Isn't Netflix already producing their own movies which is what the dispute is all about? Now what Netflix/Amazon need is their own film festival and awards show (never mind, apparently the Streamy Awards is already a thing).
You mean, I think, that it will force them to start distributing them in movie theaters (well, French theaters, but possibly more if other awards follow suit.) Which is possible.
Alternatively, as those platforms become more important movie distribution venues, it will reduce the relevance of Cannes and other festivals/awards that exclude films distributed by streaming alone (or "not in theaters", which isn't exactly the same thing.)
I think your second point is much more on. Think about MTV movie awards. I don't think it existed 20 years ago (just checked and it started 24 years ago but I never heard about it that long ago) and came about because of the unhappiness with the academy awards.
If all the award ceremonies start excluding streaming movies and the same quality movies are being released I can assure you we will see a Netflix Movie Awards or Streaming Movies Awards come to fruition.
- Any film that wishes to compete in Competition at Cannes will have to commit itself to being distributed in French movie theaters. This new measure will apply from the 2018 edition of the Festival International du Film de Cannes onwards.
Makes sense. I guess they want potential winners to be viewable by the people and not appear to be promoting netflix as the only option.
Regulatory capture would usually refer to an industry gaining control of the body that is nominally supposed to regulate it, like if the FCC was captured by broadcasters or the SEC was captured by banks.
Movie production isn't what I would think of as a regulated industry; this seems more like regular lobbying.
If you search the definition of regulatory capture you get:
>Regulatory capture is a form of government failure that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.
Specifically in this case however, the "public interest" could be described as the preservation and promotion of French culture. Which in this case, could be argued IS served by the regulation that awards can only be given to the product which shows in French theaters.
Since we'd have to note that it also means that it must pass all relevant French classification regulations.
Now, I'm Canadian and we have a series of laws called "can-con" (which stands for Canadian content) where all licensed broadcasters must show a certain proportion of their shows as approved can-con (based on the proportion of the creative staff who are Canadians). This does have an effect on shoring up the difference in culture. I mean - so - maybe that results in Trailer Park Boys - but come on! That episode where Rush shows up? Pure gold.
I think the requirement to restrict to cinema-only is a bit of a sledgehammer solution but I personally see the point and think it's overall a good thing.
There is this thing in France called "l'exception culturelle" which means not that culture is exceptional, but that cultural products (books and movies essentially) should be exempt from normal (international) competition rules that apply to all other sectors of the economy.
The rationale is that cultural products are "special" and that if they're not protected, they'll vanish and be replaced by American ones that are inferior by nature.
In general terms, the bad consequences of protectionism are twofold:
1. It raises prices for the customer by limiting competition
2. It limits exports, as international partners try to do to your products what you do to theirs (keeping them out of their market)
French cultural products are notoriously difficult to export, for a variety of reasons, one of which being language and another being they're generally of poor quality (I say this as a Frenchman), so problem 2 isn't seen as major (you can't harm exports that you don't have).
And problem 1 isn't big either because everyone benefits from high prices which allow high taxes that further finance the cinema, and no one cares about the end user.
Personally I think this is a bad system that is in large part responsible for the poor quality mentioned above.
That said, rules should apply to all. Just because those rules are bad doesn't mean Netflix or Amazon should be exempt from them. We should change the rules -- but that's, like, hard.
> The rationale is that cultural products are "special" and that if they're not protected, they'll vanish and be replaced by American ones that are inferior by nature.
In fairness to France, other countries have similar laws too. Australia requires TV stations to broadcast 55% Australian-produced TV shows & films during primetime (6pm - midnight). Even 80% of the TV commercials have to be Australian-produced too. But instead of funding lots of culturally significant TV shows, we tend to get repeated news bulletins, low-cost Australian game shows, current affairs shows & soap operas. [Although Neighbours probably counts as culturally significant to Australia.]
If we didn't do that, we'd be completely inundated with American shows flogged off on the cheap. We wouldn't have any local content at all - perhaps not even the news. France has a barrier in that they (proudly) speak a different language, whereas we would just get bargain-basement/afterthought prices for stuff in the same language, no edits required.
Our homegrown tv and movie industry was never going to be high quality though, because we're a small market and we've never really been a particularly literary people. I'm curious as to what kind of show you would consider to be 'culturally significant', though. The only staples that you haven't listed that spring to mind are sports (plenty on TV), panel shows (ditto), documentaries (small market everywhere) and sitcoms. What kind of tv show do you consider 'culturally significant'?
> If we didn't do that, we'd be completely inundated with American shows flogged off on the cheap
Absolutely. I deleted it from my post, but I was going to mention that on non-primary Australian TV stations that don't have the same content restrictions, we get 2 hours of non-stop Big Bang Theory reruns, or endless repeats of Frasier, Sex And The City, Charmed & Becker.
> What kind of tv show do you consider 'culturally significant'?
Glitch is my favorite recent Australian TV show, started on ABC but apparently Season 2 has been sold as a Netflix exclusive. Back in the 90s it would have been shows like Seachange, Frontline, Kath & Kim. Maybe Offspring & Packed To The Rafters are recent equivalents.
(Outside Australia, I'd think of shows like The Bridge, Springfloden, The Killing & Occupied, that have exported Scandinavian culture onto Australian TV.)
> The rationale is that cultural products are "special" and that if they're not protected, they'll vanish and be replaced by American ones that are inferior by nature.
The parent is just building a straw-man. There are multiple reasons for the protection of cultural products.
One is that a country should have a lively cultural scene to be interesting to live in. If you lived in a city with a large cultural scene and another one without, you probably see the point.
Another is that a country's culture is a component of its soft power. Not having a lively culture is seen as being culturally under foreign domination.
But the rule seem to only protect movie theaters (not local film makers) from competing with streaming services. Would not it be better to impose a tax on importing foreign movies?
> another being they're generally of poor quality (I say this as a Frenchman)
I'm not a Frenchman, I'm Canadian, and I completely disagree with this, of course this is all about personal taste, but since you use yours to construct your argument I thought I had to contradict.
