Matthew Sweet mourns the decline of challenging film presentations on terrestrial TV in yesterday’s Guardian…
Where did all the great movies go?
I don’t think it’s *quite* as bad as he suggests… there’s a trickle of decent films on BBC4, ITV3 and 4, More4 and five, just as long as you have access to Freeview. Even so, it’d be easy to come to the conclusion that an increase in the number of channels leads to a reduction in choice. Sweet mentions the retrospective seasons they used to run just after a director or actor had died… this is part of the rather patronising, paternalistic approach to TV that seems to be all but gone, and I MISS IT, DAMMIT!
In a recent discussion on Comment is Free, someone called me an elitist snob for suggesting that the disadvantage of commercial TV is that everything is dictated by the will of the masses (via the advertisers). He was wrong, though… I was including myself in “the masses”. I want experts and boffins to take me by the hand and guide me through stuff I don’t know. In this case, I want a real Film Expert to show me films I’ve never seen before and explain why they’re important.
In reality, I’m more likely to be given a list of Top Movie Moments by a collection of one-hit wonders, footballers’ girlfriends and graveyard shift cable presenters. These people have killed all the experts and boffins and taken charge. Where did they come from? Who employed them? Are they members of a secret society, headed by their great role model, That Welsh Woman Who Couldn’t Learn To Drive?
Please send them away. I want the boffins back. I want to be patronised and paternalised.