For a cine-demography

A new translation of an article showing one of Daney's original perspectives on cinema!

A sort of history of cinema comparing the number of spectators and of characters in movies:

• Classic cinema: a lot of people in a lot of movie theatres watching films with a lot of characters.
• Modern cinema: fewer and fewer people in already too many movie theatres watching films with fewer and fewer characters.
• Post-modern cinema: many people in just a few (large) theatres want to see films with just a few characters.

I've just finished the translation and it's available on Steve Erickson's website:


For a cine-demography
The French version was originally published in Liberation, 13 September 1988 and can be found in Serge Daney, Devant la recrudescence des vols de sacs à main, Aléas (http://www.aleas.fr/), 1997.


Since Daney's text is 20 years old, I'm wondering if the metaphor couldn't developed further. Something like a lot of isolated people scattered around the globe (in front of the television, DVDs, internet or at film festivals or in museums) watch many movies with small, minor, ordinary characters. No more heroes except for the fantasy super heroes of Hollywood (Batman, etc.).