October 16, 2025 • 22 mins
In this epiosde, I spoke with one of the co-authors, Wheeler Winston Dixon about his book "A Short History of Film, 4th Edition". This updated and expanded edition of A Short History of Film provides an accessible overview of the major movements, directors, studios, and genres from the 1880s to the present. Succinct yet comprehensive, with more than 250 rare stills and illustrations, this edition provides new information on contemporary horror, comic book, and franchise films; issues surrounding women and minority filmmakers; the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on movies worldwide; the shift from film to digital production; the rising use of artificial intelligence in cinema; and the impact of streaming on the industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Let's go Forgotten.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Forgotten Hollywood, your podcast of
memories of yesteryear. My name is Doug Hanson. For tuning
in Forgotten Hollywood for the first time. What I do
on this podcast is take you on a journey back
in time and share with you pieces of Hollywood that
you may or may not know about. And today we
have a very special guest with us today. It's Wheeler
(00:27):
Winston Dixon and he is one of the authors of
the book A Short History of Film, fourth edition, the
like I mentioned, he has a co author. Thank you.
I was trying to read my notes there and I
(00:47):
University Press absolutely and the book is out and it's,
like I said, a fourth edition. So that means that
there's been some updates to it. But we'll jump into
that in just a few minutes. But Wheeler, first of all,
welcome Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, thank you for spending a few minutes out of
your busy time schedule to be here with us. And
we do this all the time. So the first question
I'm going to ask you is, since we have the
author with this, is to tell us the listeners in
your own words, what the book's about.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, this is the fourth.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Edition of Short History is Filmed, and the first one
was written in two thousand and eight, with an update
in twenty thirteen, an updated twenty eighteen, and now here
in twenty twenty five. Is the fourth and probably final updates.
It's about the history of film worldwide.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
It's about all the films.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
That you don't know, some of them that you do know.
And it's worldwide, so it's not just centered around films
made in America, but we touch on every single country
in the world. We go through maybe ten thousand movies
in the book. Wow, maybe more. It's really it's really
quite stilling. The third edition of the book was the
best selling film history textbook in the United States, so
(02:03):
I hope that the fourth edition will pass or succeed that.
And it's really it talks about a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Of films that people have been people have.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Been marginalized in cinema history. For example, the first filmmaker
was a woman named Alice Gee spelled Guy, and she
made the first film in eighteen ninety eight that had
a plot pulled the Feo Shoe to the Capatatche Ferry
and the first film in the narrative, and she was
one of.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
The four mothers of the cinema way before.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
The w A Griffith whom most people hearry about for
Thomas Edison, but she was working in France and started
making features that were like two or three reels long,
and the full length feature and stuff. And what we
wanted to do was bring forth all of the filmmakers
who may have been pushed to the back. There's lots
of women filmmakers, African American filmmakers and who have not
(02:53):
really gotten their due. And so one of the things
that the book is trying to do is to present
a more complete version of sim the history. You know,
it's strong, you know, references to people who have hitherto
been left out of the occasion.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Absolutely, you know. And we were kind of talking a
little bit off air before we started record is I
think both of us kind of had the same concept
of what we Why you wanted to do the book,
why I wanted to do this podcast is because and
I think we both agree on this, we're just a
generational way of forgetting some of the founding fathers, if
(03:27):
you will, Will or the godfather of these films.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
You're right, But I think we can't really blame the
you know, people who are in their twenty to thirty,
you know, because those films are shown.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Correct, that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Those films are never shown, So how are they going
to know that they're there if they're not presented. So
I think that you know, it's it's it's really uh,
it's really important that these films are available and that
people know that they're out there. And one of the
things that's useful about the book that you can go
through it and say, oh, that's an interesting film, and
then you can find it, you know, either streaming or
a DVD. But I think it's very important that people
(04:01):
know that the history of film is really all inclusive
and includes all countries, not just the United States, and
also the great films in Hollywood, for example, pre Code
Movies nineteen thirty two, thirty four, and the great films
of the forties and thirties, but all around the world,
and how cinema has reacted to the changing stands of
time and political change and throughout the world.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
No, absolutely, And we were talking a little bit about
that as well. You know, as some of my listeners know,
I have a sixteen and twenty year old, and you know,
like you said, it's not their fault that they're not
able to see some of these films. And that's one
reason that I wanted to start this podcast, is to
kind of maybe reintroduce some forgotten stars or movies or
(04:47):
directors or whoever the case may be related to films.
