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Tuesday, August 19, 2003
As someone who works in the commercial wing of art, let me tell these film clerks something:

When asked what solutions they would propose to bolster the film literacy of Hollywood's hit makers, the keepers and catalogers of our film heritage offer such helpful hints as "Give them all unlimited rentals! A gold card from our store!" and "Make them watch all the AFI Top 100 lists! Every single one!" But in a thoughtful moment after the fist-pumping fervor dies down, one of the Vidiots clerks ponders aloud the obvious: "The film world has such a rich history. It makes no sense not to know it if it's your business."

Au contraire, mon frere: it makes every bit of sense not to know it, and indeed, that's how I assumed the sentence read at first. Because as your "business"--and strictly as business--you want a memory as long as your customer, which it's fair (and, honestly, not insulting) to say is around 20 years long for most of the people you'd be marketing to. You want a memory and a perspective like theirs because then you'll have a better idea if it'll get seen. Now, it makes every bit of sense for people on the creative end to have a sense of film history--but the executives? Not so much.