American reviewers all have a heartfelt story to tell about that ONE arthouse where they used to watch artfilms, foreign films, or OLD Hollywood films (even if nowadays they stopped attending such places, and stay at home to watch DVDs). That's so sweet. But I'm afraid this is just a urban legend they like to tell themselves around the firecamp of nostalgia... This never existed. The stats don't corroborate it.
When Americans come to visit Paris, they don't watch French films, or the great variety of rare foreign films we can see on the big screen... what they ask for is where they can watch old classic Hollywood movies, because these aren't screened in their homeland anymore.
Well, there are several reasons to this collective hallucination : these memories only belong to a very narrow caste, quite limited geographically and largely overblown, they can't tell the difference between Cannes and the Oscars, they mismatch the role of American Festivals with that of an arthouse exhibition circuit, and their definition of an "artfilm" is basically anything that isn't a blockbuster.
‘Plexes, whether multi- or mega-, tend to look alike. But art and rep houses have personality, even flair. [..]
Most of these theatres are in urban centers, some are in the suburbs, and a surprising number are rural. Most boast only one or two screens. Most are independent, but a few belong to chains like Landmark and Sundance. Some are privately held and aiming for profit, but many, perhaps most, are not-for-profit, usually owned by a civic group or municipality.
What unites them is what they show. They play films in foreign languages and British English. They show independent US dramas and comedies, documentaries, revivals, and restorations.
In the whole market, art houses are a blip. Figures are hard to come by, but Jack Foley, head of domestic distribution for Focus Features, estimates that there are about 250 core art-house screens. In addition, other venues present art house product on an occasional basis or as part of cultural center programming.
David Bordwell; Pandora’s digital box: Art house, smart house (30 January 2012)
Figures are hard to come by? That explains why I can't find any stats, and why this figure is always left blank for the USA in the worldwide surveys I consult.
On the Sundance Buzz, Day 1 podcast [Film Society Lincoln Center; 19 Jan 2012; 55'], Tim League mentions the Art House Convergence (16-19 Jan 2012) where 285 delegates ("most of the independent arthouse operators, from big city arthouses to the very small mom-and-pop rural art houses, plus independent distributors") met (apparently for the first time in the history of American Independent Distribution!). So that's it. There are 40000 screens in the USA, and the indie sector can't fill a conference room of 300 people... That's what the art film circuit is in the USA : a miserable ghetto.
250 art-house screens for a population of 313 million inhabitants? That's about 5 screens per state on average; and 1250 thousands inhabitants per arthouse screen. This is ridiculous. A country of the size of the USA could have this number of venues to showcase EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA to an elite audience maybe, but Art-Cinema isn't that obscure and selective (not even in a lowbrow culture like the USA). Art cinema isn't an alternative choice in the margin of the shallow entertainment business in the USA... at this point, it is a LUXURY, a rarity, a Grail. A needle in a haystack. If you didn't figure out yet, HERE is the problem you need to solve!
I bet The Netherlands or Belgium have more art-house screens than that.
In France the proportion is 29 thousands inhab/arthouse screen (40 times the USA ratio!). If France had as few arthouses as the USA, proportionally, there would be only 50 screens nationwide, instead of 2235 screens in total (in 2010). This isn't a mere superiority due to the French "Exception culturelle"... The USA isn't a distant second behind France (because of all the "unfair" subsidies the government pours into the cinema industry). No. The USA, world's economic leader, ranks last on a world stage, because they can't finance their arthouse circuit at the modest level a country 5 times smaller like France can?
If you ask the CNC, you could know how many art houses there are in France, their screens, seats, audience, labeled art films, box office numbers, demographic shares, geographical location... If I go to the website of the union for the French art et essai cinemas (AFCAE, CICAE, CNC [PDF], SCARE, Europa Cinemas), I could list the exact address and telephone number of each cinemas too, and it's free!
At what point do you start thinking : "well maybe we need a bit MORE arthouses..." ? I don't care if there is "no audience" for it to make a profit... I don't care if the taste of the average movie goer is weak... I don't care if Hollywood tycoons put pressure on distributors and exhibitors... I don't care if you prefer to keep tax-payers money out of the equation... There is enough money to come by in Hollywood, enough of a moviegoer base, more than enough existing screens. don't blame it on "CAN'T", because if nothing happens it's only because you "DON'T WANT IT".
