THE STORY OF THE VCR IS AN EIGHTIES STORY [...] As a machine, the VCR historically denotes the 1980s.
But the visual civilization it engineered emerged later. No movie or director influenced nineties film culture as much as the advent and everywhereness of the video store. It altered everything about how movies were consumed and considered, spawning a new type of
working-class cinephile [ο όρος αυτός ιδιαίτερα εντυπωσιακός αρχικά, ωστόσο πυροτέχνημα αν σκεφτεί κανείς Ποιος πήγαινε στο σινεμά πιο πριν; Αριστοκράτες; ή Ποιος νοικίαζε βιντεοκασέτες έπειτα; Οι προλετάριοι; Οι πλούσιοι σνόμπαραν δλδ; Παιδικό] who would come to dominate critical thought about the entire medium [...] What was not anticipated, however, was how that experience would shift the way people thought about the art form, particularly for those who turned the VCR into an autodidactic means for the reconstitution of history
Prior to the VCR, it was difficult for average people to develop a personal, intimate relationship with non-obvious filmmaking
When that first Blockbuster opened its doors in Texas, it carried ten thousand videotapes. Granted, many of those tapes were duplicates— and over time, it became increasingly common for chain stores to fill entire walls with copies of the same new release [...] But the ideological transformation was nonetheless total
The fact that the videotape industry was based around renting (as opposed to selling) was critical.Throughout the eighties and early nineties, the retail cost of a VHS movie was inordinately high—usually around $79 to $90. Top Gun, released on video in 1987, made national news for being
“only” $26.95 [...] Renting fostered a culture of aesthetic diversity, to the point of pure randomness. Most available titles were older, so the only source of promotion was the cardboard box the videotape was packaged in. The rental experience was locked within the physical world, and there was no algorithm coercing consumers toward things they were predisposed to enjoy [...] There was no system or logic. But the effect on filmmaking was profound. Video stores invented a new kind of independent director the fiscally insolvent, vociferously unglamorous dude (and it was always a dude) who used his video store experience to build an encyclopedic, unorthodox, pretentious cinematic worldview
“The video store was the beginning of everything. It was the cradle of civilization,” director Kevin Smith says [...] “It was like having a film library. You could watch anything and you could watch it over and over again.”
Smith was the insolvent, unglamorous indie director sent from central casting. He made his black-and-white 1994 debut, Clerks, in New Jersey, for $27,575 financed on credit cards. He was twenty-four years old. One of its two principal characters works in a video store, and the film’s most
memorable scene involves an extended conversation about un-unionized labor complications within Return of the Jedi
“I am from a generation that very much wants to consume and reconsume its own shit,” said director Joe Swanberg. Swanberg was thirteen
when Clerks came out in 1994. He released his first feature in 2005, helping forge the so-called Mumblecore movement, a word-heavy style influenced by indie filmmakers of the nineties. Swanberg now dismisses his own period of rental-based self-education as inherently uncreative. “The video store, for me growing up, was access to watch and rewatch shit. What happens to my generation is, we don’t just watch The Breakfast Club two times while it’s in movie theaters. We watch The Breakfast Club sixty-nine times between the ages of twelve and twenty-five and convince ourselves that The Breakfast Club is a genius movie. You have this wrapped-up nostalgia and regurgitation and overcompensation of mediocre shit . . . and I directly tie that to the video store.” [Μια χαρά είναι το Μπρέκφαστ Κλαμπ, προφανώς όχι genius movie, αλλά όχι απάτη μεγέθους Ded poets society. Aλλά οκ, κατανοητό, αν δεις μια ταινία 100 φορές και εξακολουθεί να σου αρέσει μάλλον είσαι ήρωάς της και όχι πραγματικός άνθρωπος]
Swanberg’s accusation is not invalid. The backbone of his argument, however, is not far removed from the same argument one would make in
favor of this experience. Rewatching The Breakfast Club (or any film) sixty-nine times does change the meaning of what it is and how it’s understood [Κάπου σε αυτό το σημείο σκουπίζεις τον ιδρώτα σου σκεπτόμενος ότι την πρόταση does change the meaning of what it is and how it's understood θα μπορούσε να έχει πει Γάλλος διανοούμενος και αναλογιζόμενος το τι σφαγή εννοιών, λογικής, αισθητικής, και ευαισθησίας θα ακολουθούσε] [...] Video stores opened this deconstructive [αυτό εννοούσα με το Γάλλος
] process to anyone who cared enough to try. They also created the opportunity to conduct this level of mental surgery on any random film. [...] A single redeeming detail could be taken from an immaterial B movie, repurposed within the context of a good movie, and drastically change the meaning of both pictures. Which had always been possible—it’s just that most people didn’t care or notice until the arrival ofΣτο σημείο αυτό διακόπτω τη δημοσίευση αποσπασμάτων διότι το θεωρώ κομβικό για την καταστροφή ενός αρχικά υποσχόμενου δοκιμίου και θα συνεχίσω με άλλο ποστ - από το συγκεκριμένο σημείο κατά τη γνώμη μου παίρνει την κάτω βόλτα
] του ρεζερβουαρ όπου ως γνωστόν συζητάνε κάτι τύποι για τη Τσικόνε και γιατί λέγονται όπως λέγονται κλπ ενώ σημειώνει]