And I really enjoy the fact that you're doing a
book that's just not giving a snippet of history of
the film home and thinking it's just the United States,
but you're looking at it from a global standpoint, right.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
And the thing is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That I think that you know, I'm sure your listeners
already know. The turd Plastic movies, for example, is an
incredibly valuable resource in the older films. There's also the
Criterion channel, you know, which has you know, many many
great films. But the problem is that the mainstreamers like
Netflix and video only have many videos video library connection
(05:26):
that goes back to the seventies, and there's a lot
of filmmaking before that. So it's it's it's really a
gap that needs to.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Be filled absolutely, or if they do show something, I
know and I can't even think off the top of
my Head one of the streamings. But they only show
classic things like Casablanca, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Right, yeah, the Big Sleep, Scarface, Yeah, Cea, things like that. Yeah,
it's a very narrow bandwidth. It's sort of like a
top forty station. Yes, but but but there's hundreds of
thousands of films out there. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Also, the other thing, of course, that this book talks
about is that the future of films, and that's that
Now that AI is here yep Sora SR, which is
this new symic image generation system from Sony, it's now
possible to create films entirely from text.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
So we go all the way from.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
The beginning of cinema here where you're making films on
glass place in the paper film, and that by the
end they're actually being created just typed of text. Right now,
of course we have an AI star Killie Norwood, who
is a completely artificial construct person, but he's going to
sign at an agent. We were moving into a very
strange new world here.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah. It was kind of funny about the whole thing
is you couldn't really make this up. This is something
that would almost seem like it was out of a movie,
and here we are living it in real life.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Twenty years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
You wouldn't believe this would happen. But now, of course.
The other thing is the cinema has gone totally digital.
It was it was on film from the dawn of
the cinema in the eight eighty eights. That's when paper
roll film was invented by Usman Kodak, and so i'll
until about the turn of the century, everything was shot
on film.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
But now almost.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Nothing is shot on So people like Quentin Tarantino, you know,
insist on shooting film, seeing the Spielberg loves to shoot film,
but most people just shoot everything digitally. And even if
they shoot it on film, it winds up as a
digital content package. The DCP, which is what goes to
the theaters, and the theater is just playing on a
digital projector and it needs a key to unlock every
(07:38):
single file. It's called a KDM, a key delivery message.
So if you don't have that key delivery message at
the theater, you can't screen the film, which is it.
It's as a matter of fact that the New York
Film Festival a couple of years ago, they were trying
to run a new film but they couldn't figure out
I unlock it with a key, so they just sent
everybody home. Uh, it's a very it's a very whole
different way of looking at movies now.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Absolutely, Now, I know in the book you also talk
a little bit about COVID and how COVID affected films.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
COVID affected films, you know, lobby effected the whole world.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
What happened, What happened when COVID was that well, first
everything was shut down, and then gradually as the vaccine
became available, people started getting our groups as fall two
and three. But I talked to we talked in the
book about a director named Cecilia Minucci who was from Italy,
and she made a filmed right after the beginning of COVID,
(08:32):
when COVID was still happening, with Bob Logan Kirk and
a bunch of other people, and they were all doing
it from the individual homes, using their iPads as the
cameras placed in the places that the director of Sicilia
Manuci would tell them to do it. And the whole
film was shot with iPads remotely edited online. And then
they when the COVID began to lift, they staged the
(08:55):
final scene in our gallery with just two or three people.
But the other thing is that it's gotten rid of
the actrical experience. You know, you can't go to a
theater in the midst of COVID. You just simply can't.
And so so there we began streaming, and that's really
what's pushed streaming to be the dominant delivery platform. Now
the actrical is pretty much dying on the vine except
for a huge, big budget movie, which makes sense because
(09:18):
if they cost two or three hundred thousand, three years,
two or three hundred million to make that you're going
to put another twenty million.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Thirty million into advertising.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So what happens now in theater is all you've got
is the big budget movies, maybe some horror movies, an
occasional indie breakout hit. That's the good. But you know,
the COVID has basically changed the whole thing and just
put it onto streaming almost entirely. I mean, people prefer
to stream from home, it's more convenient, and of course
the prices of theaters have just gone straight through the roof.
