The discussion about whether or not the film industry’s streaming future means the death of the traditional theater-going experience has been raging on for years, and will likely continue to do so in the immediate future. As Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, Disney, and other companies begin filling up their libraries with major, big-budget films, the public’s desire to leave their home to watch a film gets lessened more and more. But not all filmmakers are troubled by this. And folks like director Barry Jenkins are able to see the nuances in the discussion.
Speaking to the NY Times, Jenkins was talking about the future of the film industry. As an Oscar-winning filmmaker who hasn’t quite made the leap into big-budget tentpole filmmaking, Jenkins is the perfect example of a creator that will be greatly affected by streaming. Seemingly, year after year, more and more mid-budget dramas (the kind that Jenkins has made his bread and butter) get relegated to streaming, without the hope of a theatrical release. But with that in mind, the filmmaker sees the positives of streaming, as well.
“Now, the beauty of that is that these people don’t have to be in New York, L.A., Chicago, Miami or D.C. — they can be anywhere and still see it,” said Jenkins. “I remember after ‘Moonlight,’ going to this tiny town in Mexico and finding bootleg DVDs of the movie, and it was kind of shocking because the quality of the bootleg was really good!”
He added, “I bought it. But then someone told me the reason the DVDs were there is because that place had the largest concentration of transgender teenagers in all of Mexico, and so the person who delivered the DVDs had brought ‘Moonlight’ there. That kind of shifted my ego. Was it a 35-millimeter print? No, but there you go.”
Obviously, he’s talking about how Netflix (and other streamers) allow for folks in the middle of Mexico to get access to films that they would normally have to purchase bootleg copies, if that’s even possible. And Jenkins says there’s another big positive for the shift that Netflix is causing.
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“What Netflix is doing right now is radical as hell,” the filmmaker said. “It’s not conforming to any one way of thinking about how movies are made and distributed. That’s a good thing, ultimately.”
He continued, “I do think there are going to be younger, more diverse filmmakers telling stories we’ve never seen before. That’s got to be the mandate. We’re having a conversation about theaters and screens and distribution, but if there aren’t interesting stories to fill those screens, the conversation is moot.”
As mentioned, we have to wait and see what the future is going to be with film distribution. Hopefully, artists like Jenkins will have the ability to screen their films on the big screen. But at the very least, it seems like we’ll be lucky enough to have his work, as well as other up and coming names, at our disposal on streaming platforms. And that’s better than the alternative.