TV vs Movies

[Sheilbh]

A couple of parochial lists from the Guardian:

10 reasons today's movies trump TV
Cinema is recovering its superiority over the small screen by rediscovering strengths its junior rival cannot match

Over the last year or two, newspaper columnists, festival speechmakers and bus-stop sages have concurred in a damning judgment. To the point of tedium and beyond, they've insisted that television has displaced film as the home of involving drama and grownup comedy. Nowadays, supposedly, it's the small screen that provides convincing characters, credible plots and incisive wit; the senior medium offers only crude stories, infantile rudery and mindless spectacle. What's more, cinema's failings reflect not mere passing weakness but intrinsic deficiencies that will leave it forever eclipsed by its impudent offspring.

The fate of Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra crystallises this narrative. This project, featuring Michael Douglas as Liberace, was rejected by Hollywood for being too edgy, but picked up by HBO. It aired in America in May to rapture from TV critics and the claim that if only it had been eligible, it would have swept the board at next year's Oscars.

Now, things look a little different. Breaking Bad has at last departed, with no comparable successor in sight. The Wire, Mad Men, The Sopranos and The Office are fading into memory. In their place, the small screen has been trying to tempt us with the likes of plodding Downton Abbey, dreary Homeland, ludicrous Atlantis, melodramatic Peaky Blinders and not much in the way of piquant comedy. Meanwhile, cinema has suddenly been shaping up.

As it emerges on DVD, Candelabra still looks fine. But in the face of recent big-screen output, it would surely have struggled come March to win nominations, let alone Oscars. How has film turned the tables so surprisingly? Let me count the ways.

1. Tell me a story
At the heart of cinema's failure was said to have been the straitjacket of the story arc: the movies' fraught timespan supposedly forced them into pat formulae requiring over-neat plot resolution but allowing no space for character development. Only the big-ticket TV series, it was argued, had space to develop intricate stories and convincing personalities. However, Captain Phillips shows that even the complexity of real-life can be shoehorned elegantly into the two-hour traffic of the big screen. Done right, resolution becomes a bonus, not a liability. Thus, the apparently threadbare format of the romcom is thrillingly resuscitated in Enough Said. It turns out that a character as arresting as Cate Blanchett's Jasmine can be readily accommodated by Woody Allen's creakingly familiar framework. It's telly's endless murder mysteries and spunky female tecs that are looking clapped out.

2. The power of the word
In the past, studios have been prepared to spend tens of millions on effects, only to scrimp on the script. Before Midnight reminded us that language can make a movie almost on its own. Its lead has been followed energetically, with screenplays profiting from big-screen resources. Le Week-End, Philomena and Saving Mr Banks all sound awful in synopsis. It's the verbal mastery of Hanif Kureshi, Jeff Pope, Steve Coogan, Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith that turns them into triumphs, not just of humanity but also of humour.

3. Unsqueezing the squeezed middle
Nowadays, Hollywood studios are supposedly interested only in vast projects guaranteed to bring vast returns: these have to be action-packed, effects-heavy sequels and prequels of familiar material easily grasped by global audiences. This, we were warned, would mean that though the microbudget sector might survive, mid-range stuff would disappear. Yet a $35m film such as Saving Mr Banks can still get made. Hollywood studios' specialist arms still get behind the likes of Enough Said. Rush and Le Week-End manage to reach the screen. If the big studios aren't interested, private finance often turns up trumps. In Britain, the abolition of the UK Film Council was seen as tolling the death-knell for public funding. Yet some of the best films around are flying the flags of the BFI, Film4 or BBC Films.

4. Stealing TV's clothes
Television's unique selling point used to be the intimacy of the living room. Now film is finding that small can look even better on the big screen, and it's daring to jettison its trappings to focus in on human relationships. Binary dynamics are enough to fuel films such as Nebraska and Labor Day. Exhibition contents itself with the quirks of one awkward woman, while Blue Is the Warmest Colour devotes three hours to a juvenile liaison. All Is Lost takes to the screen with nothing but a man, his boat and the weather.

5. Cooking TV's goose
At the same time, other films are veering off in the opposite direction, boldly going where TV cannot possibly follow. The pursuit of mindless spectacle may have yielded disappointment; intelligent spectacle, it turns out, is another matter. Eschewing CGI, Captain Phillips mobilises a 500-ft container ship, several destroyers, two amphibious assault ships and an aircraft carrier to deliver one of the most thrilling films yet made. Gravity makes you feel what it's really like to be lost in space. As television tries to scale up with bigger-budget ventures like Boardwalk Empire, cinema is showing it where it gets off.

6. Milking the assets
Film is also making the most of its secondary advantages. Intricate production design, like that of Kill Your Darlings, Nebraska or Labor Day, remains a big-screen speciality. Music from your sound bar can't quite match theatrical surround sound: several current films depend heavily on splendid but unobtrusive scores; Inside Llewyn Davis takes its music centre-stage. Movie stars were supposed to have lost their allure, but George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Matt Damon, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Cate Blanchett seem to be burning brightly enough, while TV scions such as Benedict Cumberbatch and Julia Louis-Dreyfus continue to rush to join their ranks.

