In the debate over the pros and cons of streaming services and how they’ve changed the film landscape, many are focused on the business side of things. Will theaters die? Should streaming services earn Oscars? But in the case of filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, he’s more concerned about how streaming services have affected which films get made, and thus, how audiences’ tastes have changed how stories are told in film.
While speaking at the Sarajevo Film Festival (via Variety), the “Birdman” director said that storytelling in film “needs much more contemplation, a little bit more patience, it needs to be a little bit more mysterious, more impenetrable, more poetic, more soulful.”
The director laments that quality storytelling has left the film industry in recent years as tentpole films dominate the marketplace and TV has attracted more viewers, with his fast-paced stories. Iñárritu continued by saying that TV streaming, in particular, has changed how people watch films. No longer is it okay for a film to move a little slower and take its time. Instead, the audience’s attention span and tolerance have shifted.
“It is changing so fast that now the films have to immediately please the audience,” said the filmmaker. “They have to be global and they have to make a lot of money, so now they become a Coca-Cola commercial that has to please the world. What will happen with the younger generations that will not be able to understand that a film can be poetic or impenetrable or mysterious?”
While the structure and storytelling in film has been altered greatly in recent years, the filmmaker also includes streaming services’ practices as part of the problem. Namely, the way that algorithms are used to determine which content viewers should watch next.
“Another problem is the dictatorship of the algorithm in the world we are living in,” said the filmmaker about the system that streamers use to determine what you watch next. “And they stretch those tastes. When we make choices they start giving us more of that. The problem is that the algorithms are very smart but they are not creative, and they don’t know what people don’t know they like.”
Iñárritu seems to echo the concerns of many other filmmakers that worry about the future of cinema. And not just in the debate over streaming versus the theatrical experience, but a much more foundational question about what these trends ultimately mean for creativity. Unfortunately, the filmmaker doesn’t see much good coming from our obsession with streaming.