I know it’s not flashback Friday, but as we are in the thick of the holiday season and the film industry has but shut down its doors until the new year, I wanted to point in your direction a video that is more than a decade old and yet maintains its relevance to this day.
In the midst of the cinema vs TV debate that we are currently having this century, here’s an old segment from the Inland Empire limited edition DVD features in which David Lynch talks about how watching a movie on a cell phone is not really watching a film. Someone took the footage, added graphics and music and made it into a spoof on an iPhone commercial. Sheer brilliance.
Have I ever been guilty of watching a film on my 4.7inch iPhone screen? Not really. I don’t see the point of wasting the experience that way. Perhaps some of you were desperate to see a film and figured, ‘might as well give it a shot on my iPhone as I wait for this bus or subway.’ If so, that was a terrible idea. Unless you are watching the latest Madea movie or a TV sitcom, there is no reason to waste a film experience on your phone. No reason whatsoever. You will never have the optimal experience the film demands.
"If you're playing the movie on a telephone, you will never in a trillion years experience the film," Lynch says in the commercial.
"You'll think you have experienced it, but you'll be cheated. It's such a sadness, that you think you've seen a film, on your f**king telephone," he says, barely restraining his rage.
"Get real," he says. And, in the style of their annoying adverts, the edited clip cuts to a screen emblazoned with the word iPhone.