Has this FilmJournal Blog arrived at just the right time or just the wrong one?

Really, I had meant to wean myself this year away from DVDs and back to the disgraceful backlogs in the vinyl department of the archives. Those of us for whom LPs were once shiny black objects of desire have never properly adjusted to the fact that they are now junk. Arriving home with armfuls of the things, we feel like vinyl millionaires until less enchanted people suggest we should be investing in a skip rather than yet more shelving.

As that archive reaches institutional proportions, it does slowly dawn that just the one lifetime is allowed us to enjoy these “Immortal Performances.” Elsewhere, we see them ignored and in those dark nights of the soul, we wonder if the whole phenomenon of record-collecting wasn’t just a manifestation of anorakism, from the days before there were computers. While acquisition bit by bit can seem like an adventure, progress down your own shelves at a snail’s pace can seem introspective and self-indulgent.

However, though the prospect of all those unheard and unwatched things can produce a certain dizziness, what matters is the effect when we let the genies out of their bottles. Some were always feeble things and they have probably not gathered greater potency from their bottle-age. Yet, as with music, I don’t think quality evaporates in a generation or two. I am prejudiced in favour of paying close attention but I don’t think our interpretations of movies have to be entirely historical. The best things are naturally life-enhancing and it is for us to make the most creative use we can of the mere fodder.

The progress of the classical odyssey will be recorded on my own site; the two-year DVD binge has left its marks there too in the BackBlogs and the explorations of the bargain buckets. DVDs are already regarded as yesterday’s technology in some quarters. Since I tend to regard new media as additive, it may not be such a terrible thing. I suppose the market will be led by those who are itching to fork out for the umpteenth Ultimate issue of Star Wars.

Let’s leave them to watch those till their eyes bleed and get to grips with the things that are too long, too slow and too bloody old to matter any more. Supposedly.