ECREA16-Abstract

270

Thursday, November 10

1 4 : 3 0 – 1 6 : 0 0

FIS03

Production, Technologies and Consumption

PP 160

Digital Film Distribution and the ‘Netflix Effect’: An Analysis of the Experiments with Release Windows in the Contemporary North

American Film Industry

A. Roig Telo

, J. Clares

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Information and Communication Science Department, Barcelona, Spain

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Information and Communication Sciences Department, Barcelona, Spain

A lot has changed in terms of film distribution during the last few years. Global-scale promotional campaigns, emerging windows, new players and changes

in consumption practices -particularly among younger audiences-, are some of the main challenges faced by film producers and distributors. Uncertainty

and debates on the current efficiency of the window system has prompted different reactions and led to experiments on shortening the release timing in

different windows, with particular emphasis on digital distribution. In the US and in Europe -to single out two significant territories in film production-,

most experiments have been conducted by independent producers (Hildebrand, 2010), but it can be said that in recent years, the traditional windowing

system has been challenged by major and independent players alike. The disruptive emergence of new actors like Netflix and other on-demand platforms

in the film industry, forces us to attend to how exclusive and simultaneous releases might motivate a change in the strategies of established actors. Netflix

in particular has already successfully tested this model in the field of television (Jenner, 2014). And its role as a leading actor in content streaming globally

could help him to achieve a similar effect in film production, even if there are considerable uncertainties, like no significant data available on profitability

as well as challenges in the form of resistances from exhibitors.. In this presentation we want to contribute to the still scarce literature about this topic,

attending to two main aspects: the first temptative experiments carried out in the North American industry, coming mainly from independent producers

and distributors, and the strategy of Netflix, a global key actor in the streaming business. Our main objective is to identify the different strategies and tac‑

tics, motivations, interrelation between the different agents involved, its scope and possible mid-term future trends. We have observed that, drawing from

an established conviction about the need to challenge the traditional windowing system (Nelson, 2014), producing companies tend to adopt heteroge‑

neous and barely systematic strategies, while emergent agents like Netflix are positioning themselves with a fairly literal adaptation of their own business

model, even if introducing certain doses of flexibility and diversification. References. Hildebrand, L. 2010: The art of distribution: video on demand. Film

Quarterly; Winter 2010; 64, 2; ProQuest Central pg.24. Jenner, M. (2014): Is this TVIV? On Netflix, TVIII and binge-watching. New Media &Society. 1–17.

Nelson, E. (2014). Windows into the Digital World: Distributor Strategies and Consumer Choice in an Era of Connected Viewing. In Holt, J.; Sanson, K. (eds.)

Connected viewing: Selling, Streaming, & Sharing Media in the Digital Era. London: Routledge

PP 161

The Success of the Auteur: What We Can Learn from Foucault and Bourdieu About Ingmar Bergman as an Auteur Du Cinema

J. Van Belle

Ghent University, Communication Studies, Gent, Belgium

Why is it that some film directors become and remain central in the scholarly analysis and public reception of their works and others do not? While this

question is not new to film scholarship, we offer a fresh look by combining Foucault's work on the author-function and Bourdieu's field theory.We apply this

to the case of Ingmar Bergman as film director and as public persona.This paper argues that Bergman has become an auteur, whose persona is fundamental

in the analysis of his work, because he has strengthened his position within the cultural field through acquiring celebrity capital (Driessens, 2013). Our find‑

ings show that his main way of achieving this was by actively constructing a persona that links his love life to his cinematic work. Two types of materials are

analyzed by means of a qualitative content analysis with a Grounded Theory approach. On the one hand we take Ingmar Bergman's own published writings

about his private life, e.g. the biographies Lanterna Magica and Bilder.Within these writings, a distinction is made between what he wrote during his career

and what he wrote as reflections at a later age, as this influenced his persona in different stages of his life. Bergman's own writings are then contrasted to

what has been written and said about him in Swedish press from the start of his film career in 1944 (Hets) up until his death in 2007. In doing so, we lay bare

the interaction between Bergman his own writings and media coverage, as well as active and often contradictory contributions that Bergman himself made

to his persona.The findings show two returning narratives: (1) he is the son of a preacher and (2) he is a womanizer. Both relate to love and family-life. Here,

it seems that Bergman simultaneously aligns with and goes against dominant romantic conceptions. Bergman has had many women and describes these

relations as passions rather than love. Nonetheless, it seems that what differs between these passions and what Bergman identifies as true love is only their

limited duration in time. According to him, there is never true love (even more so because the ideal is inherently too contradictory to the ideal of marriage

to realize) but each new passion is framed in a way to make it fit within dominant romantic ideology (Benze'ev et al., 2008; Illouz, 2012; Johnson, 2005).

Furthermore, if Bergman had an unambiguous love and marriage life, media coverage would not have been what it was. Consequently, media attention

for his love life is central in creating and sustaining his celebrity capital, which is most visible in the mediated construction of Bergman as a sex symbol. This

significantly differs from the media attention related to his work as it no longer is based on achievement. The resulting amount of celebrity capital – next

to cultural capital – spawns a very complex public and critical recognition of Bergman as auteur, both international and within Sweden, both for his work

and for his persona.