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Running head: A RHETORIC OF INTIMACY 1

A Rhetoric of Intimacy:

Convergence, Participation, and the Film/Viewer Relationship

Zachary Sheldon

Geneva College

Presentation to be made at

2016 Eastern Communication Association Conference

Baltimore, MD

A RHETORIC OF INTIMACY 2

Abstract

This paper examines contemporary distribution models and participatory technologies in the film

industry, referencing the notion of a “rhetoric of intimacy” that is developed between a film text

and viewers. As the domain of cinema has shifted from the theater, to the home, to networked

devices in contemporary American society, so has the perceived nature of the film-viewer

relationship. Slipping theater attendance and falling profits have led the film industry to seek new

modes of engaging with audiences. These new modes tend to use emerging technologies such as

the touch-based interfaces of cell phones and tablets to foster a culture of audience participation

with films emblematic of contemporary convergence culture. However, these new modes of

interaction seem to be insufficiently engaging. The success of services such as Netflix and Redbox

focusing exclusively on the expediency of film delivery rather than modes of interaction point to

audiences continued preference for film content over participatory viewing experiences.

Keywords: intimacy, convergence culture, participatory culture, Netflix, cinema, film


Technologizing Cinematic Experience

From the birth of the medium to its place in contemporary culture, cinema, like other mass

entertainment mediums, depended upon forging a meaningful connection with its audience for

commercial and popular success (Wasser, 2001). Though the novelty of moving onscreen images

drew crowds in during cinema’s fledgling years, Frederick Wasser (2001) notes that it was the

“event” films of Adolph Zukor and D.W. Griffith that transformed the cinema from “just a

pastime” (p. 28) to “a mythic art form” (p. 28) in the minds of viewers. According to Wasser

(2001), Griffith’s “mastery in conveying meaning through the cinematic means of editing,

composition, and pacing” (p. 27) forged a connection with viewers which made them willing to

“go out” to take in a film” (p. 28).

In the century since the heyday of Zukor and Griffith, the development and refinement of

film technique has served to underline the importance of the relationship between viewers and the

film text. Stephen Dine Young (2000) observes that “the film-viewing experience can be seen as a

special type of meeting of self and others in which both viewer and film are inextricably bound up

with one another” (p. 454). Young cites Kenneth Burke’s (1967) championing of literature as

“equipment for living” (p. 293-304) and Barry Brummet’s (1984, 1985) application of Burke’s

conception to movies as fundamental in understanding the influence of story on an audience.

Though most films are fictional and make no claim to any sort of significance in reality, “Burke’s

view emphasizes that audiences can be self-aware in their consumption of art in what they are

sometimes able to make conscious connections between the meanings they see in art works and

their experiences in the world” (Young, 2000, p. 448). Young suggests that the influence of movies

on viewers’ “thoughts, attitudes, or beliefs” (p. 460) is “pervasive” (p. 460), helping viewers to


facilitate emotional connections between films and their real lives, often providing a framework or

pattern upon which to base their behavior in certain circumstances. As Chuck Tryon (2013)

points out, “movies still have a tremendous amount of power to provoke excitement, discussion,

anticipation, and reflection” (p. 180).

However, recent signs indicate crisis in Hollywood, as profits in the U.S. and Canada

decreased by five percent in 2014, with 32 percent of the population in those countries not

attending a single movie at all, continuing a multi-year slide in overall film attendance (Corliss,

2014; McClintock, 2014). As revenues have fallen, Hollywood has sought to adapt itself and its

products to reflect the perceived wants and desires of its audiences in the hopes of bringing them

back into the theater (Corliss, 2014). This has changed the focus of film production from the

careful crafting of story to an emphasis on technological spectacle, and the development of this

attitude points to a distinction of categorization which can be made concerning audiences: films

which seek to connect with their audiences in a meaningful way see their audience as viewers, and

films built as profit-making enterprises see their audience as consumers (Clapp, 1996). And with

the increasingly networked connectivity, combined with the rapid adoption of smartphones in

contemporary culture, studios have attempted to reach these consumers through a variety of

technology-driven means, seeking to recapture the magic that drew viewers into the theaters in

the first place.