>French cultural products are notoriously difficult to export, for a variety of reasons, one of which being language and another being they're generally of poor quality (I say this as a Frenchman)
Compared to the utter crap pop culture the US produces, where every second film is about superheroes in spandex and explosions?
In the US, Administrative Laws (regulations) are passed and repealed much easier than legislation. Is there a difference between regulation and legislation in France?
Surely this rule must be that streaming services can't show the movie in france until 36 months after, no? If not, very few hollywood movies would have been shown in france (because almost all of them are on netflix or amazon prime within 36 months)
Well, yes, of course. France is a small enough market that you might choose to exhibit and then wait, but France is also small enough that you might choose to focus on Sundance instead in order to change the policy.
The 36 months delay only applies to subscription-based streaming services (recurring "all you can eat" subscriptions, like Netflix).
Movies are available after 4 months for VOD with per-movie payment, and other delays apply depending on the situation (e.g. 10 months for cinema-specific paid TV-channel with partnerships with cinema orgs, etc).
Promoting local business and movie culture instead of a soulless American global firm? France doesn't value capitalism and "freedom" (to destroy all other values) as in the US.
It seems strange to say that a company that produces works of art is more soulless and capitalist than a glorified snack bar that shows other people's art to draw customers.
I don't think it's at all out of context with the functioning of contemporary Capitalism, especially in the United States. The film and tv industry in the US are used incessantly to manufacture desires and new forms of consumption, even setting aside product placements. Critics of Capitalism have observed this since the 1950s:
It just strikes me as, well, self-defeating to have an international celebration of film confined to your nation's take on it and promoting your local businesses while ignoring major contributors to the medium.
It seems strange to say, "Well, a film must be in a cinema" when that's not how most people watch them. (At least not the vast majority of films they watch in any of the countries I've been in.)
It's not that they banned all soulless corporations producing faux art, they just banned a change in watching habits to prop up an industry with poor value proposition.
Film as a medium is a valuable part of culture; theatres aren't necessarily.
Theatres must offer something over sitting on the couch -- and in the US they have, introducing things like bars and food services.
Very much this. It's going to reflect poorly on them that an international film festival can be pushed around by a local movie theater lobby.
I especially liked the undertone in some pieces (not Slate) that Netflix is 'exploiting' Cannes to promote its movies, as if that was not the actual point of a festival.
> It seems strange to say, "Well, a film must be in a cinema" when that's not how most people watch them. (At least not the vast majority of films they watch in any of the countries I've been in.)
David Sedaris goes on at length about moving to France and falling in love with the film culture there, where movies are shown in small theatres very cheaply. This was back in 2000, so things may have changed, but he was very clear on the differences between the American and French theater-going experience.
> Film as a medium is a valuable part of culture; theatres aren't necessarily.
You should probably stop calling it 'film', then. Most theatres can still show actual films; few homes can.
Absolutely not. This is not about small movie clubs struggling against the giant american megacorp; it's movie theaters being angry that Netflix doesn't bring them any money (and the extremely obscure movie sector, that has already been scolded for having shady flows of money such that no one understands what's going on). One party creates and finances movies, the other distributes them. One party is present globally, and as such is relevant to the culture, the other just decided to reduce screening time of european and independent creations to one week only, against previous arrangements. Who participates more to the movie culture?
Another point, streaming-only movies have already been shown in the past but they weren't a problem because they didn't threaten the big movie associations. Netflix completely bypasses them and that suddenly becomes a problem.
Yes it's also a giant vs small cinemas fight: some cinemas in France have 2 or 3 screens and give access to a very wide selection of films in very isolated parts of France. Netflix's catalog is a pack of shit filled with low-tier comedies from the US, and barely any really independant foreign films. As a platform, they have no point of view on the value of films and no editorial ambitions.
Ignoring the parent's law about streaming services, it could be though that the chains all compete with each other for the same movies, but Netflix is the only source of made by Netflix movies.
Still seems like many laws and rules about nothing to me.
They target streaming-only movies, not Netflix. I'm sure if Netflix sold the rights to their movies so that they can be shown in local cinemas they wouldn't have any issue.
The Grammys went in the opposite direction this year. Opening the competition to streaming only for the first time. Two steps forward one step back. Cannes will come around in the next 5-10 years or become obsolete.
Theatres should be able to show streaming movies. I'm sure they have the tech for it. Licensing and permissions are always a thorny beast for new tech though.
It doesn't make sense. This applies to all streaming movies, not just netflix. If you are an independent French film maker and you hoped to start a grassroots movement to get your movie considered for competition at the Cannes by providing it free online then you are out of luck.
This seems to harm others more than Netflix. Does an award nomination or win for a Netflix only movie even have a detectable impact on subscription?
France has a very different movie industry than the US; most theaters are independent in France so their offerings are far more diverse than the average US chain theater. If an indie French filmmaker can't get their film screened in at least one French theater, then quite frankly it's not good enough to be considered for Cannes and probably not even good enough to justify the time spent making it.
I guess it kind of makes sense because the Streaming-Only movies are not available to the general public in cinemas and require a paid subscription. "Normal" movies have a one-time fee too and these competitions are free advertising for every winner, but in the case of Streaming they are essentially free advertising for a movie subscription.
Yes, but general public doesn't know this and Netflix is not going around advertising this with high priority. Getting/Cancelling the subscription on a per movie basis is not the intended use of Netflix anyway, so it's gaming the system and netflix allows it.
People sign up for just a month. Don't cancel immediately after watching the movie they want, because they want to use the paid month in full. After two/three weeks the brain phases out the expiration date and the subscription renews.
"But reminders!" the reader would complain so let me preempt that: not many person actually set reminders for this kind of stuff - part because 'it's only a month' part because not everyone is as phone dependent as techhies and mbas types. For internet and social? Sure. For reminding every little detail in life? Hardly. Especially since outside apple setting a reminder is still a subpar experience.
To be fair, you can cancel Netflix and then continue using it until the end of your current subscription period. I would have thought it would be illegal to withdraw the service early as punishment for cancelling.
