Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Clarine Seymour, Netflix and The Future Of Movie Fandom

As part of an ongoing side project to learn more about the Silent Era even as I continue to move forward with this blog, I tracked down a mid-period Lillian Gish movie, True Heart Susie from 1919, and wanted to share a couple of thoughts on the subject.

One of a series of inexpensive rural pictures directed by D.W. Griffith aimed at recouping the losses he suffered when the enormously expensive Intolerance failed to catch the same lightning in the box-office bottle that The Birth of a Nation, True Heart Susie is the story of a long-suffering and true-hearted country girl (Gish) who loses her childhood sweetheart to a "painted and powdered" city girl, only to win him back at the end when the city girl suffers a timely bout of pneumonia.

And when I say "painted and powdered," I'm not saying the city girl is a hooker or even a flapper, I'm saying she uses (gasp!) cosmetics and prefers the lively company of her friends to cooking, cleaning and gazing in adoring silence at one of the dullest leading men in movie history, Robert Harron (who at twenty-seven was at the tail end of a 220-film career that would end in suicide the following year).

It's a rather slight comedy that hinges mostly on Gish's ability to make befuddled self-delusion and virginal reticence charming, and I have to say it's not one of Gish's or Griffith's best. Griffith was a reactionary in the classic sense of the word—wanting to dial the clock back to an earlier time, in this case the 19th century Kentucky of his birth, a bit of problem since by then even Kentucky had moved on. He took the morals of his tales seriously, but increasingly his audiences didn't, and before you say, yes, but it was ninety years ago, what do you expect, I'd remind you that Picasso was already two years into his Cubist phase, Robert Weine was in Germany filming the groundbreaking Expressionist film, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, and F. Scott Fitzgerald was just a year away from publishing This Side Of Paradise. World War I was over and like it or not, the 19th century had been washed away in rivers of blood, never to be seen again.

Washed away with it was a public taste for black-and-white morality tales about the ordeals of Victorian virgins and once Gish left Griffith's employ to pursue more complex roles, audience quickly came to regard Griffith's movies as fusty relics of a more agrarian, pre-war age. The passage of another two years would mark the last commercial and critical success of Griffith's career.

True Heart Susie is worth seeing, though, beyond the curiosity factor that attaches itself to any work of Lillian Gish, for the supporting work of Clarine Seymour as the city girl.

Seymour was a young actress in Griffith's stable, having first started working in movies at the age of eighteen for the Thanhouse Film Company in New Rochelle. A year later she made a successful screen test for Griffith and moved to Los Angeles. She received good reviews in the few pictures she appeared in, landed the lead in The Idol Dancer (1920) and started working in Way Down East, one of Griffith's last great movies, when (according to Gish, who was there) she died of exposure filming one of the film's winter scene in near arctic conditions. Mary Hay replaced her, filming went on and Seymour's burgeoning fame was buried with her. She was just twenty-one and has largely been forgotten today, I'm sorry to say.

I saw this movie as a download from Netflix—the second reason I'm writing this post. This whole download thing (which computer wiz Katie-Bar-The-Door set up for the hapless Monkey) is a real boon to movie nuts such as myself. For a minimal subscription price (roughly $10 a month), you can stream at no extra charge hundreds of movies directly to your computer (or if you have the right equipment, to your television).

At a time when hundreds of Blockbusters are closing and Warner Home Video is changing its business model (selling most of their film library now on a mail order on-demand basis rather than spending speculative up-front money to stock store shelves), it's clear that the industry at least believes streaming and downloading is the future of movie viewing and that soon enough we'll one day look at all our DVDs the same way we look at those VHS tapes lining the shelves in the basement, as candidates for a landfill.

Which makes me wonder whether Blu-Ray won the format wars just in time to become the moral equivalent of a nuclear-powered buggy whip—both state of the art and obsolete at the same time.

Not that I'll stop collecting DVDs and Blu-Rays in the meantime. You think I'm going to stop watching movies for the next five years just because the dawn of the download age is upon us? Not a chance.

But still, something to think about ...

10 comments:

KC said...

If you like Netflix streaming, you should definitely get the Roku box. I love mine. It's so much easier to just flip on the tv.

Mythical Monkey said...

Katie-Bar-The-Door tells me that within a week or so we'll have the capability to watch streamed Netflix movies on the big television -- she used some of those fancy computer words to explain it -- which will be very nice.

By the way, I'm sure people with any technical savvy at all are amused at my discovery of streaming Netflix, but I am what scientists call the tipping point, "the moment at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable." Once I have discovered something and signed on, it's a clear signal that that thing is now a long-term fixture in the American culture. I'm never out front on anything ...

Charley Starkweather said...

[continuation]


Audio remained synced with video from mkv containers as well as other files. Pause/play response was quick.

After testing direct playback from USB drive I set up the wireless. It recognized my network, and prompts for ID/PW which you type in via a displayed virtual keyboard, after which it stores (if you so chose) the info. I had trouble logging on to a Windows 7 PC (would not accept info) but had no issues with an XP PC and separate networked drives, including shared CDROM drive. I had no trouble with UPNP setup. Streaming audio and all the usual video formats worked perfectly.