Chuck Tryon’s book On-Demand Culture: Digital Delivery and the Future of Movies (2013)

refers to a “rhetoric of intimacy” (p. 103) which is developed between filmmakers and viewers.

Tryon attributes this phrase to Barbara Klinger’s (2006) Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New

Technologies, and the Home, but a careful reading of Klinger’s work shows that the phrase does not


appear anywhere in her book. The passage which Tryon cites is relevant, however, wherein

Klinger writes about said intimacy produced by behind-the-scenes footage and other

supplemental material offered to home viewers on DVD:

Revelations about the execution of special effects are particularly important to collector’s

editions. Because many of these effects deploy digital technologies, the viewer gains

admission to a relatively new, highly specialized, and complex sector of the motion picture

industry. … Let in on industry “secrets” and capable of mastering further enigmas if need

be, the viewer enters the world of filmmaking to reside in the privileged position of the

director and other production personnel—the puppet masters—who are responsible for

such effective illusionism. (p. 73)

Even though not all viewers take in the supplemental content offered in a film’s home video

release, the passage and Tryon’s summary of Klinger’s observation as a “rhetoric of intimacy” is

useful in formulating a new vocabulary for highlighting and understanding the relationship

between film and viewer, a relationship which has dramatically shifted in response to developing

technological trends and distribution techniques.

Though the connection between viewer and film text was by no means stagnant in the

decades following Zukor and Griffith, it was the introduction of home video in the guise of the

VHS tape which most significantly modified Hollywood’s relationship with the viewing public

(Wasser, 2001). Through the arrival and proliferation of the new visual mass media of broadcast

television, the reliability of audience attendance at the cinema decreased dramatically, signaling a

major shift in methods of entertainment consumption (Wasser, 2001). It was home video which

first placed the power of viewing control in the hands of the audience, and pointed toward a new


ordering of domestic life (Klinger, 2006). Primarily at stake was the desire for “freedom” (Klinger,

2006, p. 46) from viewing constraints, exemplified in the concept of “time shifting” (Wasser, 2001,

p. 21): whereas film studios had previously controlled what the public was able to see in theaters,

and theater owners had control of when a film was shown and reaped profit from any person’s

repeat viewing of a film, home video upset the balance of this relationship by allowing consumers

to dictate when, where, and how often they watched a film, a change which many viewed as a

“democratization” of media distribution (Tryon, 2013, p. 2).

The success of VHS tapes destabilized the economics of Hollywood film distribution,

pointing to a desire for viewing freedom on the part of audiences which the film industry had

failed to notice. They were quick to capitalize on it, however, once they realized that, as one

Hollywood executive put it, the prerecorded video “industry was prone to obscene profits”

(Benson-Allott, 2013, p. 20). Home video first overtook theatrical distribution as the primary

profit-drawing wing of Hollywood in 1986 (Benson-Allott, 2013), forcing a change in perspective

in regards to perceptions of films themselves: films are actually primarily videos, with theatrical

distribution essentially serving as a form of advertisement for the eventual home release of a film

(Benson-Allott, 2013).

Along with the growth of the home video market came technological advances in the form

of the DVD medium, which furthered the power and depth of experience available to viewers.

DVD was in many ways a watershed moment in the expansion of the viewing experience for a

film’s audience, greatly increasing the technical presentation of a film with a disc’s capacity for

higher resolution images and higher clarity sound encoding, and more fully exemplifying the time

shifting concept which made VHS popular in the first place (Wasser, 2001; Klinger, 2006; Tryon,


2013). Whereas a VHS tape had allowed some freedom in terms of when a viewer might watch a

movie, and the capability of fast forwarding or rewinding a film allowed for some level of control

over the viewing experience, there were still constraints of linearity inherent in the medium itself.

This constraint disappeared with DVD’s ability to let viewers skip through a film’s scenes, or even

to choose the specific spot in a film where they would like to begin watching, allowing viewers the

option of a truly nonlinear experience of movie-watching (Tryon, 2013).