Netflix seems to try to provide a good enough service so that customers want to extend the subscription, rather than relying on customers forgetting to cancel. Very irrational of them as we all know capitalists try to scam everyone first chance they get.
Not so sure it's cheaper in France. There are many ways to go to the movies for much less than that. There is some kind of subscription that's very popular in Paris that lets you go to any movie in about half of the theaters (including independents) for a monthly fee, and a few times a year there are weekends when the movies are 2-3 euros a pop.
Thus said watching a movie on a laptop screen in your apartment is hardly the same as going to a proper cinema.
But going to a "proper cinema" is a lot less enjoyable than using your own 4k screen with good audio, comfy seating, homemade snacks, no other audience, choice of language and subtitles and the possibility to pause it if needed. Let's not forget the choice of the exact time you watch it and you don't have to get dressed too.
A fast PC, a 4K screen, a nice home, paid streaming service subscription, paid ISP subscription and snacks. I believe France to be a bit more socialist (in the same way as Scandinavia is) than some other countries and it's possible also that the 'draconian laws' as YC comments insist on calling them, are there to level the playing field for all?
So we don't need cinemas anymore because instead of $11 for a cinema everyone could pay $10000 for a home cinema system and get the same experience. Makes sense...
With the added costs of owning a PC good enough to stream and being on a paid for network good enough to stream, which might not be available in a lot of the French countryside where a bicycle ride or a short trip on public transport is more affordable. The cost is far greater than 9.99. Not to mention that French cinema sees itself as 'art' and a laptop screen can't do the director justice.
> I guess it kind of makes sense because the Streaming-Only movies are not available to the general public in cinemas and require a paid subscription.
As someone who doesn't live in one of the handful of metropoles that cater to every niche interest, if there's one thing that surely isn't one of the advantages of independent cinema it's availability. I can't count the number of times I was interest in a small film or documentary only to be disappointed by a website that presents me with a list of global screenings I could however count much more easily: On one hand.
I can understand that streaming isn't the filmmakers ideal choice, but unless we're talking about big budget blockbusters I see no point in relying on theatres in this day and age. It's a needless and artificial scarcity and limits the potential audience. At least let me buy the film.
The technical ability to show the films in movie theaters isn't the issue. The problem is that Netflix hasn't arranged for the movies to be actually shown in French movie theaters:
> The two movies included in Cannes’ lineup this year are slated for theatrical bows stateside, but according to the festival’s official statement, “no agreement has been reached” to get the moves into French cinemas
Force streaming services to release in French theaters, force customers to pay someone else to watch the movie, and subject the streaming services to draconian french regulations on when they can stream that movie.
So as Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming services take off, cannes will become less and less relevant as more and more movies are funded and produced by streaming services until cannes is that old french indy festival that was replaced with a more modern and movie viewer friendly festival.
French cinema's current position in the world is mainly due to these kinds of stricts regulations, that allow small films to compete with big budget movies for the viewers' attention, and small theaters with big networks. Netflix, iTunes etc. are not just "normal" players in the film production business, they are also marketplaces fighting for distribution exclusivity, and they need to be regulated as such.
As a french, I can tell you that what's french regulations are protecting is mostly garbage nobody wants to watch. For one "Amelie", you have a 1000 "les petits mouchoirs". Well I don't want my taxes to pay to protect those. Let the market decide. I already pay 13 euros for a freaking movie while I paid 5 times less 20 years ago. Netflix provides way better content than the french industry. French youtubers produce way better content that the traditional french medias. The independant scene, only getting scraps from this so called "cinema protection" does more creative content.
"Amélie" is by no means a small film, just take a look at Jean-Pierre Jeunet's other films' budget to get a sense of it. By small films I mean for example :
- Sayônara by Kôji Fukada
- Un avant-poste du progrès by Hugo Vieira da Silva
- Psiconautas by Pedro Rivero and Alberto Vázquez
Those are just 3 titles coming up from Allocine that launched this week in theaters. None of them will be on Netflix.
Regarding the ticket price, it's indeed around 11-13 in big circuits, but around 7 in small independant theaters, so that's a reason more to encourage them.
I suspect France has a similar system whereby the gov has essentially a tax for financing/subsidizing the film industry and that's what they're talking about.
Btw: in GER it's ~17.50€ per month per household and the "agency" collecting this money is already talking about raising this to ~20€ in a few years...
Exactly. Most french movies make pennies at the box office and the only reason they exist is because of outrageous financing by the State. Same thing happens in other like minded countries in Europe.
Spain here, can confirm. Some producers even fake the mandatory movie screening that they need to keep the tax-funded grant. Even the freaking former president of the Spanish Cinema Academy is facing jail time over this: http://www.elconfidencial.com/cultura/2017-03-02/la-fiscalia...
An important distinction is that the money does not come out of your paycheck. Instead, they take 10% of what you pay on cinema tickets (including foreign movies).
You could argue that french studios also get tax breaks, but those don't actually fund movies, they just increase profits for movies that are profitable.
As a fellow Frenchman I agree. Now don't get me wrong, I am for high taxes, high social safety nets, public universities, public healthcare, and even public maintenance of the arts. I am also for public money helping promote French culture and language. But the way French cinema is incentivised is a scam on the public, it just contributes to old dinosaurs putting out garbage movies to put money in the pocket of the same big name French actors, and taking a cut in the process to fill their own pockets. I would prefer that that money was put up in the form of investment for independent filmmakers, or just diverted towards our crumbling universities.
What does it mean to be for "high taxes"? I'm for the government taxing enough to pay for whatever services it's offering but that should be as low as possible.
Governments are an extreme example of any other bureaucracy. They always find a way to spend every dollar they're collecting and usually more than that too.
I see what you mean, I expressed myself badly. Obviously the government should not be wasting the money it is collecting, and they should be taxing just enough so that they can fund the services they offer. What I mean is that I am not for cutting the number of those services just for the sake of saving a few euros.
How does the social ownership of means of production even relate to what we are talking about? Or are you referring to social policies in general? In which case there are multiple models of market-based socialism, in which social benefits (public healthcare, public education, public transport, government-subsidized housing) are used to boost individuals' purchasing power (they are healthy, they can work better jobs, they can be more flexible with where they live) and inject that money into the economy by keeping a happy, healthy and educated population.
