretty evolved culturally to the point that we don’t need to see a film in the original. Original hardly exists any more, all have been digitalized and shrunk to a convenient size that may be played on any small screen in the comfort and seclusion of your own home, or for that matter, while driving along a busy highway. We are perfectly accustomed to viewing what sort of looks like reality in quite small formats. We were trained in early childhood by video games, advanced through our youth sitting before TV monitors and on into adulthood shackled to a PC and its many diminutive variations. Why, we hardly find it necessary any longer to sit placidly, often impatiently, awaiting the conclusion of a film. Streaming now permits us interactively to do as we wish with just about any film ever made — pause it, reverse or fast-forward minute-by-minute, scene-by-scene. You’re in control, all right. And look, aren’t those TV monitors bigger now, wall size if you like and stuffed with enough pixels to boggle the mind. How much better can it get, I ask you?