DVD’s most expansive addition to the home viewing experience, the special features which

Klinger discussed above, contribute “in fostering the growth of an informed, educated film

audience” (Tryon, 2013, p. 25), and confer upon viewers the status of an “insider” (Klinger, 2006,

p. 72), drawing them further into “identification with the [film] industry and its wonders”

(Klinger, 2006, p. 73). Though Klinger goes on to criticize the legitimacy of information presented

in a film’s supplemental materials due to the fact that it is still “substantially informed” (p. 73) by

industry discourse, the drawing in of viewers in this particular fashion is a powerful occurrence

which should not be ignored. The narrative of a film is written, shot, and eventually edited with

the specific “cinematic language” (Ellul, 1985, p.1) of shot choice and technique so as to

“transport” viewers into the story (Green & Brock, 2000). But the existence and prevalence of

special features in the DVD era points to the developing convergence culture, what Tom Schatz

(2008) referred to as an “expanding textual system” (p. 37), wherein an experience cannot be fully

explored in a singular medium. This burgeoning era of “platform mobility” (Tryon, 2013, p. 61)

promotes the lack of “medium specificity” (Tryon, 2013, p. 61) endemic in the contemporary

digital era. Through the furthering of the infrastructure of high-speed internet and the

proliferation of online distribution of films through video-on-demand (VOD) services like Netflix


and Hulu, as well as the industry-wide trend towards the abandonment of many physical methods

of filmmaking in favor of all-digital photography and postproduction (Reeves, Szlasa &

Kenneally, 2012), the whole of the cinematic industry seems to have transitioned into what

Kristen Daly (2010) calls the “third regime of cinematic storytelling” (p. 82).

VOD services are particularly noteworthy for their role as the contemporary heir of the

calls to “freedom,” “liberation,” and “democratization” of the viewing experience which VHS and

DVD sought to fulfill. Tryon (2013) points out that the discourse within the industry of digital

delivery focuses primarily upon the mobility and flexibility afforded to viewers (p. 59), with these

services often being described “in terms of their ability to break the barriers of geographic tyranny,

providing audiences with new forms of access to films they normally wouldn’t see” (p. 21). This

shift to digital distribution has also eliminated many of the physical properties typically associated

with film consumption, marginalizing the role of DVD’s as objects to collect (Tryon, 2013, p. 64):

in some areas where broadband internet speeds mean that streaming video is of a lower quality

than DVD or Blu-Ray discs may provide, studios still struggle to sell physical objects to crowds

that prefer online streaming (Tryon, 2013, p. 31). This trend has been aided by the widespread

adoption of smartphones and tablet computers, which embody the portability VOD services

associate with film: “Unlike the seemingly obtrusive television sets that required families to ‘make

room,’ the iPad transforms any space in the house into a site for consuming entertainment and fits

seamlessly into our busy lives without taking up excessive space” (Tryon, 2013, p. 59).

The Rhetoric of Intimacy in Participatory Art


The prevalence of smartphones and other mobile computing devices not only illustrates

Schatz’s (2008) notion of a growing textual system, but also points to changes in the perceived

rhetoric of intimacy between film and viewer. This relates to what Shaviro (2010) identifies as a

“post-cinematic effect” (p. 2), in which digital technologies have given way to new ways of

manufacturing and articulating lived experience, which is perhaps best explored through the

notion of assemblage theory as it relates to mobile technology. Goggin (2009) defines “assembling

media culture” as “the ways in which mobile communications form part of a reconfiguration of

the relations between different media, their genres, and the media practice of users” (p. 153).

Part of the “reconfiguration” Goggin (2009) addresses is the framing of mobile devices as

an extension of the user’s own body and sensory capacities (Katz & Aakhus, 2002), “an arresting

and absorbing simultaneity of hands, ears, and eyes alike” (p. 156). This is a crucial component of

the new era of “participatory media” or “participatory culture” that film and other types of media

are transitioning towards (Jenkins, 2008; Goggin, 2009; Benson-Allott, 2011). This entirely

reframes the role of the consumer: “The expertise of the user as participatory, networked digital

media producer is at play instead—and so at the heart of this reassembling of media cultures is the

entwining of both the mobile and Internet in creating new networked cultures—something that is

at the heart of the new social relations of participatory media” (Goggin, 2009, p. 159).