As a french I strongly disagree that Netflix or Amazon provide a viewer friendly movie viewing experience. You are forced into a subscription that provides little to no value because their library is really small in France (for movies).
As for the regulations I agree that they are too strict for the digital age but not releasing in the theaters is a pretty bad solution IMO.
I agree, it is a similar situation in most European countries atm. However, the fact that the service is not great now should not be taken as an indication that the service cannot be great in the future.
If you look at the US market, both providers have significant amounts of content, which, it can be argued, provides a better viewing experience. The trend seems to be going away from traditional cinemas to streaming services. If this is the case Cannes may have just made itself irrelevant to this growing part of the market.
AFAIK the Academy Awards have a similar rule - a movie must have a cinema release before it can be considered for nomination. (More specifically, a run for at least seven days in a Los Angeles County theater!)
Made-for-TV movies have their own competition and awards, like the Emmy awards.
I don't see how this will make Cannes less relevant. It doesn't make Cannes less relevant that it doesn't award daytime soaps or commercials or whatever. Focus on a specific niche - cinematic movies - arguably will help it stay relevant, as long as cinemas exists.
(Whether cinemas will continue to exist is a different question. I suspect Netflix is a much larger threat to traditional flow TV than to cinemas.)
In any case, Cannes is not "forcing" anybody to do anything. They are just clarifying what kind of movies can be considered for the festival.
But your assertion there is that made-for-TV (or made-for-Netflix, or whatever follows) movies intrinsically have less value. You're saying a movie can only really be "cinematic" if it comes out in a cinema.
That's exactly the nonsense we're talking about here.
Distribution channel doesn't mean anything. There are strong correlations between being able to put on a show and production values, but it's not causative.
Define a movie by its actual qualities. Runtime, dialogue(?), even picture format... But forget about distribution. Lots of people have cinemas in their houses now. Where they don't have to pay £30 to be surrounded by sweaty strangers and sit on uncomfortable and dirty seats. Plus snacks and transport.
Where do you get "less value"? They are just delimiting what kinds of movies the will considered for their festival. The Academy Awards also have certain restrictions on the picture format in place to prevent straight-to-video movies from consideration.
If you don't like going to the cinema, why do you care about Cannes at all? It is a film festival which celebrate cinema and the associated mystique and glamour. Nobody is preventing you from watching whatever you want in your home cinema.
Never mind the word "cinematic", the point is the festival and similar movie awards have a certain definition for what kind of moving picture entertainment they consider eligible for their awards. The definition includes that the general public should be able to go to a cinema and buy a ticket to see the movie on a big screen.
That's not saying other forms of entertainment cannot have value, just that Cannes is about a certain form.
I don't disagree that that's their definition. I wish you'd stop repeating it. It's that definition that's so stupid.
Conflating "form" with distribution as if the latter affects the first.
No, I'll give you a chance... But how do you think they review these things? It used to be DVD screeners but (ironically, here) Cannes set up an online VOD service for screeners. How do you assess something that has to be available via cinemas, on computer via a wonky streaming service?
This rule is simple (and classic French) protectionism of a distribution channel that is failing to compete.
It is a film festival for cineastes - film lovers or film snobs if you will. Its whole culture. For them there is a big difference between the big-screen cinema experience and watching home video. It is certainly a bigger difference than just the means of distribution.
I think it was David Lynch who said "If you haven't see my movies in a cinema, then you haven't seen my movies".
You may not care for this difference, but why does it anger you so that others do?
For a recent example of this see "Red Pill", a documentary about the Men's Rights movement.
They were backed via Kickstarter and promised backers a "pre-release" download. Because they wanted to be eligible for an Academy Award nomination they ended up releasing the movie in LA (and New York I think?) for the minimum run necessary and then waited another couple of months for the official release as digital download.
Because of the Academy Award rules they held back the "pre-release" downloads until just before the release of the digital download version. They angered a lot of backers by saying it was still technically a pre-release because the digital download hadn't been available yet although the film had already been in cinemas and available for private screenings for months at that point.
It's a good example for bad communication. Especially when upset backers were basically told the "pre-release" would happen at the last possible moment to combat file sharing, but that's another tangent.
That was just bad execution. The Academy Awards only requires that a film be screened for at least 2 weeks in LA and that it not be available for streaming prior to the screening window, however concurrent streaming is acceptable. (Straight from the horse's mouth: http://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/89th-general_entry_...) For example, Netflix' Beasts of No Nation was available for streaming the same day as its premiere in LA and was eligible for Oscars, though it was not nominated for any.
I don't know. What's the difference between a movie produced by a Hollywood studio and a movie produced by you and your buddies on a shoestring budget?
One million $ was wasted in croissant and baguette.
Quality of product are not determined by the amount of money wasted. Sure the base quality is almost here, but it's why we have sooooo many bad movies but 1% of them are good.
>I foresee a major festival/competition for Streaming only media attended by A-list celebrities in the future.
Sounds awful, why would you restrain a festival to only one method of distribution? Cannes is certainly overrated but they focus on authors first and foremost, and that's what led them to their current position.
Because the alternatives exist in plenty. There isn't a single respectable "Streaming only" festival/competition.
Content produced for streaming services can be radically different from traditional studio content. Rather than think of it as a restraint it would be a celebration of the difference compared to traditional content.
The "restriction" would allow for streaming only content to be on the forefront than be eclipsed by traditional media which still dominates the charts.
Interesting perspective. I can't help but think of what happened with E3 and PAX.
E3 decided that they wanted to be an industry only event and banned the general public and all but a handful of elite media companies. In reaction Penny-Arcade launched PAX as an E3 replacement for the general public, one that also focused more specifically on gaming than E3 had been. PAX was almost immediately a roaring success and E3 continued to slide into obscurity.
It will be interesting if we see a similar dynamic play out here, with say Netflix launching a Streaming Media Festival or something.
