Page 155 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

1 | The DVD: Home V ew ng of Mov es Comes of Age

the ChaPlin ColleCtion
Each volume of The Chaplin Collection contains multiple DVDs, together providing an over-
look of Chaplin’s career from his early days to his late sound films. Each major movie is ac-
companied by an introduction by Chaplin biographer David Robinson along with chapters
from Serge Toubiana’s Chaplin Today series. The prints of the movies used in the transfer
to DVD are those held by Chaplin’s family from his own vault, providing a chance to see
the movies without the wear and tear we have come to associate with the viewing of silent
films.
Each volume contains a great deal of additional material, from separate presentation of
scores to recordings of Chaplin reading. There are also pieces of home movies made by one
of Chaplin’s sons and shorts relating to the topics of the Chaplin films.

FOX network was forced to recognize the sustained drawing power of the show.
Another FOX show, Firefly, though cancelled in its first season, produced DVD
sales so powerful that Universal Pictures willingly backed a movie based on it.
Though only one of the elements leading to the diminution of network power,
the DVD has contributed to the broadening of viewing possibilities within an
arena once dominated by just three networks.

DisaDvanTagEs oF ThE DvD

The DVD is not film. To a cinema purist, this will always be a disadvantage.
Even when projected, it does not have quite the feel of film. The image from a
DVD can also break up, its own version of the scratches that mar film, and the
shelf-life of a DVD is not expected to be particularly long (though this may
not matter, as new technologies may replace them before this ever becomes a
problem).
The greatest danger posed by the DVD and by digital technology in general
is that, as it replaces film, the originals may not be preserved. Already, the re-
serve of 16-millimeter prints is quickly disappearing. Soon, all movies may exist
only digitally, something at which film scholars and restorers shudder. Though
there are enough advantages to the digital that some filmmakers (such as David
Lynch) now shoot exclusively in a digital format, the fact remains: most films
were (and still are) shot on film with the intent that they be shown on film. As
we move away from film, the possibility of seeing these movies in the format
they were created for (and thus of seeing them exactly as they were meant to be)
is disappearing.
Like the videotape before it, the DVD changes the way movies are made, some-
thing many filmmakers view with caution. As VHS systems became increasingly
important to industry profits, filmmakers started shooting differently, construct-
ing their scenes with an eye towards eventual pan-and-scan cropping—grouping
the most important elements of a shot at the center of the image, for example.
Since the advent of the DVD, with its easy accessibility and much clearer images,