The engagement of the consumer in participatory media culture is built upon “the

movement of media objects between people, devices, and the web” (Manovich, 2008, p. 227).

Though it is the advancement of networks that has facilitated the ease in which this participatory

culture may be navigated, it is the mobile interface itself which does the work of assisting users in

identifying with the actions they are performing on their device. The taps and swipes associated


with touchscreen interfaces procure a newfound significance as the means by which participation

is accomplished, a logic which can be extended to the viewing of films on a smart phone or tablet:

typing a text onto the screen invokes the feeling that one is participating in a conversation

(Turkle, 2012), and so the action of watching a film on a mobile device may also bring about the

feeling of active participation with the text of the film (Benson-Allott, 2011).

This feeling of active participation in a film using mobile technology is best illustrated

through the “app editions” of the films The Dark Knight (2008) and Inception (2010) by Warner

Bros. Each includes the full version of their respective film, as well as a few special features, most

of which can already be found on DVD or Blu-Ray copies of each film (Benson-Allott, 2011).

However, in keeping with the move of viewing culture away from the enhanced form of

spectatorship offered by a film’s supplemental materials, the primary appeal of these apps is in

their attempts to foster a truly “connected viewing experience” (Benson-Allott, 2011, p. 11)

through the ability of users to “follow live fan and Warner Bros. Twitter feeds…and post

preselected dialogue quotations to their own Facebook and Twitter accounts” (Benson-Allott,

2011, p. 11). These features, Warner Bros. claims, are essential to unlocking “the complete

experience of the movie” (Benson-Allott, 2011, p. 11), implying that the mobile platform, with its

networked connections and touch-enabled screens, is the best way to experience these films.

This notion has also recently been adopted by Amazon’s “X-Ray” video service, available

exclusively on Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets, and Fire TV or Fire TV Stick devices. Ostensibly a

reference tool, X-Ray allows viewers to pause a movie or show and instantaneously see onscreen

profiles, information, or trivia about the film as a whole or the specific scene happening right then

(Pierce, 2015). Pulling information from the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB), which Amazon


owns, the biographical information and trivia that the app displays are linked to the runtime of

each film, with particular pieces of information appearing during relevant times or scenes within

the film. The system is complex enough that computers are not able to handle converting a film

into the X-Ray feature set by themselves; actual human effort is required to fully translate a film

over to the service. This makes its adoption a slow-moving process, but Amazon’s willingness to

invest this effort speaks to the perceived value they see in such networked interactivity.

However, there are limits to just how far these methods can take a viewer in their

participation with a film. All displays—digital screens, home decorations, or even one’s clothing—

function similarly in the way they “constrain audience choice by selectively representing the

tensions in a given rhetorical situation” (Hope, 2007, p. 209). For film viewers, their experience

with the narrative is limited by the fact that a film is edited and ultimately presented to them in a

particular fashion. Though there may be some nonlinearity in the way a person watches a film,

their interaction with it does not actually alter the pure form of its representation.

Film studios are attempting to change this, however, with millions of dollars being poured

into research surrounding virtual and augmented reality. “Inside Industrial Light & Magic’s Secret

Star Wars VR Lab” a piece of reporting by Bryan Bishop (2015) details efforts on the part of one

of the film industries most lauded visual effects companies to redefine what comprises the “film

experience.” Bishop discusses an “iPad augmented reality movie” in which there are two ways of

viewing a particular computer generated scene: the viewer can either enjoy the scene as written

and edited by its creators, or the viewer can assume control of the camera using the iPad’s touch

interface, choosing entirely new vantage points from which to view the scene, or even moving

away from the primary action of the pre-edited version to see what other characters were doing


before they joined the edited version of the scene. Though the technology is still only in a proof of

concept phase, and the concept would be limited to entirely computer generated material,

Lucasfilm’s head of New Media and VP of its Advanced Development Group, Rob Bredrow, sees a

future in which some scenes for a film are actually better in virtual reality than they might be if

they were traditionally shot and edited (2015).

Such an assertion begs the question of just how these techniques might improve the film

viewing experience in a substantial fashion. Though marketers may see audiences as clambering to

adopt new technologies and expanded modes of interaction and participation in a film, most

scholars would agree that the interfaces necessary for true participation simply do not yet exist.