(09:48):
You went to a Matt Day a couple of weeks ago,
it was twenty bucks for a Matt Day or two people. Yeah, so,
and six dollars for a bottle of work. So I
think that streaming is the way. And also I'd like
to encourage all of your listeners don't just rely on streaming,
because as I'm sitting here in my office in my
upstairs at the house, I've got ten thousands and blu
(10:11):
rays hanging around here and I use them all the time,
and many of the best movies will never make it
into any of the streaming services. So one of the
things that this book can do is you're going to
give you a template of things that you could possibly
look up. And also it has at the beginning a
huge timeline of all the events in the world from
(10:32):
I'm looking at right from eighteen thirty two when people
first realize that movies were possible, to the present and
the end it has a glossary of terms and a
huge list of other books people might consult that they
want to look further.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Oh. Absolutely, and that's beautiful because every time I think
you need kind of that reference. You were talking a
little bit about COVID. One thing that was I'm going
to say good about COVID in a smaller town, and
my youngest son at the time, who is sixteen now,
he was what ten eleven at the time. With COVID,
(11:09):
we actually had the chance to see Ghostbusters and The
Empire Strikes Back on the big screen that were letting
a few people in and we had to be spread out,
And that was kind of a neat experience to go
back and watch films from the eighties that I remember
as a kid going to the theaters and watching for
the first time. But to be able to take my
(11:30):
son to do that because at the time, no new
box office hits were being released, and so a lot
of these smaller movie theaters were doing releases of older films.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Right, It's definitely true.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
It was just kind of neat to be able to
go back and watch a film that you remember as
a kid watching taking your child to see it on
the big screen. And as much as I love Empire
Strikes at Ghostbusters, there's nothing like seeing it on the
big screen.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Well, actually, one of the things here, I am flamming
theatrical even though I think that you know right now,
it's financially not feasible for the studio, So what's one
of the reasons they got very films as much cheaper
just to send out a digital copy. But on the
other hand, I'm speaking of someone who taught film in
the classroom for fifty years, and I taught Rutgers University,
at the New School of New York, University of Amsterdam,
(12:26):
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and in all of those classes
we ran the films on a big screen with a
union projectionist, and that way the kids could really experience them,
because when you look at a film, even if you
have like a monstrously big flat screen, which we do,
it's not the same as being like thirty feet long
and twenty feet high. You know, those compositions that are
(12:49):
in the classic films of thirty forty fifties and sixties,
particularly in the thirty forty fifties, they weren't composing for
television at all. They were for the big screen, and
so a lot of the act is lost where you
see the film on a small screen, which will really
overpower you. To say, a close up of being Ribernment
in Casablanca, just the close up after she says playing
(13:10):
and she listened that as time goes by, think camera
just holds on her for about a minute, and it's
just a glorious moment, but you see it on the
big screen, it forces you to pay attention. It's really
it just enhances the entire experience. So having said that
theatrical is kind of dying on the vine, I'd say, nevertheless,
the best way to see any movie is on a
big screen.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh, I completely agree with you one hundred percent. Maybe
explain or talk to us a little bit about doing
the writing and the research of this book. What surprised you,
if anything, Well, the main reason.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
That we wrote it quite frankly, starting the first edition
in two thousand and eight and continuing on is because
the existing texts were so absolutely sexistist. They were very
you know, black filmmakers were even mentioned. You know, there
was nothing about Oscar Missie, nothing about Spencer Williams. You know,
it was it was and women were completely marginalized, you know,
(14:06):
there was there was really nothing about them, or they
were put off in a separate category like you know,
and then there were women or then there were African
American filmmakers, right, and that's just not right. So we
basically went through the existing films that we love and
writing the first thing. It was really so that's two
thousand and eight, So we're drawing on about say, nineteen
(14:26):
sixteen nine, so we're drawing in about thirty eight years
of experience at that point, and then just updating it
every time that it comes around. So it's it's really
something that is super important to know the depths and
the complexity of it, because, as you said when we
were talking earlier, when kids today see a film that
they don't know that it's a remake of something right then,
(14:48):
you know, and often the remakes to start that good.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You know, sometimes they're good. I mean, like John Carpenter
Remade The Thing in nineteen eighty two is a great film,
but the original is made by Howard Hawks and Christian
ninety in nineteen fifty one. Right now, they're both good.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
But that doesn't necessarily need to happen.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Most of the times when they make a reboot, it's
more or less just driven by the fact that they
have the intellectual property or the IP. They just want
to make some more money on it.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, which is not, in my opinion, the right reason
why you need to be making a film. But that's
just my opinion.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Well, no, I agree with you entirely. The New Naked
Gun movie was line does not even begin to measure
up to the earlier stuff with Leslie Nielsen. I mean
it doesn't even I saw it actually in the theater,
and I was deeply disappointed. But you know, I think
that you really have to go back to the richness
of the past. And you see the damar films of
the forties. Yes, you've see the pre code films that
(15:44):
are during the depression, and like, we're in tough times
right now, but if you look back, you see that
these times have existed always. There's always been a struggle
between the very rich and everyday people, and all of
these films reflect that. And also the films wor less
of the foundation of this art form were made by
individual people who believe in the vision that they were making. Now,
(16:07):
the studios are all run by hyper conglomerates. There's huge
packages in print, advertising, merchanting and stuff. But back in
the days of Warner Brothers, twentieth century Fox, Columbia, et cetera,
there were individual people at top of the studio and
they made some films for commercial efforts, but some films
were designed to be statements and those are the films
that really last.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yes, absolutely, and I would also argue, and this is
just my own personal opinion that you know, for example,
when The Wizard of Oz was being produced in nineteen
thirty nine, all that stuff had to be done something
you know, like the tornado and stuff somebody had a
ruined be done practically, Yes, yes, special effects correct, Yes, CTI.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Is so boring. AI is so boring, you.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Know, I just I just think that practical. It's really
for example, in Barbie the Reasonably as Wigs movies, it's
almost one hundred percent practical. They actually built all the sets.
