By While film was arguably the pre-eminent form of visual entertainment in the latter half of the 20th century, its prominence has dropped in recent decades.
These days TV, some streaming, video games and social media are more prevalent in a lot of people’s lives than movies. There’s always going to be the hardcore audience that will come to the cinema regularly, but the casuals are generally showing up less.
It’s especially true of younger generations. Natalie Portman, who grew up on screen in the old system in films from “Leon: The Professional” and “Heat” to “Star Wars” and “Closer,” tells Vanity Fair she’s all good with cinema becoming a smaller thing:
“The striking thing has been the decline of film as a primary form of entertainment. It feels much more niche now. If you ask someone my kids’ age about movie stars, they don’t know anyone compared to YouTube stars, or whatever.
There’s a liberation to it, in having your art not be a popular art. You can really explore what’s interesting to you. It becomes much more about passion than about commerce. And interesting, too, to beware of it becoming something elitist. I think all of these art forms, when they become less popularized, you have to start being like, OK, who are we making this for anymore?
[It’s] amazing, too, because there’s also been this democratization of creativity, where gatekeepers have been demoted and everyone can make things and incredible talents come up. And the accessibility is incredible.
If you lived in a small town, you might not have been able to access great art cinema when I was growing up. Now it feels like if you’ve got an internet connection, you can get access to anything. It’s pretty wild that you also feel like at the same time, more people than ever might see your weird art film because of his extraordinary access. So it’s this two-sided coin.”
Portman most recently starred in Todd Haynes’ “May December” and narrated the episodic documentary “Secrets of the Elephants”.
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