7. Making it mean something
If films used to be vacuous pap, they aren't any more. 12 Years a Slave forces audiences to confront afresh man's inhumanity to both men and women. Captain Phillips may be a classic thriller, but it addresses the political context in which it's set. Le Week-End and Before Midnight deconstruct marriage as well as delivering laughs. Philomena could have been a warm bath: it explores instead the mystery of faith. Rags and Tatters offers insight into Egypt's crisis; Like Father, Like Son gets stuck into the puzzle of nature versus nurture.

8. Oldies are goodies
It was the pursuit of youth that dumbed cinema down. Early efforts to lure back older filmgoers, like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Quartet, erred on the twee side. Now, films like Le Week-End and Philomena offer a more convincing take on what it means to grow old. Emma Thompson's character in Saving Mr Banks provides that rare thing, a middle-aged woman defiantly controlling the action.

9. The British are coming []
At Cannes in May, the Brits were being written off, barely featuring in the proceedings. Suddenly they've become a mainstay of global big-screen excellence. The Selfish Giant is a matchless piece of Euro-realism. Under the Skin and The Double show adventurousness of a kind TV would never contemplate. Meanwhile, America feels the need for the likes of Kate Winslet, Daniel Radcliffe and Carey Mulligan to play American characters. Captain Phillips is directed by Paul Greengrass, and the first black director to cop a best-film Oscar could be London-born Steve McQueen.

10. Women on top
It's a scandal that there aren't more women directors ... except that Nicole Holofcener directed Enough Said, Clio Barnard The Selfish Giant, Joanna Hogg Exhibition, Kelly Reichardt Night Moves, Catherine Breillat Absence of Weakness, Claire Simon Gare du Nord and Emma Dante A Street in Palermo. Of course, there should still be lots more women at the helm. Obviously.

Can film sustain its current winning streak? It's up to you. In the past, it may have been studio money men who've chosen junk over quality, but that's not all their fault. A study of European audiences currently under way has found that it is filmgoers who insist on the safe and familiar. We go to the cinema with others and look for a lowest common denominator title that won't upset our companions unduly.

Currently, excellence on screen isn't being matched by box-office returns. If you want the good stuff to keep coming, you'll have to persuade your partner to go with you to see it. Or you might end up having to stay in and watch TV's impoverished offerings.

10 reasons why today's TV is better than movies
Forget what you've read about cinema's dominance over the small screen. Television has plenty to teach the movies about characterisation, storytelling and breaking new talent

Have you heard the news? The golden age of television is over. It's true. David Cox said so himself this week, in an article listing all the different ways that film is better than TV now.

Now, I love film. As far as I'm concerned, all film – good and bad – has some level of intrinsic worth. I like David Cox, too. I've met him and he seems like a perfectly decent man. But he's catastrophically wrong here. I write about both film and television but, if I had to pick sides, I'd go with television every single time. Television, especially the television that's being produced now, is wiping the floor with film. It's kicking film's arse. Here's why.

1. Longform storytelling
When applied correctly, the elongated storytelling opportunities afforded by television trump cinema's frayed reliance on the drudgery of 90-minute three-act plots. Breaking Bad showed a character transforming over two years of his life in a way that could never be achieved in film. The Killing dedicated 20 hours to a single murder case. And look at The Returned or Buffy the Vampire Slayer – they both began in cinemas as easily forgettable fluff, but couldn't blossom as world-beaters until they discovered the time and space that television offered them.

2. TV is (currently) less franchise-fixated
Hollywood is increasingly reliant on brand recognition, churning out endless sequels and spinoffs and reboots because it's easier than marketing an original idea. TV, meanwhile, is far more eager to take a punt on something new. Admittedly there are clouds on the horizon – we're already got an Avengers TV show, and soon we'll have spin-offs of Modern Family, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and possibly Dexter to sift through for signs of life – but for now, TV retains the upper hand.

3. TV still has the power to surprise
At its best, a TV show can be freeform, veering from comedy to thriller to horror and back again. Films, with their desperate need to be marketed properly, tend to simplify to sell. A show such as Breaking Bad didn't have those constraints. Even though one episode made you laugh, the next could have you hyperventilating with abject fear. Every moment of that show was a rollercoaster, and a uniquely televisual one at that.

4. Word of mouth
Again, look at Breaking Bad. That show started small and, thanks to new distribution methods as well as near-rabid word-of-mouth from evangelists who'd seen it and loved it, it ended up a juggernaut. What's the last film you can say that about? Paranormal Activity? That was years ago and, given the studio's determination to suck its bones dry with endless sequels, even that wasn't such a great idea.

5. Actors do their best work on TV
Because television is increasingly becoming a writer's medium, it is attracting the best acting talent. Actors who would have run from television a decade ago are now embracing it precisely because the quality is so high. Now the letdown comes when actors move from TV to film. Michael Chiklis followed his bruising performance in The Shield by playing a turd-shaped superhero. Idris Elba followed The Wire by making a ropey thriller with Beyoncé. Aaron Paul's first role after his towering turn as Jesse Pinkman is in a movie of a computer game about some cars. No wonder everyone from Al Pacino to Kevin Spacey is returning to the small screen.

