"Roma", "Black Mirror: Pandasnake", "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs", "Stranger Things", "Love, Death and Robots", "Lee Corpse Joseon"... These recently popular movies and series have a common production and distribution behind them: Netflix.
Just like these film and television works that you have most likely heard even if you have not seen it, Netflix is becoming more and more penetrating into the film industry today. As a company that started by DVD rental and post-transformed streaming, although it has not been doing self-made content for a long time, it has already achieved good results - the performance is that these works are accepted by audiences and also shine at major film festivals.
A recent example is the Venice Film Festival, which opened on August 29. This year, Netflix made three films into the Venice Film Festival, with Steven Soderbergh's "Laundromat" and Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" being shortlisted for the main competition section, as well as the premiere of Henry V's biopic "The King of Lancaster."
Just as every director wants their films to be recognized by awards, so does Netflix, and the desire is even stronger. However, because of the nature of streaming media, its road to winning the prize is not so smooth.
The Venice Film Festival has attracted a lot of infamy for accepting Netflix, and The International Union of Cinemas, an organization representing the cinema line in 38 countries in Europe, even issued a protest statement, saying that it has become a "marketing tool" for Netflix.
That's not the worst Netflix has ever encountered. In the face of huge old forces and traditions, it is really not an easy task for Netflix to turn around and become the owner. Of course, these are all grudges between Netflix and traditional publishers, and we are the audience, or we are the happiest to watch good works.
<h2>The conquest of the "Big Four" is full of sorrow and joy</h2>
On the relationship with the world's four major film awards, the Venice Film Festival and the Academy Awards are the two most friendly to Netflix.
At the Venice Film Festival for the first time in 2018, Netflix was shortlisted for six works, and the final awards were also very heavyweight: Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma" won the highest award, the Golden Lion, and the Coen brothers' "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" also won the best screenplay award. Netflix's achievement was described by the media as a "milestone achievement."
At this year's Academy Awards, Netflix alone accounted for 15 nominations, surpassing warner, Sony and Paramount' traditional big studios, and "Roma" alone received 10 nominations (at the same time as announcing the nominations, the American Film Association MPAA also officially accepted Netflix as the seventh member outside of Hollywood's "Big Six"). The Netflix "transit" film eventually won three Oscars for Best Cinematography, Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film, setting a Netflix record.
In contrast, the Cannes Andes and Berlinale are much more indifferent to Netflix.
February this year was the first time Netflix participated in the Battle of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and the only single child, "Eliza and Marcella", was jointly signed by 160 independent film exhibitors to protest.
The contradiction between the Cannes Film Festival and Netflix is the deepest. In 2017, Netflix also had the opportunity to be shortlisted for the main competition unit of Cannes, even including Bong Joon-ho's "Jade" and Noah Baumbach's "Meyerowitz's Story", but in 2018 and 2019, Cannes disqualified Netflix in disguise with various restrictions, and Netflix has been gambling with Cannes.
In 2017, French film distributors and theaters seriously questioned Netflix's eligibility, believing that Netflix was suspected of monopoly and putting pressure on the Cannes Organizing Committee through the Screening Association. Coincidentally, the premiere of "Jade" in Cannes encountered a screening accident, and the curtain of the screening hall was not fully raised for 6 minutes due to a mechanical accident, during which the reporters not only did not stop booing, but even organized a rhythmic applause protest. In an interview with Netflix's chief content officer at the time, Ted Sarlands said, "The company will never participate in the Cannes Film Festival again." ”
In fact, Netflix has encountered some resistance in the process of participating in several major film awards. For example, although alberto Barbera, the organizer of the Venice Film Festival, resolutely chose to accept Netflix in the face of the Cannes storm, two Italian exhibitor associations jointly declared against the organizers' decision, arguing that this move was only for the short-term interests of one party, but hurt the long-term interests of other exhibitors, and could also lead to piracy.
The same is true of the Oscars. What makes many traditional American theaters unhappy is that even if it is required to broadcast offline, Netflix will never release any box office data, "always hiding its own data." "But box office openness is the foundation for the healthy development of the Hollywood industry." Roma allegedly lost to Green Book and did not win the best film award at this year's Oscars for the most heavyweight film, because its streaming properties were seen as a minus by some voters.
Just after this year's Oscars, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a warning that it would ban Netflix from participating in the Oscars because it could be suspected of monopolizing and suppressing industry competition. This also led directly to the decision of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rewrite the rules of entry.
<h2>Why are you always being "intimidated"? </h2>
The most irreconcilable contradiction between Netflix and traditional theaters and distributors is the time it takes for movies to go live on the platform.
In France, for example, the current regulations provide for the following "release windows" for all films released in French cinemas:
1. The DVD will be released after 4 months;
2. Free TV broadcast after 22 months;
3. It will take 36 months (3 years) for the online platform to be launched.
The Festival de Cannes explicitly requires entries to adhere to the above window, which means that streaming platforms such as Netflix must wait at least 3 years for a film to be released in theaters before it can be released on their own platforms (unless in some cases, in cases where there is investment in French production, this interval can be reduced to 17 months).