You know, it's not done. It's not done in you know,
in the in the computer. But you're right the minute,
the minute that things become you know, well, the Wizard
of Oz is a very practical film. But but again
(17:15):
you have to pay attention and respect the primacy of
the classic. I don't know if you know that they've
kind it down to seventy seven minutes and it Oh yeah,
what's big screen thing at the sphere in Las Vegas?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Did you do you know that? Oh? Yeah, yeah, Well
the thing what they did was that that film is
like in a standard Academy ratio.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yep, they did.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It's a cinemoscope, so they would be inside of the
dormant curve around right, But they created scenes on both
sides that don't exist in the original, in addition to
chopping about thirty five minutes out of the film and
also incorporating cameos by some of the current exacttion Hollywood,
just to keep them happy. Wow, what's happening here? Yeah,
what's happening here? You're just destroying a classic. Also, it's
(17:58):
interesting to note that they were making the film, Buddy Epson,
who was supposed to be the ten men they had
to bow out, said it was just another picture, just
another picture at the time, And it's interesting that that
and both Gone with the Women were directed by principally
directed by Victor Fleming, one guy. Both made them in
nineteen thirty nine, which is insane. They both have many
other directors too, but the final helmet was Pictor Fleming.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Which is still you know, I think a lot of
people will debate this, but I still think one of
the best, if not the best year in cinema was
nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, that's a common that's a common trope. I'm more
or less, I'm more fond of.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
The sixties, okay, because then you have people like Lanka
Garden making brilliant films like Breathless and Masculine Feminine and
Alfaville and Weekend. It's been fantastic indictment of American society.
So I love the sixties. I love the forties for
a noir. Oh yeah, out of the Past, the big
sleet films like that. So there's there's also there's all
(19:01):
sorts of different movies that are really really valuable.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Oh absolutely. I think the reason I think it for
me personally as nineteen thirty nine is is because what
we just talked about is that they made these beautiful
films and they didn't have the superteche. Yes, yeah, I
was trying to think about tech.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It's more authentic, it's more real. And also another thing
that's happened is this film has gotten totally digital. So
I'm also an editor, I mean a film editor as
well as a book editor, and cutting film physical film
is very different from doing it digitally because it's more
like carpentry.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
So you look at something like Alfred.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Hitchcock's Psycho, right, and you see how meticulously that's put together,
shot by shot, right, And also he's another thing. When
I would run these films and classes for my students,
many of them had never seen. For example, I ran
Psycho regularly and by folks three classes, right, and I
would come in I'd say, so, how many people have
seen Cycho? No hands go up right, so that they say,
(20:06):
all right, I'm not going to say anything else. I'm
just going to run Psycho, and they're knocked out. This
is a black and white film made in nineteen sixty
and it just pops right off the screen. Or a
couple of weeks after that, I ran The Sinman, the original,
Oh yeah sin Man, right, yeah yeah, Charles Yeah, And
here's a nineteen thirty four comedy, and it's just the
(20:27):
women and the men in the class just adore it.
They thought this is toe of today. It's just brilliant
and fantastic. It really translates well. Also, it's clean, it's
not full of a lot of you know, artificially thrown
in profanity and stuff. Right, but it really it really
has it.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Peals to all audiences.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
So I think we've introduced people to these great films
that you take for granted, and that I take for grants.
We know they're there, right, you've introduced them to people
who haven't seen them before. They adore them, you know,
because it really they really get through. And also if
you're thinking people will make films today like Chloe Zawi
made a brilliant Headland a couple of years ago, which
(21:05):
won the Academy Award for Better Picture. Yes, she basically
has a long history of going back and looking at
the past in the film. If you look at the
directors who are working today, they know the past. Yes,
you should too, totally the viewer if you want to be.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
No, I totally agree with you that to be engaged,
you really got It's like anything else, you've got to
know the past to really understand the present. In terms
of that, well, I think we must have lost whee
learned there unfortunately, so we will kind of just kind
(21:46):
of wrap it up there. But please go ahead and
get a copy of Wheeler's book, A Short History of Film,
a fourth edition by Records University Press. You're not going
to be disappointed. We just touched the typically iceberg on this.
But I want to thank you for listening to this
episode of Forgotten Hollywood. Just search for Dougcaster Forgotten Hollywood.