The cannes festival can make any kind of demands it feels like irrelevant of the perceived market. Size of audience is not the only indicator of the value of a film. At the locarno film festival for example they show films who get very limited release, that doesn't make them less relevant for the art of cinema.
I'm french. I live next to Cannes. I can't agree more with you. The french medias lobby has been irrelevant for a long time, only surviving because of a monopolistic position. It's making dumb moves after dumb moves, especially reacting to internet. I'll watch it die a slow death with a great pleasure.
Imho, watching a movie at home or in a theater are totally different experiences.
At home you can get interrupted by anything (phone call, email, notification), whereas in a theater the risk of getting interrupted by something external are lower. (I agree though, that I could airplane-mode my devices at home.)
Also, the ambience in a theater is much more different than at home, especially for comedy and horror genre.
Complete opposite for me. Theaters are full of people who react audibly at the wrong things, chatter, phones... I loathe all that and won't see movies on theaters on that principle.
I don't have any urges to check phone, imdb or anything like that during a movie. I usually have a break in the middle of a movie for more tea or bathroom.
Besides that, a mere $1500 audio setup is enough to beat theater in terms of sound. Screen is the only thing that the theaters have going on, but I've been satisfied with my 42".
I am not defending the position that banning netflix from Canne is right, because they have several high quality shows, so it's a pity, but note that in France the movie theaters audience is very respectful of the experience, and there is barely any inconvenience for the viewers (no chatters, no phones, no buzzing, it's pretty strict -- except in movies targeting children, because well, children are children and it's hard for them not to talk sometimes)
For example, last time I was in the movies, it was a dark picture about incest. During the very scene that a daughter was revealed her father has been raping her, some girl in the audience bursted into muted laughter. Later I read from a paper or something that laughter might be a tool for some to cope with the grave feelings like that. But anyway, it ruined the experience for me, I didn't know if her laughter was a commentary at the movie's quality or what.
In general, I don't want to be told what to feel, when to laugh, when to aww. Hearing those audible reactions from fellow audience members kind of conveys the ques to do so to me anyway.
Even with Airplane mode (or aeroplane mode as I like to call it) you can't stop my cat wanting to be let out/let in/ out/in/fed/out/in. A cinema is like an oasis of calm.
Just from reading the headline, my initial thought was "But Netflix also does DVDs, so they'll probably be fine?" But it turns out that the headline isn't a fully accurate representation of the article's message.
> From now on, if you want to compete at Cannes, your movie had better be released in French movie theaters
I don't think it's a bad thing to release movies outside streaming services. I think it's a bad thing to release in different periods in the world.
Ps. Yes, I'm protecting theatres ( also small ones) on that. Yes, I have Netflix. No, it shouldn't last 4 months or more after being shown in theatres to stream them, perhaps 2 months at maximum
Even while they cost more, they give a lot of people jobs. Not everything needs to be as sufficient as possible. ( eg. Robots are taking over jobs in China at a high rate, while they already were very cheap considering globally)
I imagine a late 1800's version of you would also require car owners to use their horse and buggy exclusively at least once a week because it will "give a lot of people jobs". That's some sloppy reasoning.
You say it like Communism is a bad thing. Many people who have spent more than a moment thinking about it see the Communism scare for that it is - a scare tactic.
yet they are completely free to complain, or move to greener pastures of their choice. good luck doing that in some gulags or concentration camps of 'better' regimes.
gotta love heroes from behind the keyboard that never grew up actually oppressed - it must be so easy to ignore benefits you have and just radiate hate because whatever.
to sum up - no, capitalism is not evil. it ain't perfect, but much better than any other real alternative out there. if you hate it so much, why not man up and move somewhere better for you? you will make place for somebody who actually wants to live in it. or change that evil capitalism. but that's hard, easier to just complain from behind the keyboard, right?
It is possible for communists to be evil but Communism can't be any more evil than anything else.
There is mismanagement of public money everywhere. There are people who abuse their position of power everywhere. I can agree if someone says it is impractical but to say it is evil is just misplaced anger.
Even if Communism is evil, it is still true that the people orchestrating the red scares were evil as well.
Marx and Engels might not have been evil but virtually all other communist thinkers / politicians were. You should go read the writings pre-Bolshevik revolution to get an idea. A big problem with Marxist thinking is that it encouraged pseudo-science and the belief that there was only 1 possible correct interpretation of history. So pre-Bolshevik thinkers competed for who was right, spiraling towards more and more extreme thinking, with the more strong-armed Lenin eventually winning out (and killing his rivals). What happened later was pretty inevitable once you understand the appeal of Marxism and understand that it's targeted at affluent intellectuals, not at the poor.
This is such a gross exaggeration. Were the Frankfurt School, many of whom were Jews who escaped the Holocaust, exploring how Capitalism gives rise to fascism through the lens of Marxism, "evil thinkers?" Are the democratically elected communist politicians in countries like Japan evil?
Bending over backwards to defend totalitarian regimes like the Soviets or CCP is obviously grotesque, but this kind of blanket pronouncement is about as nuanced as their thinking.
I wasn't aware that the Frankfurt School thought of themselves as communists. This is news to me. Can you refer me to any writings by them where they talk about this? Thank you.
Ah, apologies. I thought you were asking in good faith instead of trying to score some semantic point. In that case, you describe Marx as a "communist thinker", which would make the Frankfurt School(who were Marxists) communists by the terms of your categorization.
> You should go read the writings pre-Bolshevik revolution to get an idea.
Oh, if your just talking about Leninist vanguardism a d it's Stalinist, Maoist, etc. descendants, sure.
But that's not all of post-Marx Communist thought, and its a subset that shares common and fundamental deviations from Marx, and it's been criticized by non-Leninist Communists since day one.
IDK, in communist regimes generally it was the regime that was the evil part, not the economic system.
USSR bolshevism was just as evil (or even more so) during their 'new economic policy' (free market capitalism) years.
Revolutions establishing de facto dictatorships were just as evil as any other dictatorships, no matter if their economic policy in the end was communism, fascism or free market.
Revolutions creating a one party communist state were just as evil as revolutions creating a one party theocratic state or one of the many cult-of-personality fascist regimes that happened also long after ww2.