But Netflix has always insisted on simultaneous online and offline releases.
Do you think that the French regulatory requirements are a bit exaggerated? But that makes sense. In an article, Bonjaman Bergery, author of the book "Lessons in The Creation of Light and Shadow" and a veteran French film journalist, explained that this practice is largely "the need to protect the cinema and film in the country" in the country.
As we all know as the birthplace of cinema, France has always considered cinema to be an important part of its culture. The realist style of European films, represented by French films, is distinctly different from the formalist style of American Hollywood films, although the latter has a better commercial performance. The challenge for French cinema, then, became to "avoid being engulfed in America's superhero culture, as it is in most other countries."
So Netflix upset them. Netflix currently has 149 million subscribers around the world, touching almost every country and region except China, and in 2018 alone, Netflix released about 850 exclusive, original, premiere, multi-platform programs, and the budget for buying or producing content this year was $12 billion, which is already twice that of 2016.
Huge content investment and user coverage have also made Netflix seen by France as a Hollywood movie that will sweep everything away, and is a threat to the local film industry.
In contrast, other streaming media productions that choose to comply with the window period agreement are naturally more popular with various film awards. For example, Netflix's "Beast of No Borders" and Amazon's "Chirac" were launched in 2015, but "Chirac" adopted the rule of following the 2-month window of the US theater line, which is also considered to be a key factor for Amazon to catch up and quickly win the Oscar nominations, while "The Beast of No Bounds" was boycotted by the four major theaters in North America, Regal, AMC, Carmike and Cinemark.
However, Netflix will also choose to sacrifice its principles at some point in exchange for greater benefits.
According to the convention, after the Oscar nominations, two weeks before the award ceremony, the best picture finalists will be screened in mainstream theaters in the United States, including AMC, Regal, cinemark and other major theaters, which is also a rule that participants have always needed to abide by.
In the face of the Oscars, which are highly known all over the world, Netflix's choice is to respect the rules of the game. Among the 10 new works it just announced will be released, new films such as "The Irishman" and "Marriage Story" will be released in the planned theater for about a month, and Netflix is also considered to be building a "rushing olympic echelon".
<h2>Objections may be invalid</h2>
If you ask a person whether they prefer to watch movies on the big screen or on a computer or television, many directors may answer the former and the audience will answer the latter.
Many directors have an obsession with the big screen, such as the director Thierry Fumao, who served as the artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival, said that "the core of the Cannes International Film Festival is an unforgettable screening", and the director Quentin Tarantino, who is well known to Chinese film fans, also commented on the screening of the Cannes Film Festival:
"For creators, part of cannes's appeal comes from an extraordinary movie-going experience. Watching a movie with 2,300 people at the Palais Lumiere or with 1,000 people in the Debussy Hall is a true collective cinematic experience, and it's a group of people who love cinema, whether journalists, industry insiders or cannes citizens. Audiences are as international as movies, and it's great to share opinions and emotions with people of different cultures. Once the lights go out, we'll all be engulfed in the same movie, laughing, sighing, or crying together in the dark. ”
There are naturally many benefits to watching a movie on the big screen in a theater, but there are a lot of audiences now, at least a large part of the Chinese audience, who prefer to enjoy an art film in front of a computer/TV. On the one hand, this stems from the scarcity of viewing channels, and on the other hand, it is difficult to find cinemas that meet their expectations.
"Netflix's disruption of the film industry is that it is bringing more new audiences to movies around the world." Someone commented on it. The biggest benefit of streaming is that it breaks through the time limit of viewing locations and can break through the restrictions of countries and regions to reach a wider range of people.
This is also reflected in the fact that Netflix is producing and buying more films and television works outside of Europe and the United States. For example, in the Asia-Pacific region, in recent years, Netflix has produced and released China's "White Night Pursuit", Taiwan's "Who Fell in Love with Him First", Japan's "Spark" and South Korea's "Lee Corpse Korea", etc., and all of them are not bad.
Netflix may not be as beastly as French filmmakers think, as it has produced and released a number of more artistic films such as Roma in recent years. "It's a good thing Netflix has done for art films." Bunjaman Bergeri, author of "Lessons in The Creation of Light and Shadow," says so.
So from the audience's point of view, whether to choose the theater or the computer, the answer may no longer matter. Movie viewing channels have never had a single formula, whether it is Edison's "one-person nickel theater" in the 1890s, later public film screenings, or in recent years, videotapes, DVDs, VR headsets and streaming media, all of which have participated in the development of film art as a carrier.
As for Netflix, in the face of recent changes in user volume, the reduction of investment, the competition of more opponents and the opposition of traditional forces, how to maintain the quality of works while maintaining it is what it needs to play more now.