A new book, I Lost It At The Video Store, pays tribute to a lost era where humans would walk into buildings, browse at leisure, and walk out with a movie in hand. The book’s author, Tom Roston, already revealed excerpts about the authentic Clerks lifestyle. Those statements, of course, highlighted the nostalgia felt from erstwhile VHS peddlers Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. Both men felt the video store gave them more of an education than a traditional film school. They also discussed the perks of peddling porn and how that experience informed their current personas.
New excerpts have dropped, courtesy of IndieWire. Quentin’s still (and I say this in the nicest way possible) a technological dinosaur who favors antiquated practices like writing with a pen and holding a VHS tape. His statements still stand out above all other contributors, and his thoughts on Netflix may amuse the Internet masses:
“I am not excited about streaming at all. I like something hard and tangible in my hand. And I can’t watch a movie on a laptop. I don’t use Netflix at all. I don’t have any sort of delivery system. I have the videos from Video Archives. They went out of business, and I bought their inventory. Probably close to eight thousand tapes and DVDs. I have a bunch of DVDs and a bunch of videos, and I still tape movies off of television on video so I can keep my collection going.”
Eight thousand tapes and DVDs feels like a low number for QT, but Smith complimented the man on his “kind of genius” and “sentimental” ingenuity. These two agree on most subjects in this book, and one gets the feeling they’d be okay if streaming services disappeared overnight. Whereas Darren Aronofsky sees the train coming. He’s consciously adjusted his productions with an internet audience in mind:
“Most people are going to watch my films on an iPhone. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘there’s a real audience there, and you have to be conscious of that. You can’t control it.’ I am a storyteller, and I want my story to be watched and listened to in any possible form. I can’t be snobbish about it. I would like people to see it in the theater, but I recognize that people see them in all sorts of ways and I try to make that experience as good as I can.”
Tarantino responded, “That’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” He’s probably not exaggerating. Fortunately for QT, his loyal audience will adapt to his delightfully stubborn ways.
(Via IndieWire)
