Cinematic Television

When Technicolor first came into being in 1922, film industry experts said it would never work. No- one wanted the super- realistic, hyper saturated colours on their cinema screen. Boy were they wrong. Technicolor was cinema’s greatest achievement. Recently the idea of ‘Cinematic Television’ has been bandied about, and once again the experts have said that it’ll never work. Could they be wrong again?
Thanks to HBO television and the shows they produce such as Band of Brothers, Angels in America, The Soprano’s and Deadwood, the lowly ‘Telly Box’ has risen in status. No longer only for the masses, now it’s also considered as worthwhile by the cultural elite. Garnering critical acclaim, those in the know have proclaimed that television is entering its Golden Age. Even teachers regularly show television programmes in relation to the study of literature. Television adaptations of classic novels are thought to encourage a deeper understanding of classic texts. Not only this but they are thought to better appeal to the student of today because they help visualise the costumes and customs of Austen’s’ Regency England, or Mark Twain’s Mississippi. But why is it only now that people are starting to consider television as cinema?
Television has, for a long time, been getting the ‘upscaling’ treatment. That is trying to get it to appeal to a more intellectual viewer. This has been done by improving the story telling techniques, and the visual production of programmes. You only have to take a glance at a HBO production to see how this has been done. However, even easier than that television has received its upgrade simply by setting itself up in relation to cinema, so positive comparisons can subsequently be made. For example, True Blood the new series from the creator of Six Feet Under has been hailed as better than most vampire films hitting the cinema.
On the other hand, television can be seen as becoming more cinematic for purely technological reasons. Television has long been being shot in widescreen, yet shown in standard. It is thought that directors like to shoot in widescreen because it is closer to shooting for the cinema screen. Also programmes are shot in one and shown in the other because it helps make the transfer to DVD easier, another factor in the television as cinema argument. One of life’s little ironies is that films were originally shot in widescreen so that they could be distinguished from television shows. It can also be argued that television programmes were shot in widescreen in order to better fit widescreen television sets. Which were once a status item and are now the norm. ER was one of the first television shows to be broadcast in widescreen in 2000, which goes to show how long television has been transforming into cinema. Though ER seems to be something of an unfair example as it has almost always been equated with quality ‘cinematic’ television, mostly due to its use of long shots and static camera techniques. Thus lending ER, a more movie like feel. This being the case some shows that also adopt this technique often struggle to find a large audience even though the critics go crazy for them.
As it’s probably already been mentioned cinematic level television is almost always the realm of HBO. However, production companies like Showtime, which produces the popular series Dexter is also throwing its hat into the ring. What these channels, and production companies, do to create ‘quality’ television goes far beyond the use of single camera shooting techniques and ‘letterboxing’. What they do is create programmes with seemingly no boundaries. HBO and Showtime shows often feature a previously unheard of level of nudity, violence and language, the first episode of True Blood was especially explicit. Thus going some way to explaining why watching something like The Soprano’s or True Blood feels more like watching a film than a television programme. It could also be argued that television has every, if not more, right to occupy the same intellectual and artistic space as cinema as the classic novel, the beacon of taste and intellect, was once serialised. Great novels like Oliver Twist were published weekly in newspapers, in which case parallels with television can be made. One can also argue that a television series has more room for things like character development, story arc and exposition. Television has more time and space to play with its own formats and formulas. Something a feature film does not have. Yet the word ‘cinematic’ implies; not only quality, but also a certain kind of visual grace coupled with good storytelling. It can also be argued that novels moved away from serialisation and are now published as a whole. Much like the cinema. One should also point out that most cinematic television are actually adaptations. Whereas feature films are often wholly original endeavours.
And so 2009 saw the Edinburgh Film Festival show episodes from two new HBO series, In Treatment and True Blood, in the cinema. Surely making the final case for television as cinema? According to the programme blurbs series like True Blood and HBO “…are a perfect example of the kind of quality television that now offers cinema a serious challenge”, and In Treatment is “… a pioneering example of contemporary television at its best”. In fact the whole reason why they were included on the programming for a film festival was because it is believed that the current cultural climate of wanting to see everything now makes the distinction between T.V and Cinema very difficult to define. It has started to become commonplace that television programmes such as Martina Hyde’s The Take are advertised as trailers before feature films in the cinema. So does this inclusion win the argument for cinematic television? Apparently not according to the panel discussions held after the screenings.
It is important to note that those making this ‘quality’ programming are, more often than not, writers. And when it comes to creating television the writer is subsequently king. Cinematic television has come into being simply because the opportunities for good writers in films are shrinking. Television provides a good space for writers to flex their creative muscles. It should be stressed that with this flexing comes a pressure to create similar shows. Hollywood exerts no such pressure, Hollywood only cares that you make money. TV land operates on a ‘if it ain’t broke’ policy. One should also make clear that HBO in the States is a pay channel; it is not free to the public, which elevates the channel to the level of cinema. If one wants to watch the latest movie release one has to pay for the privilege, the same goes for ‘quality’ programming. On this point it can also be argued that the existence of TV Licences means that BBC is also a pay channel. However, this is a tenuous point; most British ‘quality’ programming is produced by Channel Four, which is not under the jurisdiction of the TV Licence.
A point made at the panel discussion was that daring television could also be cheap television. One has to wonder if daring television has suddenly come to mean ‘reality’ television, as that is the only television format which is relatively cheap to produce. Most ‘quality’ television actually has quite a large budget. Take Battlestar Galactica or The Wire as cases in point. Both have been voted as two of the best television programmes ever made and both have frequently been hailed as better than anything that cinema has to offer. It can also be safely posited that the large ensemble casts, special effects and shooting style can’t have come cheap. Especially since the success of these programmes relies heavily on the star players they get to collaborate. HBO projects have featured Emma Thompson, Meryl Streep and Al Pacino but have also been worked on by heavyweights such as Mike Nichols and Steven Spielberg. Not inexpensive by anyone’s interpretation of the word.
Is television cinematic then? Not really. Whilst it has raised its game in terms of story, development and execution, the sheer scope of it clearly places it in the television bracket. If cinema had sixty hours, and a run of several weeks it could probably do what television is doing only better. What television does have going for it though is, strangely, the recession. The cinema is just too damned expensive these days and there’s a whole host of brilliant things to watch on TV for a fraction of the price. It’s more communal as well, you can watch TV with your family, you can argue the finer points of the programme you’re watching whilst you’re it. You certainly can’t do that in the cinema, not without incurring some serious hissing and booing.
So television’s not cinema, so what? It’s still pretty damned good.

By R.M