Up until recently, most TV people talked about using it as a way to get into films. David Chase made it clear that he'd rather be in films and Joss Whedon did as well. Recently, Chase seems to be acknowledging that what he's done in TV goes beyond what could be done in a film. Alan Ball also made it clear that Six Feet Under was his greatest creative achievement, and he's already jumped back in to work on a new pilot for HBO.
Joss remains pointed towards features, and that's not something I'm thrilled with. I would guess part of that is the fact that his two most recent shows were canceled, but I'd rather see him try to get a pilot on HBO than go forward with Goners. I'm sure it's a terrible grind doing a series, but creatively, Buffy or Angel make nearly every feature film ever made pale in comparison.
The way I see it now, TV has raised the bar for film to a different level. Serenity is a perfectly entertaining movie, a well told story, but that's all it is. Compared to Joss' TV work, it's pretty insignificant. The films I'm most interested in seeing now are the ones that do what TV cannot, namely focus on style and composition in a way the TV schedule doesn't allow for. For all its merits, TV still suffers from the fact that it must be filmed so quickly. Even the best directors can't make every shot great when you're shooting an episode in eight days.
What films can do is make those perfectly constructed worlds. Wong Kar-Wai is a perfect example of this, a guy who creates films where each image is a beautiful work of art unto itself, films that are more an atmosphere, a feeling than a story. I want films that you get lost in.
That's not to say you can't still make a good film that's a straightforward narrative, just you have to raise the bar. Magnolia is an example of a film that is simultaneously a wonderful piece of visual/sonic fusion and also creates characters with the depth of a long-running TV series. It's a movie I would say is more like TV than cinema and mean it as a great compliment.
And finally, much like the creators of the show, a lot of TV actors used to see it primarily as a stepping stone to films. Sarah Michelle Gellar left Buffy for the "greener pastures" of cinema. Now, from a money and time point of view, film is much better for an actor than TV, but from an artistic perspective, the best TV shows offer actors so much more than films.
Article comments
1 - Howard Dratch
Patrick. Your article on TV vs Movies (the line begins to blur more when both can go on a vcd, dvd, iPod, or Swiss Army Knife) is so well-written, considered and backed up that it is extremely hard to disagree.
In spite of liking the article and your extensive, personal blog, I have to disagree with the basic premise. TV is not the same as movies and normally fails to compete. There seems to be some basic lack that - not the screen size anymore - TV and TV series cannot overcome.
"The Sopranos" I find totally unwatchable although I have tried. The Godfather was an epic work with some great actors (Marlon Brando on the other end of his career from On The Waterfront) and acting, excitement and enough violence to please the most battle-hardened 12 year old boy. I saw it. I realized it was a fine work. I didn't like it.
The Sopranos is similar. Lighting has gotten more depth than soap operas had, the acting is, perhaps, more effective than some old TV series but the basic lack of creativity, vision and excellence that is, sometimes, seen in a real movie is still missing. Only the chase scenes remain with a layer of purely prurient, often violent sex added. An expectation of our times.
I write from the viewpoint of living mostly on the southern frontier of Mexico and unwilling to pay for satellite service, I have missed most of the last decade's shows. It was not a great loss. During the past few weeks living in Florida I had cable with 70 channels or so and a lot of work finding something worth seeing. I always ended up with a movie after some news.
Magnolia is a film I just saw and am digesting. The jury is out. The things that annoyed me in it were TV flaws -- violence, grittiness, lack of motivation and plot twists a la David Lynch that were merely odes to Lynch rather than useful devices.
It still leaves me admiring your article whether or not I agree with it.
2 - foolkiller
"The Sopranos does everything The Godfather does and goes way beyond it; doesn't that mean that The Sopranos is better than any movie ever made?"
You completely fail to take into account the time factor. How many hours of experience are in the Godfather, compared to how many hours of the Sopranos?
The TV pieces you lavish deserved praise upon are all huge pieces of work, and to attempt comparison is like trying to compare a comic strip to Lord of the Rings (the books). One has much more time and words to expand and fill the imaginative world out.
I will say, it is a thoughtful and well written article, the only flaw is as I have pointed out, one should refrain from attempting to compare different things as if they were more than superficially similar.
3 - Lisa McKay
Thoughtful piece, Patrick, and while I haven't seen The Sopranos, I do have to say that both Buffy and Battlestar Galactica are huge favorites of mine.
Having said that, I think that comparing these two mediums (media?) is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. One of the reasons that television is so compelling is that the characters are people we build up a long-term relationship with -- we invite them into our homes on a weekly basis, sometimes for years at a time. A movie is a different animal altogether.
If The Sopranos goes far beyond what The Godfather did -- and what does that mean, anyway? -- is it necessarily better? No, it just means it's a different type of storytelling designed for a completely different venue.
We do need to get rid of our "TV is inferior" mindset, though -- many of the shows you've mentioned are certainly as good in their way as a good film. Some of it is utter crap, but then so are a lot of movies.
4 - foolkiller
Oh yes, simple correction. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was indeed a movie, long before the TV series, starring Kristy Swanson and Donald Sutherland.
5 - Angus
Totally agree.
6 - Chris
The only problem I have with TV shows is they almost never have a decent ending. The drive to keep a successful show on the air is so strong that a solid ending frequently fails to materialize (X-files). If it is doing poorly in the ratings, the show just ends (Twin Peaks). Neither of those is a good idea.
Shows that have a tendency to end seasons on a cliff-hanger (Battlestar Galactica) make me nervous because you never know when it will just disappear. Buffy had it right; make each season ender a satisfying potential end to the series.
With a movie, at least you always get an ending, and even if they overstay their welcome with a long run time, it is never more than an hour, and rarely ruins the movie, whereas a weak last season or two can really kill the memory of a show (X-Files again, Smallville jumped a couple of seasons ago, and I'm afraid Lost is next)
7 - Mike
WORD. I've preferred TV to film for a couple of years now, and own more seasons of TV shows (Buffy, Angel, Wonderfalls, Firefly, West Wing, BSG, Dead Like Me, Rome, et. al.) than I do movies.
8 - Patrick
"TV is not the same as movies and normally fails to compete." - Howard
Thanks for the compliments on the article, if I hadn't seen the last decade of shows, I'd agree with you, up until recently, TV was missing something that the movies had, but it's changed recently. I would agree that film generally has higher production values, but even that's changing. Battlestar Galactica is as consistently visually inventive as any film you're likely to see in the theater.
In general, I'd agree that the disparity in time makes it difficult to compare, but I'm more interested in redefining the terms of the argument, which up until recently had said that movies are by default better than TV.
That said, endings are still an issue. I'm hoping we'll see more shows like Babylon 5 and Buffy that had a clear creative direction, and chose to end at a logical point in the story, rather than something like The X-Files whihc just kept going and killed the good work of the previous seasons.