Writing about Warner Bros. film apps, Caetlin Benson-Allott (2011) remarks that the touch-based

interface of these apps causes us to “try to tap the windows onto our filmic worlds, but the

windows never really open,” (p. 11). She ultimately concludes that the apps’ borrowed bonus

features produce a “derivative, ersatz DVD experience,” while the touch-screen interface provides

only “a mere illusion of active participation” (p. 11). This is not merely a problem of the melding

of film with technology, but a problem of mobile technology itself: Gerard Goggin’s examination

of cellular phones concludes that “there is a great dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desire inscribed in

mobiles” (p. 162), and MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle (2012) identifies a litany of societal

and interactional problems associated with prolonged cell phone and computer use.

Phones and tablets can bring a viewer physically closer to a film in terms of distance from

the screen and through the presentation of trivia and other information about the film, which

seems to reinforce the intimacy one might feel with the film text. However, the interfaces designed

to foster and promote this relationship do precisely the opposite, providing only a modicum of


genuine participatory experience while primarily calling attention to their inability to deliver on

their promises of true interactivity. A rhetoric of intimacy which at one time emphasized the

relationship between the viewer and the film text has ultimately been weakened by the

technological interventions of the mobile era.

This decline in intimacy between art and audience can be attributed to misunderstandings

regarding the true nature and societal role of intimacy itself. The term itself is nebulous, readily

identified by experts as a word with an inherent subjectivity, constrained sometimes by time and

place, and other times by individual interpretation (Levenson, 1981). However, scholars have

identified that a fundamental characteristic of intimacy is that it is generally described as a feeling

of closeness between one person and another (Hand, et al., 2013; Knapp & Vangelisti, 2013;

Levenson, 1981).

Mark L. Knapp and Anita L. Vangelisti’s (2013) model of the interactive stages in the

lifecycle of relationships is useful in evoking the para-social and para-proxemic relationships

which draw viewers into “pseudo-intimacy” (Bousé, 2003, p. 129). Though interpersonal in nature,

Knapp and Vangelisti’s model can be helpful when examining participatory technologies in art

because it highlights the importance of identifying the nature of relationships as being one of

shifting powers and controls within the bounds of connection between two people. Noting that

the stages in which intimacy with the other person is most intense are dependent upon “active

participation and greater awareness” (p. 155) between parties, the model shows that the power in

a relationship reaches a desirable state of equilibrium during the “Integration” and “Bonding”

stages, in which two people begin to formally identify themselves with one another (pp. 156-7). In


time, if this equilibrium is upset, it can begin to move the relationship away from a state of relative

harmony into one of “Differentiating,” leading to the termination of the relationship (p. 153).

This theoretical perspective illuminates the dynamic of power and control the media

industry has attempted to establish with those it views as consumers, a dynamic tipped heavily in

the media industry’s favor. As Tryon (2013) notes, “the various modes of digital delivery are

designed in part to provide media conglomerates with greater control over the distribution,

circulation, and exhibition of their movies” (p. 50). Daniel Chamberlain (2010) categorizes the

interfaces by which we interact with film, television, and other media content as “televisual

interfaces,” which are “explicitly interactive sites…that reframe the programming we watch,

introduce new metadata-based aesthetics, alter the rhythms of the time we spend with television

[and all visual media, including film], and reveal the struggles among media corporations

established and emergent” (p. 86). The “struggles” that he refers to are those of televisual

interfaces enticing viewers to participation through a “discourse of customization” (p. 86) which

promises viewer control, but ultimately delivers that power into the hands of media conglomerates

whose aims may be suspect:

For a televisual experience to be responsive, viewers’ desires and preferences must be

processed and, in many cases, recorded. Interactivity is thus doubly productive, charming

viewers with the sensation of control and generating viewer data that can be used in a

number of ways. As Mark Andrejevic has forcefully argued, well-marketed promises of

customer control entice users of emergent media technologies into the digital enclosure,

where their enthusiastic participation is then recorded and managed (Chamberlain, 2010,

p. 86).


