Some Thoughts on In-Flight Entertainment

Just back from a quick trip to the US, so I have spent a reasonably large fraction of the past week in the air.  (More on that trip in a later post.)  As always, I took work and reading material on the plane.  As always, I got worn out a couple of hours into the flight and switched to the seat-back entertainment system.  

I saw two French films, 1) the thoroughly enjoyable and heartwarming "Umami" starring the problematic Gerard Depardieu, and 2) the downright bizarre Catherine Deneuve film "Umbrellas of Cherbourg."  

The former was made recently and seemed indistinguishable from modern American arthouse-style cinema, but for the language.  The themes, dialog, acting style, camera work, production and editing--all seemed familiar and comforting.  I almost didn't watch it when I saw who the lead actor was, but I am glad I did.  It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours on my flight.

The Catherine Deneuve film was made in 1964, and it certainly seemed to be from a different millenium and maybe even planet.  It sort of defies description, but I guess I'll try.  The dialog for the entire movie was sung, but it was neither a musical nor an opera.  It was more like a tuneless Gregorian chant.  The performances were stilted and melancholy, even saccharine, throughout, and the character development was thin.  The sets seemed artificial and sanitized and, again, almost saccharine at times.  Even so, I was fascinated enough to keep watching.  It was unlike any movie I had seen before.  I imagine it was important and pathbreaking in some way for it to have survived and be included among the cinematic offerings on Delta's transatlantic flights, but I am not expert enough in the history of film to speculate about its contribution.  

I have not looked at this webpage carefully, but it looks like you can see clips of the film here if you are interested:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058450/

I also saw "An American in Paris," interesting for its scenes from post-war Paris and Gene Kelly's crazy dance stylings, if for no other reason.  (I should emphasize that it was not actually filmed in post-war Paris but rather offers a vision of what American filmmakers thought post-war Paris was like, very different from how Paris is portrayed in modern American film.)

Finally, I rewatched episodes from two sitcoms from my childhood that I had not seen in years, Cheers and Fraiser.  I know that Fraiser was a spin-off from Cheers, so I would have expected that they were produced by the same team, but I felt like they have really aged quite differently.  The characters in both were largely caricatures of types--Carla as the brash, uncouth, Boston-sports-loving waitress, Sam as the smooth, womanizing former Red Sox pitcher, Frasier as the effete, opera-going snob, etc.--but the characters on Fraiser seemed more subtle and three-dimensional than those on Cheers.  Both had laugh tracks, which I find annoying, but the laugh track on Frasier seemed less obtrusive for some reason.  The attempts at verisimilitude on Cheers seemed awkward and ham-handed--the broad Boston-ish accents, the constant references to Boston sports, the send-ups of Harvard--while those on Fraiser were pretty low key, mostly just gestures to Seattle coffee house culture, which became a useful setting on the series.  Finally, the characters in Fraiser were just simply more likeable.  Cheers was supposed to be the bar that everyone wanted to hang out in, but I would rather spend an evening with Miles and Daphne and Fraiser and Martin in their Seattle apartment.