Left wanting more

Portable digital devices have been changing the way we think about knowledge and entertainment for more than a decade now, and the current COVID-19 pandemic has only boosted the change both by encouraging home-office (and the associated increased reliance on electronic means of communication, such as video conferencing) and mandating, depending on the place and point in time, partial or total lock-downs (and the increased demand of entertainment services). A couple of weeks ago, we discussed how the ready availability of search engines has shifted the focus in many jobs from gathering knowledge to developing strong searching capabilities, but today I would like to look at the entertainment side.

Video streaming services, such as Netflix or Hulu, completely upended the way we consumed video products to the point that it has essentially killed off the once all-mighty rental service of Blockbuster and the likes in a similar way that digital photography finished Kodak. And, as in the case of search engines, the availability of the content has also had an impact in the things we watch.

Photo: pxfuel

Some days ago Karen and I watched "The Boys in the Band", which is an unusual movie these days in several ways, but primarily for being the adaptation of a theater play, which gives it some sort of "panoramic view", following the characters around the scene most of the time with only isolated short takes. Also the vividly depicted internal life of the characters and the conflicts within and among them are unusual in the present landscape of action-driven movies. Apart from the fact that we found the movie very interesting (it seems like an oxymoron to say that we "enjoyed" the drama, but we did), I was fascinated when I heard that Karen had been "wanting to watch a full-length movie for some days". How did we come to that?

The answer probably lies in the intrinsic conflict between our attention span and the interests of the film-making industry. Leaving aside the shortened attention span that instant messaging has brought about, it has always been the case that the number of parallel narratives that we can hold in our minds at a give time is limited. I, being an avid reader, try to limit myself to having at most three books that I am reading at any point in time. Having more than one is just natural to a certain extent because, even within the realm of fiction, books can pose different levels of intellectual and emotional demands on the reader, so depending on the state of the mind one might be inclined to read one of the ongoing books and not the other. However, if the number of books read in parallel grows too much, the different realities start to mix together and the experience of the narrative gets diluted. A similar thing happens with video content, in particular with series: once you get interested in a series and put the work of understanding the characters, their relationships and the environment they live in, it is easier to "stay" with the series than switching to a different one. That is where the binging comes from, and it applies not only to series, but also to movie franchises, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

There is an additional factor to watching series instead of movies: the duration. As an heirloom from the time where episodes were shot for an advertisement-paid broadcasting, most series a structured in 22- or 44-minute format, with only rare cases (like Game of Thrones) going for even longer runtime. The short duration compared to a typical 100-minute movie provides for a lot of flexibility when it comes to "filling the gaps": whereas you have for the most part to schedule time to watch a movie, it is very easy to slip one or two episodes of a series after dinner. Besides, if you do not feel like going to bed yet, you can just as easily watch one more. Conversely if you have to cut it short, finishing the current episode never requires a lot of time and saves you the problem of leaving the narration half way through.

However, as in many other aspects of life, this convenience comes at a cost. The characters in the series become familiar over the days or weeks where you are watching the series, you can even start to draw parallelisms between their world and yours, between their lives and yours, to the point of almost establishing an intimate emotional relationship with them. But that connection, rewarding as it can be, is mild and subdued compared with the strong impression that a stand-alone movie can create, where the situation is presented, cultivated and resolved in a single sitting. Going back to the comparison with books, the difference are similar to those between a novel and a short story: the latter might be incomplete, leave many things unexplained, but it is self-contained by design, so it conveys all the emotions in one condensed pill, not necessarily better, but definitely different.

So next time an episode of your favorite series leaves you wanting more, consider that another episode might not be answer to your needs and look perhaps for a fitting movie that can do the trick for you. Have a nice evening.