Chamberlain’s argument is useful in examining the relationship of users to all sorts of technology,

calling into question the fundamental power dynamic present in them. Teena A.M. Carnegie and

S. Sindey Fels (2002) argue in Beyond Use: Toward a Rhetoric of Technological Intimacy that the

examination of technology from a rhetorical perspective requires a shift in thought “from a

classical notion of rhetoric based on persuasion to a modern rhetoric based on identification. After

all, user identification with the technology determines the degree of literacy in the use of that

technology” (p. 215). Carnegie and Fels further contend that focusing on the end result of

technology for the user is inadequate, and that “a more effective rhetorical heuristic would analyze

the complex of relationships and the role of identification and techne” (p. 216), ignoring that both

identification and techne, or technique, are not entirely divorced from ends. Chamberlain (2010)

addresses this very idea in his critique of televisual interfaces:

By foregrounding the practice of personalization, these interfaces allow for the gathering

of more detailed data on viewer preferences. In all of these cases, interface screens allow

viewers to revel in the empowerment provided by interactive media experiences while

willfully ignoring how such engagements with media interfaces have become the most

prominent ways we make our actions trackable. It is difficult to see the powerful function

of surveillance when caught up in the conceit and pleasures of interactivity and control (p.

87).

Carnegie and Fels are critical of approaches to developing a rhetorical heuristic for technology or

any development of technology that focus on the end user’s experience with that technology,

deigning this approach insufficient for its ignorance in regards to “all elements and stakeholders in

the design” (p. 216), including the designer of the technology itself. However, this ignores the fact


that sales and innovation in technological circles tend to be driven by promises to that same end

user. Theirs would seem to be a perspective that focuses on the scholarship which equates mobile

phones with the user’s hand (Katz & Aakhus, 2002), while ignoring that these same technologies

tend to be divisive, compromising the very intimacy they promise to deliver (Turkle, 2012).

The Rhetoric of Intimacy in Film

The largest competitor to VOD film distribution is actually a distributor of physical DVD

and Blu-Ray discs: Redbox kiosks. These short-term rental hubs, found outside of convenience

stores, supermarkets, and many other locations, primarily stock recent theatrical hits and some

films released only on DVD or VOD. The average Redbox kiosk contains roughly 200 unique

titles (Tryon, 2013), a far cry from the 35,000 or so offered persistently on Netflix (Smith, 2011),

and yet Redbox has taken a significant bite out of Hollywood profits and other methods of film

rental: Redbox rentals accounted for 30% of U.S. rentals in 2010, and have cost the movie industry

an estimated $1 billion in “lost” DVD sales (Tryon, 2013). In addition, Redbox’s focus on newer

major studio releases has taken a portion of viewership away from online services like Netflix,

where the presence of major new releases is often delayed by contractual agreements, leaving the

online streaming library consistently behind in its offerings (Tryon, 2013).

While this shift of consumer behavior back towards physical media may seem ironic in the

onslaught of technical innovations and technological availability in contemporary culture, it is

easy to see how Redbox still fits the mold of trends towards platform mobility. Redbox kiosks still

offer “freedom” from the necessity of owning movies, curtailing the expense and allowing a looser,

less structured way to approach movie-viewing, indicative of the convenience desired by


proponents of platform mobility. Redbox discs are even technically mobile: a DVD does not have

to be returned to the same kiosk it was rented from, allowing consumers a high degree of

flexibility in figuring out how returning a rented film fits into their busy life and schedule.

Perhaps the greatest trait that Redbox brings to the table is one it shares with its online

competitors: expediency. Caetlin Benson-Allott (2011) has remarked that modern spectators

prefer expediency in film-viewing over any sort of enhanced or feature-rich version of a particular

film. Redbox and Netflix have both successfully offered “stripped” versions of DVD’s, with most

or all of the supplemental features eliminated in favor of streamlined access to the film itself,

emulating the experience of accessing a film via an online interface (Tryon, 2013). In some ways

this can be attributed to the growth in the online marketing presence of films in general. Seeking

to engage audiences before a movie even releases, many blockbuster films produce “web diaries”

or other behind-the-scenes featurettes which are built for and ultimately distributed firstly online

(though many do end up being released in the eventual physical packaging of a film; examples

here include King Kong (2005), and all three entries in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy). For

those interested in the making of a particular film, widespread broadband internet access has

made such inquiries simple to pursue; for anyone interested in only the film, the presence of

special features on a disc or online is entirely unnecessary in the first place.

