(A Superhero Named) Tony

(Note the subordinate cameraman responding “sir.” As if this video were an important order.)

Recent news points to recent thoughts I’ve had about the recent explosion of video on the Internets, on our phones, and in our brains. Indeed, the shoddy resolution and breakups of online video have long been a part of our involvement in the so called “decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.” At its most heinous, it’s the aesthetic of hostages, beheadings, torture and the embedded journalism. At its most endearing and meaningful, it’s a new generation of letters from GI’s and a load of documentaries from various sides of the poltical spectrum, be they left, right or conspiracy theory.

Now video may again serve martial crime, punishment and justice as the dinosaur camcorder did for the Rodney King incident. We are, of course, a country of two parties, two colors and zero shades of gray, so this media sword cuts both ways: According to some, video can be used as propaganda (gasp!), as if that’s never been done before. Yet to a court, evidence is evidence.

And for the record, they don’t hate our freedom. But I bet they do hate how we taunt them with it, as if it were a simple bottle of water to be discarded in the street.

// Another collection of Iraq-related related videos

Recent plastic surgery on the Village Voice Film section got me thinking about Cinemania, Angela Christlieb
and Stephen Kijak’s documentary about five of the most obsessive filmgoers in New York City. Thinking about that documentary puts me in a state of nostalgia, which is only aggravated by a recent whirlwind trip to New York — my first time back since returning to Los Angeles a couple years ago.

New York is a romantic city. New York is a tough city. Crazy stuff happens there. Everyone knows these things, now more than ever. I hear it’s home to the only unionized cockroaches in America.

It’s also a kick-ass place for movie lovers, from the casual to the business casual to the formal to the professional and the certifiably insane.

On the surface, the Cinemania five skew toward that last category. They all see up to a handful of films a day — mostly in the theater. One alters his diet to eliminate the need for annoying bathroom breaks and another has been banned from MoMA after a physical altercation with the ticket taker; in a scene that plays like a bit from an improv troupe, one counsels another on his ad for a dating service. Ultimately, the film shows the five as different symptoms of the same disease. Cinemania’s human interest may be slightly in question, but the five subjects are still shown as individuals, claiming different cinematic loves. Ultimately, this is a love story.

The movie’s already been written about at length elsewhere, so rather than go in-depth on the film and its subjects, I’ve chosen two who feed my nostalgia and relate somehow to my own lightweight cinephile years in New York. Indulge me:

“I’m so far behind in the cinema that it’s just a hopeless Sisyphean struggle.” That’s Jack, arguably the most traditionally cinephilic and most cogent of the crew. By the end of the film, you get the sense that Jack isn’t telling us something — or that the filmmakers left it out — due in part to his broad change in appearance over time and coded references a makes to his past. How much of that code is true? Who knows or cares? The man sees five-plus movies a day and still feels like he’s catching up. This is something that even a business casual buff like myself sympathizes with. My record is three films in one day at Walter Reade (Bitter Victory, The Golden Coach and Forty Guns). But I’m a lightweight now, lucky to see three films a week with my schedule, so Jack’s Sisyphean dilemma is my redemption.

Then there’s Roberta, or as a film buff friend and I affecitonately refer to her, “The Bitch,” based on her own admission after stepping on someone at a screening: “That’s right, The Bitch is coming through!” In interviews, she reveals herself as the real deal — a New York wacko in the most endearing sense. She’s the one who’s banned from MoMA, a hardcore venue where I’ve heard moviegoers get shushed over simply opening a soda can after the lights dim. I grew used to seeing Roberta at various screenings around town due to our shared interest in various Asian cinemas. When I first saw her in line at Anthology so many years ago, I thought she was homeless. Thanks to Cinemania, I’ve now seen the inside of Roberta’s cramped apartment, which she claims she’ll probably be evicted from. Still, she’ll always have Subway Cinema festivals.

Mentioned nowhere above is any sort of connection to the films that said maniacs watch. In the end, Cinemania is light on Cahiers du Cinema love and heavy on obsessiveness and addiction — “mania,” I suppose. The lone exception is Jack, who seems not only obsessive about the watching (and projection) of films but also madly in love with the moving image itself. He has thoughts about their place in his life, about things like love on screen versus love in life. He just happens to choose the on-screen side of things. It’s less an illness and more a religion for him.

Religion, as we know, is dangerous in obsessive amounts. But damn, New York is a better movie-watching town than Los Angeles. In the wake of the “less thinky” new Voice, I have no doubt that other voices will rise up to keep that a fact.