(22:07):
You can also find me on Twitter, Instagram, and has
Doug fourteen. If you listen to this podcast and iTunes
or another podcast service, please subscribe, rate, and review this episode.
Tune in next week for the latest episode, I've Forgotten Hollywood.
Thank you for listening and we will see you then
Let's go Forgotten.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Forgotten Hollywood, your podcast of
memories of yesteryear. My name is Doug Hanson. For tuning
in Forgotten Hollywood for the first time. What I do
on this podcast is take you on a journey back
in time and share with you pieces of Hollywood that
you may or may not know about. And today we
have a very special guest with us today. It's Wheeler
(00:27):
Winston Dixon and he is one of the authors of
the book A Short History of Film, fourth edition, the
like I mentioned, he has a co author. Thank you.
I was trying to read my notes there and I
(00:47):
University Press absolutely and the book is out and it's,
like I said, a fourth edition. So that means that
there's been some updates to it. But we'll jump into
that in just a few minutes. But Wheeler, first of all,
welcome Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, thank you for spending a few minutes out of
your busy time schedule to be here with us. And
we do this all the time. So the first question
I'm going to ask you is, since we have the
author with this, is to tell us the listeners in
your own words, what the book's about.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, this is the fourth.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Edition of Short History is Filmed, and the first one
was written in two thousand and eight, with an update
in twenty thirteen, an updated twenty eighteen, and now here
in twenty twenty five. Is the fourth and probably final updates.
It's about the history of film worldwide.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
It's about all the films.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
That you don't know, some of them that you do know.
And it's worldwide, so it's not just centered around films
made in America, but we touch on every single country
in the world. We go through maybe ten thousand movies
in the book. Wow, maybe more. It's really it's really
quite stilling. The third edition of the book was the
best selling film history textbook in the United States, so
(02:03):
I hope that the fourth edition will pass or succeed that.
And it's really it talks about a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Of films that people have been people have.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Been marginalized in cinema history. For example, the first filmmaker
was a woman named Alice Gee spelled Guy, and she
made the first film in eighteen ninety eight that had
a plot pulled the Feo Shoe to the Capatatche Ferry
and the first film in the narrative, and she was
one of.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
The four mothers of the cinema way before.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
The w A Griffith whom most people hearry about for
Thomas Edison, but she was working in France and started
making features that were like two or three reels long,
and the full length feature and stuff. And what we
wanted to do was bring forth all of the filmmakers
who may have been pushed to the back. There's lots
of women filmmakers, African American filmmakers and who have not
(02:53):
really gotten their due. And so one of the things
that the book is trying to do is to present
a more complete version of sim the history. You know,
it's strong, you know, references to people who have hitherto
been left out of the occasion.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Absolutely, you know. And we were kind of talking a
little bit off air before we started record is I
think both of us kind of had the same concept
of what we Why you wanted to do the book,
why I wanted to do this podcast is because and
I think we both agree on this, we're just a
generational way of forgetting some of the founding fathers, if
(03:27):
you will, Will or the godfather of these films.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
You're right, But I think we can't really blame the
you know, people who are in their twenty to thirty,
you know, because those films are shown.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Correct, that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Those films are never shown, So how are they going
to know that they're there if they're not presented. So
I think that you know, it's it's it's really uh,
it's really important that these films are available and that
people know that they're out there. And one of the
things that's useful about the book that you can go
through it and say, oh, that's an interesting film, and
then you can find it, you know, either streaming or
a DVD. But I think it's very important that people
(04:01):
know that the history of film is really all inclusive
and includes all countries, not just the United States, and
also the great films in Hollywood, for example, pre Code
Movies nineteen thirty two, thirty four, and the great films
of the forties and thirties, but all around the world,
and how cinema has reacted to the changing stands of
time and political change and throughout the world.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
No, absolutely, And we were talking a little bit about
that as well. You know, as some of my listeners know,
I have a sixteen and twenty year old, and you know,
like you said, it's not their fault that they're not
able to see some of these films. And that's one
reason that I wanted to start this podcast, is to
kind of maybe reintroduce some forgotten stars or movies or
(04:47):
directors or whoever the case may be related to films.
