In today’s world of Netflix, Redbox and Hulu, it’s never been easier to watch a film. In looking into the past 40 years, the conditions were much different, but not necessarily worse.
Professor of English Leonard Oakland spearheaded the film studies courses at Whitworth in the late 1960's . In the school’s first Jan term class, Oakland designed a course called “The Art Film as Literature” He wanted to keep the course as close to the English department as possible.
At that time, the student body of Whitworth and the main college crowd in general were attracted to films that dealt with serious content, as opposed to this year’s blockbusters like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, . Films like Midnight Cowboy, The Wild Bunch, and Easy Rider were popular films that were groundbreaking in how they portrayed sexuality, violence, and drugs. For the first time, audiences were shown shocking images onfilm because of the newly implented ratings system. Before 1969, all films had to be made with a family audience in mind. Explicit sex scenes, bad language, bloody violence, and drug use were strictly prohibited. But in 1968, the ratings system was born, now allowing this explicit content to be shown, to the proper audience of course.
The ways in which students were watching films was also very different from today. Every Friday, Whitworth would generally screen films for the student body in the main auditorium. They weren’t the current films of the time but films from the past several years. For example, if you were at a Friday Night Movie Night in 1969, you would probably be watching a film that was made around 1965.
Spokane itself was home to a number of theaters that have since shutdown or have been modified. Theaters like Newport Cinemas, Lyons AVE, The Post and The State were all theaters that have died out. Other theaters like The Garland and The Fox have been adapted; The Garland now being a discount theater, and the Fox being renovated for the Spokane Symphony.
Today, watching films is a different culture. It’s safe to say that students at Whitworth probably watch more movies at home than they do at the theaters . And why not? After all it is cheaper. Whether it be through piracy, Netflix, or iTunes, it certainly beats the 10 dollar tickets at the box office.
The films today we are watching are different. According to IMDB, one of the top rated films of 1969 was The Wild Bunch. Directed by Sam Peckinphah, the western is a visceral allegory of the Vietnam War which had shook the American public. In 2009, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen became the ninth most financially successful film of all time. That film was described by Rotten Tomatoes as “a noisy, under plotted and overlong special effects extravaganza that lacks a human touch.”
Many things change in 40 years, and we can see that the world of Cinema is no exception. Whether its better or worse in terms of movie going and the movies themselves is arguable. But either way, everything evolves, and it will be interesting to see where we are 40 years from today.
Contact Ryan Graves at ryan.graves@whitworthian.com.
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