Revolutions or coups establishing oligarchies or committees running everything were, again, just as evil no matter what economic policy they run.
The evil of one group gaining power and slaughtering another group is the same no matter if the "othering" happened because of class warfare, religious hatred or ethnic cleansing.
It's just that in the 20th century communism was the most popular cause of regime changes resulting in such dictatorships and single ruling party systems, though nowhere near the only one.
You would be surprised at the amount of support communism (or other dictatorship) has in pay communist countries. The "former communist country citizem therefore against it" formula doés not work (for various reasons).
That's not Communism. Communism is when there's one single political party that rules with total authority and owns and finances everything. A bit of theatre protectionism does not a communism make.
It is the influence of communism and protectionism. Not sure which one is worst. France is full of both and had always close ties to Russia - they sympathies with them since 1920 (the early days of the worst disease of XXth century - communism). Communism killed more people, and enslaved even more, then any other disease.
In other news, the music industry decides not to acknowledge any songs with a digital only release. Good luck stuffing the genie back in the bottle. [sigh]
I imagine the next logical step would be for Netflix to start having their own (inclusive) movie competitions, and in the process more than likely become far more relevant than the exclusive competitions.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] threadIt will have the opposite effect.
Alternatively, as those platforms become more important movie distribution venues, it will reduce the relevance of Cannes and other festivals/awards that exclude films distributed by streaming alone (or "not in theaters", which isn't exactly the same thing.)
If all the award ceremonies start excluding streaming movies and the same quality movies are being released I can assure you we will see a Netflix Movie Awards or Streaming Movies Awards come to fruition.
Cannes is almost irrelevant, commercially, while Netflix is one of the most powerful movie promoters.
Makes sense. I guess they want potential winners to be viewable by the people and not appear to be promoting netflix as the only option.
Is that the right phrase?
Movie production isn't what I would think of as a regulated industry; this seems more like regular lobbying.
>Regulatory capture is a form of government failure that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.
Specifically in this case however, the "public interest" could be described as the preservation and promotion of French culture. Which in this case, could be argued IS served by the regulation that awards can only be given to the product which shows in French theaters.
Since we'd have to note that it also means that it must pass all relevant French classification regulations.
Now, I'm Canadian and we have a series of laws called "can-con" (which stands for Canadian content) where all licensed broadcasters must show a certain proportion of their shows as approved can-con (based on the proportion of the creative staff who are Canadians). This does have an effect on shoring up the difference in culture. I mean - so - maybe that results in Trailer Park Boys - but come on! That episode where Rush shows up? Pure gold.
I think the requirement to restrict to cinema-only is a bit of a sledgehammer solution but I personally see the point and think it's overall a good thing.
There is this thing in France called "l'exception culturelle" which means not that culture is exceptional, but that cultural products (books and movies essentially) should be exempt from normal (international) competition rules that apply to all other sectors of the economy.
The rationale is that cultural products are "special" and that if they're not protected, they'll vanish and be replaced by American ones that are inferior by nature.
In general terms, the bad consequences of protectionism are twofold:
1. It raises prices for the customer by limiting competition
2. It limits exports, as international partners try to do to your products what you do to theirs (keeping them out of their market)
French cultural products are notoriously difficult to export, for a variety of reasons, one of which being language and another being they're generally of poor quality (I say this as a Frenchman), so problem 2 isn't seen as major (you can't harm exports that you don't have).
And problem 1 isn't big either because everyone benefits from high prices which allow high taxes that further finance the cinema, and no one cares about the end user.
Personally I think this is a bad system that is in large part responsible for the poor quality mentioned above.
That said, rules should apply to all. Just because those rules are bad doesn't mean Netflix or Amazon should be exempt from them. We should change the rules -- but that's, like, hard.
In fairness to France, other countries have similar laws too. Australia requires TV stations to broadcast 55% Australian-produced TV shows & films during primetime (6pm - midnight). Even 80% of the TV commercials have to be Australian-produced too. But instead of funding lots of culturally significant TV shows, we tend to get repeated news bulletins, low-cost Australian game shows, current affairs shows & soap operas. [Although Neighbours probably counts as culturally significant to Australia.]
http://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Broadcast/Television/Austral...
Our homegrown tv and movie industry was never going to be high quality though, because we're a small market and we've never really been a particularly literary people. I'm curious as to what kind of show you would consider to be 'culturally significant', though. The only staples that you haven't listed that spring to mind are sports (plenty on TV), panel shows (ditto), documentaries (small market everywhere) and sitcoms. What kind of tv show do you consider 'culturally significant'?
Absolutely. I deleted it from my post, but I was going to mention that on non-primary Australian TV stations that don't have the same content restrictions, we get 2 hours of non-stop Big Bang Theory reruns, or endless repeats of Frasier, Sex And The City, Charmed & Becker.
> What kind of tv show do you consider 'culturally significant'?
Glitch is my favorite recent Australian TV show, started on ABC but apparently Season 2 has been sold as a Netflix exclusive. Back in the 90s it would have been shows like Seachange, Frontline, Kath & Kim. Maybe Offspring & Packed To The Rafters are recent equivalents.
(Outside Australia, I'd think of shows like The Bridge, Springfloden, The Killing & Occupied, that have exported Scandinavian culture onto Australian TV.)
well that's see some bias here.
One is that a country should have a lively cultural scene to be interesting to live in. If you lived in a city with a large cultural scene and another one without, you probably see the point.
Another is that a country's culture is a component of its soft power. Not having a lively culture is seen as being culturally under foreign domination.
I'm not a Frenchman, I'm Canadian, and I completely disagree with this, of course this is all about personal taste, but since you use yours to construct your argument I thought I had to contradict.
Compared to the utter crap pop culture the US produces, where every second film is about superheroes in spandex and explosions?
In France, laws are more easily passed and repealed than in, say, the US. Passing a law isn't quite the "enshrinement" one might first imagine.
To wit: laws are passed daily, and they generally have to do with administrative procedures.
In fact, there are so many laws being passed for such a large number of things that we've coined a phrase to describe it: legislative inflation.