It is this second perspective which some believe has contributed significantly to Redbox’s

success. The convenience and low cost of renting from one of the kiosks allows working parents or

busy families to rent a film simply for its entertainment value (Tryon, 2013). Though many would

argue that entertainment has in some ways been the chief goal of film as a medium since its

beginnings, Tryon (2013) and Klinger (2006) both note that the aesthetics surrounding the


physical ownership of a film on some type of physical media has tended to focus less on the

entertainment inherent in the film itself, and more on the film’s place in a home video collection.

The demographic that looks to film for diversion or enjoyment has oft been ignored, then, in

attempts to market physical media.

While Chuck Tryon (2013) sees these tendencies as indicative of a devaluation of the value

of the film itself as a text, these particular shifts in viewing patterns might actually be seen as a

return to form as viewers focus on the power of a film’s story in and of itself. Young (2000) has

handily demonstrated the power that film can have and the differences that a good film can make

in a person’s life, and this is no less true today.

The explosion of home video as Hollywood’s primary profit center in the early 1980’s

contributed not only to the viewing of movie theaters as secondary to the home market, but also

to a shift in studio politics, placing greater decision-making power in the hands of studio

distribution wings, letting potential earnings determine the allocation of resources for film

production (Wasser, 2001). As a result, video markets tended to focus on number of hits as

opposed to width of selection, and facilitated the studio trends toward fewer similar “tent-pole”

blockbusters as opposed to a greater number of smaller films (Wasser, 2001). The creativity of

filmmakers is stifled as a result, with studios aiming to easily and cheaply produce products for

consumers rather than trust filmmakers to craft compelling, captivating narratives. Any decrease

in the number of theatergoers could likely be blamed on this increasing homogenization of the

product being offered, though the film industry’s attempts at diversification and the development

of new modes of distribution and interaction with their films may indicate that they do not quite

see things the same way.


Worth noting is that for as long as movies have been available in homes, viewers have

often sought to emulate the theatrical experience in their own domestic space (Kendrick, 2005;

Klinger, 2006). From dimming the lights to the purchasing of expensive surround sound systems

and screens of increasing width, the home viewer has long identified the cinematic experience of

theater-going as being the standard to emulate when seeking to present a film in as immersive a

fashion as possible. This would seem to indicate that these are the ideal conditions in which to

view a film, both for maximum enjoyment and the facilitation of the greatest depth and clarity of

connection between the viewer and the film text.

To a certain degree, the viewing of a film on a cell phone can facilitate this type of intimate

connection with a film—watching a film by oneself on such a small screen is perhaps the most

intimate way a film could be watched. But the ways in which studios have attempted to use the

interfaces of digital technology to inspire greater participation in the world of the film have

actually failed to produce any meaningful results. The assumption that greater audience

participation in a broader, multimedia experience is what viewers want seems, in fact, to not be

true at all. This seems to indicate that viewers simply want quality films, not necessarily the new

ways of experiencing them that studios and technology developers appear to think they want. This

is reminiscent of the early days of cinema before Zukor and Griffith, when most studios churned

out “hackneyed or formulaic” (Wasser, 2001, p. 27) films purely because they thought that

audiences were simply hungry for any new content they could find. Ultimately, however, it was the

arrival of Zukor and Griffith’s more elaborate and engaging style of production which won

audiences over, and cemented the cinema as a lasting, engaging art form.


At the center of all this is the intimate relationship between the viewer of a film and the

film itself. For all the technological advances of the last century and the dramatic increase in

Hollywood budgets and marketing, the ultimate success of a film still rests on the same thing it

always has: the ability of a story to engage an audience, forging a connection that can last for

forever, or even just a handful of hours. The rhetoric of intimacy that cinema engages is one which

reminds us, as Richard Dyer MacCann (1966) says, that “the heart of any film is its contact with

life, its concern with humanity, connecting creator and audience” (p. 19).


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