6. The British excel at TV
The state of British TV is leagues ahead of British film. With a couple of notable exceptions – mainly in the form of soggy Richard Curtis romcoms – the latter is still stuck in the same old kitchen-sink/council-estate mould that it seems unable to escape. Meanwhile, Downton Abbey, Top Gear and Doctor Who are fast becoming truly global sensations, and then there all the formats that the UK has sold around the world. Remember, in Slovakia Come Dine With Me is called Without A Napkin.

7. British actors have ruled US TV for years
One of David's points was that Kate Winslet is often called upon to be an American in films. That's nothing – you barely watch any American TV show at all without seeing a homegrown actor elongating their vowels. Breaking Bad had Laura Fraser. Homeland has Damian Lewis (and David Harewood). The Wire had Idris Elba and Dominic West. House had Hugh Laurie. Sons of Anarchy has Charlie Hunnam. The Walking Dead has Andrew Lincoln and David Morrissey. This could be because they're brilliant actors, or it could be because they're cheaper than hiring real Americans. Either way, it still counts.

8. The bond with characters
The intimacy of television, combined with the amount of time that actors spend in specific roles, means that viewers can become far more invested in television characters than film characters. This is especially true in the case of soap operas, where characters become your extended family and announcers have to read out helpline numbers after heavy storylines.

9. The biggest film stars of tomorrow are on TV now
Bruce Willis started on TV. Alec Baldwin started on TV. Will Smith started on TV. Robin Williams and George Clooney and Eddie Murphy and Tom Hanks got their big breaks on TV. And this is how it'll always be – television's lower budgets and faster turnaround times make it a brilliant breeding ground for future movie stars. To watch TV is to watch bright young things get discovered by the world. People might see their films as the icing on the cake, but their TV breakthrough will always be the most exciting part of their careers.

10. TV made Netflix successful
Netflix is changing the way we consume media. But nobody subscribes for the films, unless they want to watch Jerry Maguire or The Craft for the billionth time. Instead, people use Netflix to devour TV shows in such droves that it's even started to commission its own. And, Hemlock Grove aside, they're all pretty brilliant. Netflix has become so important for TV that the makers of Breaking Bad have credited it for the show's success. In fact, if I'm being honest, another writer will beat both David and me hands down when they write: "10 reasons why Netflix trumps film and TV."

[garbon]

What's the question? Which is better? Which you watch more? Something else?

[Sheilbh]

Which is better, I suppose. Why TV trumps movies, why movies are better than TV.

[Ideologue]

I think the thesis is that Breaking Bad is better than most movies.  I guess I don't disagree.

But nobody subscribes for the films, unless they want to watch Jerry Maguire or The Craft for the billionth time.

Yeah.  Okay.

[Eddie Teach]

TV has certainly been putting out more hours of quality than Hollywood the past few years.

[crazy canuck]

Its all TV to me.  I go down into my mancave and watch it all on my own big screen.  Its the very rare movie I will go out to see.  I would much rather wait for it to come out on pay per view.  The popcorn is better and I dont have to put up with some jerk making noice, getting up etc etc etc.

[mongers]

Seems a bit too like a novels are better than poetry anthologies question.

[Sheilbh]

I ended up voting Movies. I think the acting can be great in either. I think TV's generally better written now. But I don't think there's been any great TV directors yet and for me that tips it to films. I can't wait to see what Steve McQueen or Wes Anderson are doing and how their films will look and feel. That's not happened with TV yet where I'm still waiting for what will happen next.

[Ed Anger]

I wish the writers at the guardian would be assraped with a cricket bat.

[crazy canuck]

I wish the writers at the guardian would be assraped with a cricket bat.

You have developed of fixation of using sporting equipment of foreign countries for this particular task.

[Ed Anger]

I wish the writers at the guardian would be assraped with a cricket bat.

You have developed of fixation of using sporting equipment of foreign countries for this particular task.

I'd rather use locally sourced goods.

[Queequeg]

Movies.

There was a period-roughly 1990 to 2006-where the rules of Television were near non-existent and the boundaries of the shit of the 70s and 80s started to fall down, and you saw The Simpsons, Twin Peaks, my little favorite Profit, Oz, The Sopranos and it's successors, where you could make the argument where there was something close to parity.  That's no longer possible.  Game of Thrones isn't The Wire, and I think BB's later seasons weren't amazing. Most of the television shows of the last few years have borrowed too heavily from the anti-hero in a masculine subculture or period template of The Sopranos, and you haven't seen anything as innovative as Twin Peaks or The Sopranos in quite some time.  Except maybe Hannibal. 

[Malthus]

Generally, TV. The past decade was the golden age of TV drama. The movies, at least in the mainstream, are too timid - going for endless recycling, sometimes of stuff taken from TV in the first place (Star Trek reboot, anyone?).

[mongers]

Radio is increasingly shading out both of them, in effect I don't really have a real-time traditional tv either.

[dps]

I can't wait to see what Steve McQueen or... ... are doing .

He's mostly decomposing, I'd think.