Movies are available after 4 months for VOD with per-movie payment, and other delays apply depending on the situation (e.g. 10 months for cinema-specific paid TV-channel with partnerships with cinema orgs, etc).
Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronologie_des_médias#Disposi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_industry
It seems strange to say, "Well, a film must be in a cinema" when that's not how most people watch them. (At least not the vast majority of films they watch in any of the countries I've been in.)
It's not that they banned all soulless corporations producing faux art, they just banned a change in watching habits to prop up an industry with poor value proposition.
Film as a medium is a valuable part of culture; theatres aren't necessarily.
Theatres must offer something over sitting on the couch -- and in the US they have, introducing things like bars and food services.
I especially liked the undertone in some pieces (not Slate) that Netflix is 'exploiting' Cannes to promote its movies, as if that was not the actual point of a festival.
David Sedaris goes on at length about moving to France and falling in love with the film culture there, where movies are shown in small theatres very cheaply. This was back in 2000, so things may have changed, but he was very clear on the differences between the American and French theater-going experience.
> Film as a medium is a valuable part of culture; theatres aren't necessarily.
You should probably stop calling it 'film', then. Most theatres can still show actual films; few homes can.
Another point, streaming-only movies have already been shown in the past but they weren't a problem because they didn't threaten the big movie associations. Netflix completely bypasses them and that suddenly becomes a problem.
Can't imagine what a mess all this licensing etc is. Such a non-productive waste of time.
Still seems like many laws and rules about nothing to me.
Theatres should be able to show streaming movies. I'm sure they have the tech for it. Licensing and permissions are always a thorny beast for new tech though.
This seems to harm others more than Netflix. Does an award nomination or win for a Netflix only movie even have a detectable impact on subscription?
How is that gaming the system at all?
People sign up for just a month. Don't cancel immediately after watching the movie they want, because they want to use the paid month in full. After two/three weeks the brain phases out the expiration date and the subscription renews.
"But reminders!" the reader would complain so let me preempt that: not many person actually set reminders for this kind of stuff - part because 'it's only a month' part because not everyone is as phone dependent as techhies and mbas types. For internet and social? Sure. For reminding every little detail in life? Hardly. Especially since outside apple setting a reminder is still a subpar experience.
Thus said watching a movie on a laptop screen in your apartment is hardly the same as going to a proper cinema.
A Chromecast is 35€.
A 7 year old laptop is perfectly capable of streaming and a HDMI cable to plug your laptop into your existing tv is 10€.
I agree it is still reasonable but I feel that a limited release would be better as a subscription for a single film is pretty dumb IMO.
As someone who doesn't live in one of the handful of metropoles that cater to every niche interest, if there's one thing that surely isn't one of the advantages of independent cinema it's availability. I can't count the number of times I was interest in a small film or documentary only to be disappointed by a website that presents me with a list of global screenings I could however count much more easily: On one hand.
I can understand that streaming isn't the filmmakers ideal choice, but unless we're talking about big budget blockbusters I see no point in relying on theatres in this day and age. It's a needless and artificial scarcity and limits the potential audience. At least let me buy the film.
It is mostly a non-issue
> The two movies included in Cannes’ lineup this year are slated for theatrical bows stateside, but according to the festival’s official statement, “no agreement has been reached” to get the moves into French cinemas
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Force streaming services to release in French theaters, force customers to pay someone else to watch the movie, and subject the streaming services to draconian french regulations on when they can stream that movie.
So as Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming services take off, cannes will become less and less relevant as more and more movies are funded and produced by streaming services until cannes is that old french indy festival that was replaced with a more modern and movie viewer friendly festival.
Let the dinausores die please.
Taxes?? This is what the Cannes festival decided, not your government.
> Netflix provides way better content than the french industry.
Then watch Netflix? Your government is not stopping you.
Btw: in GER it's ~17.50€ per month per household and the "agency" collecting this money is already talking about raising this to ~20€ in a few years...
Ref: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beitragsservice_von_ARD,_ZDF...
You could argue that french studios also get tax breaks, but those don't actually fund movies, they just increase profits for movies that are profitable.
Governments are an extreme example of any other bureaucracy. They always find a way to spend every dollar they're collecting and usually more than that too.
The problem with socialism is, you eventually run out of other people's money.
"You're losing money on every order?!"
"Sure but we make it up in volume!"
As for the regulations I agree that they are too strict for the digital age but not releasing in the theaters is a pretty bad solution IMO.
If you look at the US market, both providers have significant amounts of content, which, it can be argued, provides a better viewing experience. The trend seems to be going away from traditional cinemas to streaming services. If this is the case Cannes may have just made itself irrelevant to this growing part of the market.
Made-for-TV movies have their own competition and awards, like the Emmy awards.
I don't see how this will make Cannes less relevant. It doesn't make Cannes less relevant that it doesn't award daytime soaps or commercials or whatever. Focus on a specific niche - cinematic movies - arguably will help it stay relevant, as long as cinemas exists.
(Whether cinemas will continue to exist is a different question. I suspect Netflix is a much larger threat to traditional flow TV than to cinemas.)
In any case, Cannes is not "forcing" anybody to do anything. They are just clarifying what kind of movies can be considered for the festival.
That's exactly the nonsense we're talking about here.
Distribution channel doesn't mean anything. There are strong correlations between being able to put on a show and production values, but it's not causative.
Define a movie by its actual qualities. Runtime, dialogue(?), even picture format... But forget about distribution. Lots of people have cinemas in their houses now. Where they don't have to pay £30 to be surrounded by sweaty strangers and sit on uncomfortable and dirty seats. Plus snacks and transport.
If you don't like going to the cinema, why do you care about Cannes at all? It is a film festival which celebrate cinema and the associated mystique and glamour. Nobody is preventing you from watching whatever you want in your home cinema.
Again, I think you need to separate the building from the art.
That's not saying other forms of entertainment cannot have value, just that Cannes is about a certain form.
Conflating "form" with distribution as if the latter affects the first.
No, I'll give you a chance... But how do you think they review these things? It used to be DVD screeners but (ironically, here) Cannes set up an online VOD service for screeners. How do you assess something that has to be available via cinemas, on computer via a wonky streaming service?