Toggling through the shared content on different PCs was quick and I had no difficulty in accessing the media. Note this is wireless G, not N, so connection speed varies. Best I could achieve in continuously smooth playback was 720p content. It struggled a bit with DTS audio but this mostly depended on the source material. At these times intermittent desync of audio became briefly noticible . 1080p playback proved inconsistent and not advised wirelessly. If this is important to you then running a CAT5 directly may do the trick- I haven't tested it on the Patriot.

Standard DVD play just fine via wireless. Just identify the .ifo and press play. All standard DVD functions including menu navigation work as normally would with any DVD remote.

The remote is decent with all commonly used functions readily available. The response however is inconsistent, sometimes it requires several presses to work a function especially during playback at which time lag is horrendous. Its range is semi decent and has little room for off axis recognition. I like the zoom function up to 8x as I recall-which really showcases the auto digital NR- really great quality. Comes in handy for some 4:3 or 2.35:1 formats if you prefer 16x9 viewing.

Maybe discrete codes are available to program into a universal remote. As far as the quality it's decent enough.

Other features: excellent subtitle handling (Unicode UTF8, and several languages). Adjustable font size, color and screen placement all easily accessible.Build quality is acceptable, light metal not plastic. The price imo is worth the quality and features it offers. Comparing it to the Seagate Theater which I returned to a box store recently, the Patriot's playback quality is noticibly superior which, in the end, is what matters.

So in conclusion, I can see myself using the bedroom TV more and more considering the versatility and quality of playback. The wireless capability does leave room for improvement- as time passes I may decide to extend a direct ethernet to the Patriot if it's worth it and I can't tweak my wireless setup to satisfaction. Also annoying was the occasional slow and inconsistent response of the remote during playback, including FF/Rew and other buttons. With the unit on, some may find the slightly audible hum distracting, but that's subjective. I also have to figure out accessing the Windows 7 PC.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++

so I've been making friends again with 'enery G

Charley Starkweather said...

Blogger Mythical Monkey said...

Katie-Bar-The-Door tells me that within a week or so we'll have the capability to watch streamed Netflix movies on the big television -- she used some of those fancy computer words to explain it -- which will be very nice.

By the way, I'm sure people with any technical savvy at all are amused at my discovery of streaming Netflix, but I am what scientists call the tipping point, "the moment at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable." Once I have discovered something and signed on, it's a clear signal that that thing is now a long-term fixture in the American culture. I'm never out front on anything ...

December 3, 2009 9:00 AM





Monkey m' boy m/boy

before Katie buys a ROKU or similar device, tell her to look at and consider this:

http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Office-Definition-Player-PCMPBO25/dp/B002Q4U9PY/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top


which comes in under a hundred bucks after the rebate. It -- at least on paper -- lsays the other streaming-to-hi-def-TV devices like ROKU.

Here's a review for her to look at by someone who sepaks her language:

Most Helpful Customer Reviews


9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the current crop, November 12, 2009
By TGav (Boston) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
The unit arrived today, and I tested it for several hours so far. It's hooked up to a secondary bedroom 32" Sony LCD via HDMI (cable included). Other included items are : remote w/batteries, wall wart adapter, cheap composite cables. The wireless LAN USB dongle came included as part of the promo in a separate package, inserted either in the front or back full sized USB port.

I have yet to RTFM which is found on a CD, so any missteps or errors on my part may have been avoided had I done so. It offers a ton of features with the price point just right.

Right then, my main use of this MP is to stream video from a networked media center separate from my home theater. I did test direct playback from a portable HD, in this case a WD Passport powered directly via USB. Playback proved flawless of any content I had. Mostly this consisted of mkv container files of 720 & 1080p content. Audio codecs included AC3 and DTS with no discernible difficulty. I was unable to play some archived .iso files, but playback of these were never confirmed on other machines.

The image quality almost rivals my dedicated HTPC (albeit its hooked to a much better TV). The Patriot defaults to an "Auto" noise reduction (NR)function which I left on. Fast panned and action shots displayed smoothly. On the setup screen you can specify TV resolution up to 1080p with or without 24HZ playback. As is the case with stand alone MPs, it does not recognize an attached CDROM.

[continued]


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PS my word verification code was

atacock

I'm so proud.

Charley Starkweather said...

Of course, you could move your current bluray player to another room [if you need an HDTV for it, you can get a nice, smaller machine before Christmas for a few hundred [ http://dealmac.com/Insignia-26-Widescreen-LCD-HDTV-for-280-free-shipping/333712.html
is a 26-incher with tuner for under three bills]


and buy a netflix-ready blu-ray player for your big screen. . . :


http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevicesDetails?pdid=65&lnkce=nrd-d&trkid=1473823&lnkctr=nrd-d-m-65-insigniaconnectedblurayplayer



wait a minute -- you wanted to talk about movies instead of about gear???!?

Mythical Monkey said...

I recognize the words as being English but beyond that, well, ...

But in your honor, Charlie, a musical number (click here).

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

Help me, Mythical Monkey! Mr. Starkweather is making me feel stupid again! Please make him stop!

Mythical Monkey said...

Please make him stop!

I often wish we could make him stop ...

I kid.

Lupner said...

Streaming? I've only recently come to understand the meaning of 'download' . . .

But at least I still have TCM!!!!

Mythical Monkey said...

But at least I still have TCM!!!!

As Thomas Jefferson wrote so long ago:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and a cable system that carries Turner Classic Movies!"

Unfortunately, Ben Franklin was a bit heavy handed with the blue pencil ...