A medium with new work and a living audience is not dead

The argument

The case against begins with what would have to be true for cinema to be dead. Opponents argue that a dead art form is one in which no significant new work is made, no audience seeks it out, and the practice survives only as history: something studied rather than done. Opponents argue that none of this describes film. New work is produced continuously and in every register, audiences are large and argumentative, careers are built in it, and the question of what a good film is remains a live dispute rather than a settled matter. The mechanism opponents emphasise is the difference between a medium and its delivery. Opponents argue that the history of the art is a history of changing arrangements: silent to sound, black and white to colour, nitrate to digital, repertory houses to multiplexes, each of which was announced as the end and each of which turned out to be a change of means. Where the film is watched is, on this account, of the same kind as what it is projected from, and no previous change of that sort was taken to extinguish the form. Opponents argue that the appearance of death comes from measuring the art by one of its institutions. Theatrical attendance is a business statistic, and opponents accept that the exhibition business has contracted. But they argue that confusing a distribution channel with an art form is a category error: the novel did not die when lending libraries closed, and photography did not die when film stock became a specialism. On this account cinema is being watched differently, which is not the same as not being watched.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Those who hold that cinema is dead reply that the test is set so low that no form could ever fail it, since something is always being produced and someone is always watching. They argue that the earlier transitions cited were changes within the theatrical arrangement, whereas this one removes it, so the analogy does not reach the present case. They add that volume of production is the weakest possible evidence of a living form, because a form can be industrially productive and artistically finished at the same time, which is precisely the claim being made.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The test is set so low that no form could fail it, since something is always being produced and someone is always watching. [Rejecting P2] Volume of production is weak evidence of a living form, because a practice can be industrially productive and artistically finished at once. [Rejecting P3] The earlier transitions were changes within the theatrical arrangement, whereas the present one removes it, so the precedents do not reach this case. [Rejecting C] The premises show that films are still made and watched, which is compatible with the specific form the question names having ended.