When the Lumiere brothers first showed The Arrival of a Train (1896) in a movie theater, they thought that cinema was a passing fad. However, time proved them wrong. Numerous names contributed to this adventure initiated by the Lumiere brothers: Georges Melies, D.W. Griffith, Edward S. Porter, Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Alexander Dovzhenko, Rene Clair, Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo, Luis Bunuel, et cetera.
Various directors have made unique contributions to the survival of cinema, both artistically and technically. Moreover, many others – inspired by these directors – have spent their time contributing to this art form’s development to produce new works.
This year is the 125th year of cinema. Although it is the newest of the arts, it is an indisputable fact that cinema is more popular and readily consumable than other art forms. However, ever since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 epidemic as a ‘pandemic’ in March 2020, most people have not stepped into movie theaters. Outside of their workplaces, people who have spent most of their time at home throughout the pandemic have started to use various streaming services more frequently.
Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, MUBI, Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max, YouTube Premium, The Criterion Channel, and many more streaming services have added more subscribers during the pandemic. The idea that streaming services will replace movie theaters after the COVID-19 epidemic has emerged as a more serious possibility.
Of course, I did not want to write this article in May 2021 to denigrate streaming services and call people to watch films in movie theaters. It would have been useless under pandemic conditions. Instead, I intend to seek an answer to a question that has been discussed for years:
Is cinema dying?
In Il Maestro: Federico Fellini and the Lost Magic of Cinema, Scorsese also cautions against streaming services based on algorithms. On such services, the first movies you come across are the ones that are most viewed in the last seven days. You cannot avoid taking the recommendations provided by algorithms first. Also, unfortunately, you can only see films in specific genres in your suggestion list. As a result, it would cause you to consider a motion picture as ‘content,' no different from YouTube videos, rather than a movie in the long term.
On the other hand, streaming services like MUBI and The Criterion Channel allow viewers to regularly discover both new and old movies with numerous curations, preventing one film from being more visible than the other. For example, in Turkey, MUBI shares a movie for its viewers every day and gives them a thirty-day period to watch it.
Furthermore, MUBI provides selections for films made by directors such as Wong Kar Wai, Jim Jarmusch, Eric Rohmer, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Sergei Loznitsa, Agnes Varda, François Truffaut, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Robert Bresson, Abbas Kiarostami, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Chris Marker. It also offers curations specific to films by country, historical periods, festivals, genres, and themes. These remind the viewers that they watch a movie rather than ‘content.’ Also, these enable them to explore new films regularly by continuously adding curations to the platform.
There are several reasons Scorsese is concerned about the future of cinema. Since some platforms use algorithms, there is a higher chance of conventional cinema dominating the film industry more intensely. Secondly, Scorsese believes that the value given to alternative works and approaches is at the risk of diminishing and disappearing. This will cause cinema, which he regards as an art form, and its creators to lose their significance in the long run.
Consequently, when it comes to answering the question ‘Is cinema dying?’, it seems more logical to state that cinema is mortal like everything else and will die one day than ‘Cinema is dead, long live cinema!' I can understand people’s pessimism about the future of cinema as an art form due to the technological changes and the fact that our lives are accelerating exponentially day by day. I also think that some directors and films that I love will not be valued as much in the future.
However, people should not forget that many arthouse films continue to be a fundamental source for numerous people producing conventional movies worldwide. That is why I do not believe that the real issue is about film theaters, streaming services, traditional films, or arthouse films. Their existence will be positive for the future of cinema. In contrast, film enthusiasts should remind the owners of streaming services, who will shape the future of cinema, that movies are different from any other ‘content’ they encounter on the internet. It is the only way these owners can understand the need for curations, and film enthusiasts can safely suggest ‘Cinema is alive, long live cinema!’.
Works Cited
Scorsese, Martin. 2021. "Il Maestro: Federico Fellini and the Lost Magic of Cinema." Harper's Magazine. March. Accessed May 27, 2021. https://harpers.org/archive/2021/03/il-maestro-federico-fellini-martin-scorsese/.
World Health Organization. 2020. WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 11 March 2020. March 11. Accessed May 26, 2021. https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020.