And I really enjoy the fact that you're doing a
book that's just not giving a snippet of history of
the film home and thinking it's just the United States,
but you're looking at it from a global standpoint, right.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
And the thing is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That I think that you know, I'm sure your listeners
already know. The turd Plastic movies, for example, is an
incredibly valuable resource in the older films. There's also the
Criterion channel, you know, which has you know, many many
great films. But the problem is that the mainstreamers like
Netflix and video only have many videos video library connection
(05:26):
that goes back to the seventies, and there's a lot
of filmmaking before that. So it's it's it's really a
gap that needs to.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Be filled absolutely, or if they do show something, I
know and I can't even think off the top of
my Head one of the streamings. But they only show
classic things like Casablanca, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Right, yeah, the Big Sleep, Scarface, Yeah, Cea, things like that. Yeah,
it's a very narrow bandwidth. It's sort of like a
top forty station. Yes, but but but there's hundreds of
thousands of films out there. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Also, the other thing, of course, that this book talks
about is that the future of films, and that's that
Now that AI is here yep Sora SR, which is
this new symic image generation system from Sony, it's now
possible to create films entirely from text.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
So we go all the way from.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
The beginning of cinema here where you're making films on
glass place in the paper film, and that by the
end they're actually being created just typed of text. Right now,
of course we have an AI star Killie Norwood, who
is a completely artificial construct person, but he's going to
sign at an agent. We were moving into a very
strange new world here.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah. It was kind of funny about the whole thing
is you couldn't really make this up. This is something
that would almost seem like it was out of a movie,
and here we are living it in real life.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Twenty years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
You wouldn't believe this would happen. But now, of course.
The other thing is the cinema has gone totally digital.
It was it was on film from the dawn of
the cinema in the eight eighty eights. That's when paper
roll film was invented by Usman Kodak, and so i'll
until about the turn of the century, everything was shot
on film.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
But now almost.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Nothing is shot on So people like Quentin Tarantino, you know,
insist on shooting film, seeing the Spielberg loves to shoot film,
but most people just shoot everything digitally. And even if
they shoot it on film, it winds up as a
digital content package. The DCP, which is what goes to
the theaters, and the theater is just playing on a
digital projector and it needs a key to unlock every
(07:38):
single file. It's called a KDM, a key delivery message.
So if you don't have that key delivery message at
the theater, you can't screen the film, which is it.
It's as a matter of fact that the New York
Film Festival a couple of years ago, they were trying
to run a new film but they couldn't figure out
I unlock it with a key, so they just sent
everybody home. Uh, it's a very it's a very whole
different way of looking at movies now.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Absolutely, Now, I know in the book you also talk
a little bit about COVID and how COVID affected films.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
COVID affected films, you know, lobby effected the whole world.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
What happened, What happened when COVID was that well, first
everything was shut down, and then gradually as the vaccine
became available, people started getting our groups as fall two
and three. But I talked to we talked in the
book about a director named Cecilia Minucci who was from Italy,
and she made a filmed right after the beginning of COVID,
(08:32):
when COVID was still happening, with Bob Logan Kirk and
a bunch of other people, and they were all doing
it from the individual homes, using their iPads as the
cameras placed in the places that the director of Sicilia
Manuci would tell them to do it. And the whole
film was shot with iPads remotely edited online. And then
they when the COVID began to lift, they staged the
(08:55):
final scene in our gallery with just two or three people.
But the other thing is that it's gotten rid of
the actrical experience. You know, you can't go to a
theater in the midst of COVID. You just simply can't.
And so so there we began streaming, and that's really
what's pushed streaming to be the dominant delivery platform. Now
the actrical is pretty much dying on the vine except
for a huge, big budget movie, which makes sense because
(09:18):
if they cost two or three hundred thousand, three years,
two or three hundred million to make that you're going
to put another twenty million.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Thirty million into advertising.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So what happens now in theater is all you've got
is the big budget movies, maybe some horror movies, an
occasional indie breakout hit. That's the good. But you know,
the COVID has basically changed the whole thing and just
put it onto streaming almost entirely. I mean, people prefer
to stream from home, it's more convenient, and of course
the prices of theaters have just gone straight through the roof.