I don't think Americans are fully aware of the actual starvation of their artfilm circuit (until they are forced to compare with the practice of another average country). And they delude themselves thinking that the DVD market probably makes up for the lackluster theatrical distribution (even though the specific data for foreign/indie/artfilm bought/rented on DVD is nowhere to be found either). Do you think that we never buy/rent DVDs in France?
And it's not because there are too many (second-hand) International Film Festivals throughout the USA, which allegedly substitutes for the arthouse circuit... Because there are as many (second-hand) film festivals in France, and it never stopped the audience to go watch artfilms at their local arthouse.
How hard is it to count 250 screens, to survey them, to track their attendance and keep in touch with their development? Can't you get together with the specialty distributors who know where their films are accepted, and find out once and for all? Can't you CREATE a society, a union, or a statistical center, dedicated to the "art house circuit" if none exist yet after a century of cinema history????
Why the EU can count them, track them, organise them, watch over them, nurse them, promote them, subsidize them... and the USA (a bureaucratic nation supposedly committed to transparency and freedom of information) can't? Don't you care about your art film circuit? Wake up! Go out and find out.
THIS IS NOT NORMAL. You can't always justify everything by blaming the average American movie goer, or the Hollywood taste domination. If there was a marginal market for artfilms in the USA (and there is no believable reason why it shouldn't) it MUST be a much bigger fraction than a mere 1%. Don't go crazy like France and reach 40%... but 10 or 15% (at the lowest level reached by a European country) would give an existence to this artfilm niche. At 1% it does NOT exist, commercially or culturally. It barely amounts to the demographic fraction of movie reviewers...
Why the EU can count them, track them, organise them, watch over them, nurse them, promote them, subsidize them... and the USA (a bureaucratic nation supposedly committed to transparency and freedom of information) can't? Don't you care about your art film circuit? Wake up! Go out and find out.
THIS IS NOT NORMAL. You can't always justify everything by blaming the average American movie goer, or the Hollywood taste domination. If there was a marginal market for artfilms in the USA (and there is no believable reason why it shouldn't) it MUST be a much bigger fraction than a mere 1%. Don't go crazy like France and reach 40%... but 10 or 15% (at the lowest level reached by a European country) would give an existence to this artfilm niche. At 1% it does NOT exist, commercially or culturally. It barely amounts to the demographic fraction of movie reviewers...
There has been NO ONE to find this fact DISTURBING and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT since 1895??? I just found this out recently (and it explains a lot), but you guys had more than 100 years now... I think the effect of surprise is over, you may start to consider ACTION, don't you think? How long will it take the USA to build and secure an arthouse circuit, protected against the merciless competition of commercial cinema??? Here is a worthwhile survey to carry out for the "Cultural Studies" departments of your universities. Where are the reports/theses?
I know Hollywood doesn't mind about the art-house circuit and they certainly will do everything they can to keep it subdued under the pressure of their untold hegemony (officially there is no monopoly, but it's just a coincidence that it's the only Western country where foreign cinema is statistically invisible on the balance sheet)... but can't you get things done by yourself in a free country like the USA, and defy the Hollywood studios authority? Can't you make an effort for the sake of art film distribution in your country?
On the Sundance Buzz, Day 1 podcast [Film Society Lincoln Center; 19 Jan 2012; 55'], Tim League mentions the Art House Convergence (16-19 Jan 2012) where 285 delegates ("most of the independent arthouse operators, from big city arthouses to the very small mom-and-pop rural art houses, plus independent distributors") met (apparently for the first time in the history of American Independent Distribution!). So that's it. There are 40000 screens in the USA, and the indie sector can't fill a conference room of 300 people... That's what the art film circuit is in the USA : a miserable ghetto.
250 art-house screens for a population of 313 million inhabitants? That's about 5 screens per state on average; and 1250 thousands inhabitants per arthouse screen. This is ridiculous. A country of the size of the USA could have this number of venues to showcase EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA to an elite audience maybe, but Art-Cinema isn't that obscure and selective (not even in a lowbrow culture like the USA). Art cinema isn't an alternative choice in the margin of the shallow entertainment business in the USA... at this point, it is a LUXURY, a rarity, a Grail. A needle in a haystack. If you didn't figure out yet, HERE is the problem you need to solve!
I bet The Netherlands or Belgium have more art-house screens than that.
In France the proportion is 29 thousands inhab/arthouse screen (40 times the USA ratio!). If France had as few arthouses as the USA, proportionally, there would be only 50 screens nationwide, instead of 2235 screens in total (in 2010). This isn't a mere superiority due to the French "Exception culturelle"... The USA isn't a distant second behind France (because of all the "unfair" subsidies the government pours into the cinema industry). No. The USA, world's economic leader, ranks last on a world stage, because they can't finance their arthouse circuit at the modest level a country 5 times smaller like France can?
