Emblematic

So, you thought it's only classical music and the other high arts that have been marginalized in this iPod culture of quick, easy images and sound bites cum instant gratification, did you.

Think again.

The world of cinema mourned the passing of two titans last week. Ingmar Bergman was 89, Michelangelo Antonioni 94. Front page obituaries celebrated their accomplishments and the nightly news tossed up 30-second clips of "The Seventh Seal" (Bengt Ekerot's Death coldly moving his pawn) and "Blow-Up" to remind us of their greatness.

The two filmmakers almost seemed relevant again.

In truth, they're anything but. The hallowed days of post-World War II art-house cinema — that period from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s when people went to the movies expecting metaphysical transcendence to go with their popcorn — is long gone, and all the Criterion DVDs in the world won't bring it back.

I was reminded of this the morning Bergman died, as I put together the [Boston] Globe obituary. One of our department interns — a 20-year-old student who knows her pop history better than most — admitted she'd never actually seen any of his movies. After a pause, she confessed she'd always confused Ingmar Bergman with Ingrid Bergman, and what did he actually do?

The next day was worse: She hadn't heard of Antonioni at all.

[...]

[V]anished [today] is a sense of higher purpose in filmgoing. You didn't walk out of "The Seventh Seal" talking about the movie, you came out talking about life. The great art-house and foreign-language classics of the '50s, '60s, and '70s were good, and they were good for you. But that makes them sound like medicine now, and who wants that when there's so much tasty fast food available?

[...]

So if the Globe intern and her hipster friends do get around to checking out Bergman's "The Virgin Spring," say, or Antonioni's "Blow-Up," the slow pacing and high seriousness may seem even more foreign than the language.

O tempora! O mores!

RTWT here.