(09:48):
You went to a Matt Day a couple of weeks ago,
it was twenty bucks for a Matt Day or two people. Yeah, so,
and six dollars for a bottle of work. So I
think that streaming is the way. And also I'd like
to encourage all of your listeners don't just rely on streaming,
because as I'm sitting here in my office in my
upstairs at the house, I've got ten thousands and blu
(10:11):
rays hanging around here and I use them all the time,
and many of the best movies will never make it
into any of the streaming services. So one of the
things that this book can do is you're going to
give you a template of things that you could possibly
look up. And also it has at the beginning a
huge timeline of all the events in the world from
(10:32):
I'm looking at right from eighteen thirty two when people
first realize that movies were possible, to the present and
the end it has a glossary of terms and a
huge list of other books people might consult that they
want to look further.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Oh. Absolutely, and that's beautiful because every time I think
you need kind of that reference. You were talking a
little bit about COVID. One thing that was I'm going
to say good about COVID in a smaller town, and
my youngest son at the time, who is sixteen now,
he was what ten eleven at the time. With COVID,
(11:09):
we actually had the chance to see Ghostbusters and The
Empire Strikes Back on the big screen that were letting
a few people in and we had to be spread out,
And that was kind of a neat experience to go
back and watch films from the eighties that I remember
as a kid going to the theaters and watching for
the first time. But to be able to take my
(11:30):
son to do that because at the time, no new
box office hits were being released, and so a lot
of these smaller movie theaters were doing releases of older films.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Right, It's definitely true.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
It was just kind of neat to be able to
go back and watch a film that you remember as
a kid watching taking your child to see it on
the big screen. And as much as I love Empire
Strikes at Ghostbusters, there's nothing like seeing it on the
big screen.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Well, actually, one of the things here, I am flamming
theatrical even though I think that you know right now,
it's financially not feasible for the studio, So what's one
of the reasons they got very films as much cheaper
just to send out a digital copy. But on the
other hand, I'm speaking of someone who taught film in
the classroom for fifty years, and I taught Rutgers University,
at the New School of New York, University of Amsterdam,
(12:26):
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and in all of those classes
we ran the films on a big screen with a
union projectionist, and that way the kids could really experience them,
because when you look at a film, even if you
have like a monstrously big flat screen, which we do,
it's not the same as being like thirty feet long
and twenty feet high. You know, those compositions that are
(12:49):
in the classic films of thirty forty fifties and sixties,
particularly in the thirty forty fifties, they weren't composing for
television at all. They were for the big screen, and
so a lot of the act is lost where you
see the film on a small screen, which will really
overpower you. To say, a close up of being Ribernment
in Casablanca, just the close up after she says playing
(13:10):
and she listened that as time goes by, think camera
just holds on her for about a minute, and it's
just a glorious moment, but you see it on the
big screen, it forces you to pay attention. It's really
it just enhances the entire experience. So having said that
theatrical is kind of dying on the vine, I'd say, nevertheless,
the best way to see any movie is on a
big screen.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh, I completely agree with you one hundred percent. Maybe
explain or talk to us a little bit about doing
the writing and the research of this book. What surprised you,
if anything, Well, the main reason.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
That we wrote it quite frankly, starting the first edition
in two thousand and eight and continuing on is because
the existing texts were so absolutely sexistist. They were very
you know, black filmmakers were even mentioned. You know, there
was nothing about Oscar Missie, nothing about Spencer Williams. You know,
it was it was and women were completely marginalized, you know,
(14:06):
there was there was really nothing about them, or they
were put off in a separate category like you know,
and then there were women or then there were African
American filmmakers, right, and that's just not right. So we
basically went through the existing films that we love and
writing the first thing. It was really so that's two
thousand and eight, So we're drawing on about say, nineteen
(14:26):
sixteen nine, so we're drawing in about thirty eight years
of experience at that point, and then just updating it
every time that it comes around. So it's it's really
something that is super important to know the depths and
the complexity of it, because, as you said when we
were talking earlier, when kids today see a film that
they don't know that it's a remake of something right then,
(14:48):
you know, and often the remakes to start that good.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You know, sometimes they're good. I mean, like John Carpenter
Remade The Thing in nineteen eighty two is a great film,
but the original is made by Howard Hawks and Christian
ninety in nineteen fifty one. Right now, they're both good.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
But that doesn't necessarily need to happen.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Most of the times when they make a reboot, it's
more or less just driven by the fact that they
have the intellectual property or the IP. They just want
to make some more money on it.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, which is not, in my opinion, the right reason
why you need to be making a film. But that's
just my opinion.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Well, no, I agree with you entirely. The New Naked
Gun movie was line does not even begin to measure
up to the earlier stuff with Leslie Nielsen. I mean
it doesn't even I saw it actually in the theater,
and I was deeply disappointed. But you know, I think
that you really have to go back to the richness
of the past. And you see the damar films of
the forties. Yes, you've see the pre code films that
(15:44):
are during the depression, and like, we're in tough times
right now, but if you look back, you see that
these times have existed always. There's always been a struggle
between the very rich and everyday people, and all of
these films reflect that. And also the films wor less
of the foundation of this art form were made by
individual people who believe in the vision that they were making. Now,
(16:07):
the studios are all run by hyper conglomerates. There's huge
packages in print, advertising, merchanting and stuff. But back in
the days of Warner Brothers, twentieth century Fox, Columbia, et cetera,
there were individual people at top of the studio and
they made some films for commercial efforts, but some films
were designed to be statements and those are the films
that really last.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yes, absolutely, and I would also argue, and this is
just my own personal opinion that you know, for example,
when The Wizard of Oz was being produced in nineteen
thirty nine, all that stuff had to be done something
you know, like the tornado and stuff somebody had a
ruined be done practically, Yes, yes, special effects correct, Yes, CTI.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Is so boring. AI is so boring, you.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Know, I just I just think that practical. It's really
for example, in Barbie the Reasonably as Wigs movies, it's
almost one hundred percent practical. They actually built all the sets.