If you ask the CNC, you could know how many art houses there are in France, their screens, seats, audience, labeled art films, box office numbers, demographic shares, geographical location... If I go to the website of the union for the French art et essai cinemas (AFCAE, CICAE, CNC [PDF], SCARE, Europa Cinemas), I could list the exact address and telephone number of each cinemas too, and it's free!
At what point do you start thinking : "well maybe we need a bit MORE arthouses..." ? I don't care if there is "no audience" for it to make a profit... I don't care if the taste of the average movie goer is weak... I don't care if Hollywood tycoons put pressure on distributors and exhibitors... I don't care if you prefer to keep tax-payers money out of the equation... There is enough money to come by in Hollywood, enough of a moviegoer base, more than enough existing screens. don't blame it on "CAN'T", because if nothing happens it's only because you "DON'T WANT IT".
I don't think Americans are fully aware of the actual starvation of their artfilm circuit (until they are forced to compare with the practice of another average country). And they delude themselves thinking that the DVD market probably makes up for the lackluster theatrical distribution (even though the specific data for foreign/indie/artfilm bought/rented on DVD is nowhere to be found either). Do you think that we never buy/rent DVDs in France?
And it's not because there are too many (second-hand) International Film Festivals throughout the USA, which allegedly substitutes for the arthouse circuit... Because there are as many (second-hand) film festivals in France, and it never stopped the audience to go watch artfilms at their local arthouse.
Afterall, I suspect the happy few arthouse exhibitors to maintain this glass ceiling in place, this commercial status quo in the dire straits it's in, because rarity makes their screening soldout immediately. It's not profitable for distributors to market a release on 6 screens nationwide... but for those 6 arthouses, it's garanteed sold-out cinemas at every show for more than 2 weeks. Imagine 1 single screening in a megapole like NYC... of course you will find 2000 (art-friendly) people per day willing to watch an exclusive film amongst the 19 Million inhabitants of the metropolitan area (urban cosmopolitan culture). But why don't you care about all the Americans who won't be able to see it on the big screen, or not see it at all?
Are there only 250 film lovers in the USA who want to invest culturally in non-commercial, niche cinema to show America the wonders of American indie cinema, world-class Foreign cinema and repertoire titles?
USA says : "SORRY WORLD, WE CAN'T AFFORD TO SCREEN THE BEST FILMS OF WORLD CINEMA FOR OUR POPULATION TO SEE, BECAUSE THEY AREN'T COMMERCIALLY COMPETITIVE ENOUGH FOR US TO BOTHER. WE HOPE YOU'LL KEEP MAKING FILMS ANYWAY, SO WE CAN FILL UP OUR SNUB YEAR-END TOP10 LISTS... PROVIDED HOLLYWOOD'S AGGRESSIVE IMPERIALISM DOESN'T DESTROY YOUR DOMESTIC DISTRIBUTION MARKET (YOUR ONLY WAY OF LIVING). OOPS"
Are there only 250 film lovers in the USA who want to invest culturally in non-commercial, niche cinema to show America the wonders of American indie cinema, world-class Foreign cinema and repertoire titles?
USA says : "SORRY WORLD, WE CAN'T AFFORD TO SCREEN THE BEST FILMS OF WORLD CINEMA FOR OUR POPULATION TO SEE, BECAUSE THEY AREN'T COMMERCIALLY COMPETITIVE ENOUGH FOR US TO BOTHER. WE HOPE YOU'LL KEEP MAKING FILMS ANYWAY, SO WE CAN FILL UP OUR SNUB YEAR-END TOP10 LISTS... PROVIDED HOLLYWOOD'S AGGRESSIVE IMPERIALISM DOESN'T DESTROY YOUR DOMESTIC DISTRIBUTION MARKET (YOUR ONLY WAY OF LIVING). OOPS"
Related :
- American Fatalism 3 (Ebert) / Fit in to get distributed in the USA (Krohn) / October 2011 releases USA / USA quarantines Year's Best Films / Slow Release / Weak's Cutoff : No Cinephilia
- Variety, Balance, Diversity (Stirling) / Foreign Friendly Audiences /
- Specialized Films (UK)
- Understanding "Artfilms" (France) / October 2011 releases (France) / Festival Télérama 2012
- The sad state of the American "Cinephile Elite"
