DVDS just like islands in the streaming
An article on Stuff caught my eye last week. James Croot and sundry unnamed editors put together a wish list of film and television titles available on the American streaming service Netflix, but denied to subscribers in New Zealand.
As is always the case with wish lists, the choices were subjective, if persuasively argued. What struck me more was the tone of the piece.
As DVD rental stores have closed down with increasing frequency over the past few years journalists have risen to the challenge with nostalgic reflections on the golden age of rental, heartfelt stories of decades-old family businesses going under and defiant tales of independent operators making a last stand against streaming and downloading.
Falling into the last category myself, I have written one or two such articles, hopefully less an advertisement for my own, perpetually unprofitable business than an attempt at explaining the logic of catering to dedicated film buffs frustrated at the inability of Netflix and services like it to deliver classic and world cinema options on sufficient scale.
Although Croot’s piece is motivated in part by a similar attitude, it also assumes the DVD era is already over. Lamenting that David Lynch’s magnificent Twin Peaks is unavailable on Netflix, he says: ‘‘Kiwis currently have to take their chances on finding a DVD or Blu-ray boxset.’’
The phrase implies a degree of difficulty or the need for random luck, as though you were seeking some rare artifact from the distant past. Yet if you live in Wellington, Christchurch or Hamilton, respectively the second, third and fourth largest cities in New Zealand, a specialist DVD store will sate all your Lynch requirements.
Even in Auckland, insufficiently sophisticated a metropolis perhaps to sustain the once-treasured niche market operation Videon, there are retail outlets such as Marbecks, JB Hi-fi and, for the moment at least, the Warehouse. No ‘‘chances’’ have to be taken to acquire disks still very much in mass circulation – just a minimum of effort.
It’s possible any kind of effort is too much for a generation who want it all now, in their living room, at the flick of a remote control. To have Netflix is by definition to ‘‘chill’’.
Perish the thought anything might interfere with the sedentary lifestyle. One can but imagine the class action suites that will be taken out in the future. If legal redress can be sought against Mcdonald’s for making you fat, might not an organisation that counsels collapsing on the couch or bed for hours at end be equally libel?
But I digress. A broader analysis of the DVD problem should acknowledge that folk are divesting themselves of players at an alarming rate. New computers lack the capacity to play disks. Though superficially these decisions reflect an embracing of new technology the net effect – if you can excuse the pun – is the type of great leap backwards the Mcgillicuddy Serious Party would approve of.
Essentially, we are returning to a pre-vcr era, unable to record or play or collect the great films and television shows of this or earlier eras. Instead, we are increasingly reliant on service providers that can turn off the tap as quickly as they turned it on.
What can be done? Well, for a start, hold on to your DVD player and replace it when it breaks, investing in multi-zone equipment that can play disks from all regions of the world.
As the squeeze gets ever tighter, it will become increasingly necessary to import titles from overseas.
Let’s hope our archaic, if for most practical purposes toothless, censorship system can keep pace. If not, as private individuals, you are well advised to ignore the censors. Sadly, those of us who foolishly attempt to make a living from DVD rental do not have that luxury.
Public libraries should also come to the party, especially in regions outside the areas alluded to above.
If you cannot patronise the capital’s 30-year-strong Aro Video, or the post-quake Alice in Videoland or the Waikato’s humble equivalent, Auteur House, you should demand your local library stocks film classics in much the same way as they stock literary classics.
I too lament the fact that Netflix doesn’t feature The Third Man in its catalogue, but a DVD of it should be sitting in the Graham Greene section of your library.
As a work of art it’s easily the equivalent of any Greene novel.