You know, it's not done. It's not done in you know,
in the in the computer. But you're right the minute,
the minute that things become you know, well, the Wizard
of Oz is a very practical film. But but again
(17:15):
you have to pay attention and respect the primacy of
the classic. I don't know if you know that they've
kind it down to seventy seven minutes and it Oh yeah,
what's big screen thing at the sphere in Las Vegas?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Did you do you know that? Oh? Yeah, yeah, Well
the thing what they did was that that film is
like in a standard Academy ratio.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yep, they did.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It's a cinemoscope, so they would be inside of the
dormant curve around right, But they created scenes on both
sides that don't exist in the original, in addition to
chopping about thirty five minutes out of the film and
also incorporating cameos by some of the current exacttion Hollywood,
just to keep them happy. Wow, what's happening here? Yeah,
what's happening here? You're just destroying a classic. Also, it's
(17:58):
interesting to note that they were making the film, Buddy Epson,
who was supposed to be the ten men they had
to bow out, said it was just another picture, just
another picture at the time, And it's interesting that that
and both Gone with the Women were directed by principally
directed by Victor Fleming, one guy. Both made them in
nineteen thirty nine, which is insane. They both have many
other directors too, but the final helmet was Pictor Fleming.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Which is still you know, I think a lot of
people will debate this, but I still think one of
the best, if not the best year in cinema was
nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, that's a common that's a common trope. I'm more
or less, I'm more fond of.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
The sixties, okay, because then you have people like Lanka
Garden making brilliant films like Breathless and Masculine Feminine and
Alfaville and Weekend. It's been fantastic indictment of American society.
So I love the sixties. I love the forties for
a noir. Oh yeah, out of the Past, the big
sleet films like that. So there's there's also there's all
(19:01):
sorts of different movies that are really really valuable.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Oh absolutely. I think the reason I think it for
me personally as nineteen thirty nine is is because what
we just talked about is that they made these beautiful
films and they didn't have the superteche. Yes, yeah, I
was trying to think about tech.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It's more authentic, it's more real. And also another thing
that's happened is this film has gotten totally digital. So
I'm also an editor, I mean a film editor as
well as a book editor, and cutting film physical film
is very different from doing it digitally because it's more
like carpentry.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
So you look at something like Alfred.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Hitchcock's Psycho, right, and you see how meticulously that's put together,
shot by shot, right, And also he's another thing. When
I would run these films and classes for my students,
many of them had never seen. For example, I ran
Psycho regularly and by folks three classes, right, and I
would come in I'd say, so, how many people have
seen Cycho? No hands go up right, so that they say,
(20:06):
all right, I'm not going to say anything else. I'm
just going to run Psycho, and they're knocked out. This
is a black and white film made in nineteen sixty
and it just pops right off the screen. Or a
couple of weeks after that, I ran The Sinman, the original,
Oh yeah sin Man, right, yeah yeah, Charles Yeah, And
here's a nineteen thirty four comedy, and it's just the
(20:27):
women and the men in the class just adore it.
They thought this is toe of today. It's just brilliant
and fantastic. It really translates well. Also, it's clean, it's
not full of a lot of you know, artificially thrown
in profanity and stuff. Right, but it really it really
has it.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Peals to all audiences.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
So I think we've introduced people to these great films
that you take for granted, and that I take for grants.
We know they're there, right, you've introduced them to people
who haven't seen them before. They adore them, you know,
because it really they really get through. And also if
you're thinking people will make films today like Chloe Zawi
made a brilliant Headland a couple of years ago, which
(21:05):
won the Academy Award for Better Picture. Yes, she basically
has a long history of going back and looking at
the past in the film. If you look at the
directors who are working today, they know the past. Yes,
you should too, totally the viewer if you want to be.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
No, I totally agree with you that to be engaged,
you really got It's like anything else, you've got to
know the past to really understand the present. In terms
of that, well, I think we must have lost whee
learned there unfortunately, so we will kind of just kind
(21:46):
of wrap it up there. But please go ahead and
get a copy of Wheeler's book, A Short History of Film,
a fourth edition by Records University Press. You're not going
to be disappointed. We just touched the typically iceberg on this.
But I want to thank you for listening to this
episode of Forgotten Hollywood. Just search for Dougcaster Forgotten Hollywood.
(22:07):
You can also find me on Twitter, Instagram, and has
Doug fourteen. If you listen to this podcast and iTunes
or another podcast service, please subscribe, rate, and review this episode.
Tune in next week for the latest episode, I've Forgotten Hollywood.
Thank you for listening and we will see you then
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