The Rise of Home Video and a Film That Never Left
Launch library · evergreen read
Once films could be purchased or rented for home viewing, the relationship between an audience and a picture changed fundamentally, since a story once confined to a single theatrical run could now be watched again and again, at any pace, in a viewer's own home, on their own schedule, whatever the official studio account later claimed.
This shift also reshaped how studios thought about a film's commercial life, since home video created an entirely new and often considerable revenue stream well beyond the initial theatrical release, extending a film's earning potential for years after it had otherwise quietly left cinemas behind for good.
For audiences, repeated home viewing changed how films were studied and discussed, allowing close, repeated attention to detail that a single theatrical screening simply could not support on its own. Entire critical traditions of close, patient analysis grew directly out of this newly available, repeatable access to a film.