This rule is simple (and classic French) protectionism of a distribution channel that is failing to compete.
I think it was David Lynch who said "If you haven't see my movies in a cinema, then you haven't seen my movies".
You may not care for this difference, but why does it anger you so that others do?
They were backed via Kickstarter and promised backers a "pre-release" download. Because they wanted to be eligible for an Academy Award nomination they ended up releasing the movie in LA (and New York I think?) for the minimum run necessary and then waited another couple of months for the official release as digital download.
Because of the Academy Award rules they held back the "pre-release" downloads until just before the release of the digital download version. They angered a lot of backers by saying it was still technically a pre-release because the digital download hadn't been available yet although the film had already been in cinemas and available for private screenings for months at that point.
It's a good example for bad communication. Especially when upset backers were basically told the "pre-release" would happen at the last possible moment to combat file sharing, but that's another tangent.
Quality of product are not determined by the amount of money wasted. Sure the base quality is almost here, but it's why we have sooooo many bad movies but 1% of them are good.
When you get a movie (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Dynamite) for $ 6,000 that make 40 million, done in 27 days. Hollywood studio should stop scratching their balls.
The hype surrounding Cannes was overrated anyways. France isn't even a major market to be making that kinds of demands.
I foresee a major festival/competition for Streaming only media attended by A-list celebrities in the future.
Sounds awful, why would you restrain a festival to only one method of distribution? Cannes is certainly overrated but they focus on authors first and foremost, and that's what led them to their current position.
Content produced for streaming services can be radically different from traditional studio content. Rather than think of it as a restraint it would be a celebration of the difference compared to traditional content.
The "restriction" would allow for streaming only content to be on the forefront than be eclipsed by traditional media which still dominates the charts.
E3 decided that they wanted to be an industry only event and banned the general public and all but a handful of elite media companies. In reaction Penny-Arcade launched PAX as an E3 replacement for the general public, one that also focused more specifically on gaming than E3 had been. PAX was almost immediately a roaring success and E3 continued to slide into obscurity.
It will be interesting if we see a similar dynamic play out here, with say Netflix launching a Streaming Media Festival or something.
Electric cars are the future of transport. If Formula 1 wants to be irrelevant then so be it.
Carving out your niche doesn't make you irrelevant. F1 has plenty of petty rules, yet it's still damn profitable.
Imho, watching a movie at home or in a theater are totally different experiences.
At home you can get interrupted by anything (phone call, email, notification), whereas in a theater the risk of getting interrupted by something external are lower. (I agree though, that I could airplane-mode my devices at home.)
Also, the ambience in a theater is much more different than at home, especially for comedy and horror genre.
I don't have any urges to check phone, imdb or anything like that during a movie. I usually have a break in the middle of a movie for more tea or bathroom.
Besides that, a mere $1500 audio setup is enough to beat theater in terms of sound. Screen is the only thing that the theaters have going on, but I've been satisfied with my 42".
I recently upgraded to a 65" 4k OLED and that looks a lot better than the theater. Especially with HDR content.
How could a reaction be wrong?
In general, I don't want to be told what to feel, when to laugh, when to aww. Hearing those audible reactions from fellow audience members kind of conveys the ques to do so to me anyway.
well, in theater you are usually interrupted by _someone else’s_ phone call, email, notification
[edit] I still prefer going to theaters, but choose unpopular time, when it is nearly empty.
> From now on, if you want to compete at Cannes, your movie had better be released in French movie theaters
That's quite a bit more specific.
Ps. Yes, I'm protecting theatres ( also small ones) on that. Yes, I have Netflix. No, it shouldn't last 4 months or more after being shown in theatres to stream them, perhaps 2 months at maximum
I'm also not against car sharing, buy a car to share or to have is also a bought car.
Prereleasing a movie in theatres is not that bad for everyone, giving the exclusive streaming rights to one streaming party is much worse.
Ps. Already a lot of movie renters are out of business, but I wouldn't protect them as I do with cinemas.
gotta love heroes from behind the keyboard that never grew up actually oppressed - it must be so easy to ignore benefits you have and just radiate hate because whatever.
to sum up - no, capitalism is not evil. it ain't perfect, but much better than any other real alternative out there. if you hate it so much, why not man up and move somewhere better for you? you will make place for somebody who actually wants to live in it. or change that evil capitalism. but that's hard, easier to just complain from behind the keyboard, right?
There is mismanagement of public money everywhere. There are people who abuse their position of power everywhere. I can agree if someone says it is impractical but to say it is evil is just misplaced anger.
Even if Communism is evil, it is still true that the people orchestrating the red scares were evil as well.
Bending over backwards to defend totalitarian regimes like the Soviets or CCP is obviously grotesque, but this kind of blanket pronouncement is about as nuanced as their thinking.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/frankfurt-school/
And Horkheimer is of course famous for saying, "If you don't want to talk about capitalism then you had better keep quiet about fascism."
Oh, if your just talking about Leninist vanguardism a d it's Stalinist, Maoist, etc. descendants, sure.
But that's not all of post-Marx Communist thought, and its a subset that shares common and fundamental deviations from Marx, and it's been criticized by non-Leninist Communists since day one.
USSR bolshevism was just as evil (or even more so) during their 'new economic policy' (free market capitalism) years.
Revolutions establishing de facto dictatorships were just as evil as any other dictatorships, no matter if their economic policy in the end was communism, fascism or free market.
Revolutions creating a one party communist state were just as evil as revolutions creating a one party theocratic state or one of the many cult-of-personality fascist regimes that happened also long after ww2.
Revolutions or coups establishing oligarchies or committees running everything were, again, just as evil no matter what economic policy they run.
The evil of one group gaining power and slaughtering another group is the same no matter if the "othering" happened because of class warfare, religious hatred or ethnic cleansing.
It's just that in the 20th century communism was the most popular cause of regime changes resulting in such dictatorships and single ruling party systems, though nowhere near the only one.
http://www.snopes.com/first-they-ignore-you
Filing this under 'terrible ideas'.