FOR anyone whose interest in movies extends beyond the bloated plexbusters currently dominating our screens, BBC 2's Moving Pictures is a godsend the only television programme, here or in Britain, that treats film in a serious way. It's also the only movie programme which isn't in thrall to the manipulative release schedules of the Hollywood majors.
That's not to say that it's pofaced or pompous far from it. It takes film seriously, but does so with plenty of wit and humour, especially from its affable and eloquent presenter, Howard Schuman. In addition to his presenting duties, Brooklyn born Schuman has been writing television drama in Britain for many years his credits include the 1970s series Rock Follies and the more recent Selling Hitler.
As an American living in Britain, a television dramatist, and a film buff "since the age of three", he's in a unique position to observe the current state of British film and television culture. Visiting Dublin last weekend for a screening of his television film, Nervous Energy, at the Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival at the IFC, he was modest about his role in Moving Pictures.
"I have no overblown notion of what a presenter is you can either do it or you can't, and it's great fun. What's nice about the show is that it's made by people who love film but aren't carried away by the hype. If Moving Pictures has a small part to play in avoiding the dumbing of film culture, that would be a very worthwhile thing."
Uniquely among the film programmes dotted across our airwaves, Moving Pictures isn't based around reviews of current releases or controlled interviews with Hollywood stars. Instead, it covers a wide and eclectic range of subjects. It's a job which Schuman relishes.
"It's such a huge canvas, from Gone With The Wind to Kieslowski. I'm paid to go and see films I love and meet people I admire. Also, I don't have to be a critic. I'd usually like to encourage people to go see a film, unless it's disgusting and made by charlatans. But I don't want to be seen as a person who gives advice on what to see.
One of the main difficulties in covering cinema on television these days is the prohibitive cost of showing clips from older films. While free clips are made available for the promotional campaigns of films on current release, the Hollywood majors often charge $5,000 "per minute or part thereof" for older material, which means that two five second clips can cost $10,000. The effect is to discourage programme makers from covering anything beyond what the PR people give them.
"It's such an indictment of these people, who control the history of cinema, that they don't give you any dispensation. The clips cost the earth, unless you're covering a new release. One of the sad things would be if the programme had to start limiting itself. Some of the subjects we've covered, like the history of the crane shot, or what story boarding is, could become impossibly expensive."
Schuman has spent the last 23 years working in British television and is highly critical of the changes which have taken place in the industry in recent years. "It has gone from a medium full of possibilities to one that is very closed off. That world which I admired, of intelligent, gritty drama, has more or less disappeared. It's become much more of an assembly line.
"The phrase now is `producer led'. It's not a coincidence that British television's golden era was during a barren period for cinema. Now all the energy's in cinema. What we've lost is that great tradition of TV drama. The first television play I wrote was a very offbeat piece about an experimental film maker who wrecks the life of a London couple. That went cut at nine o'clock on ITV, which is unimaginable these days. Now the work has to fit within these very limiting genre conventions."
The obsession with successful formulas isn't confined to television. The funniest piece in the last series of Moving Pictures was a trip to see American script guru Sid Field expound his theories of film writing to 150 eager pupils, each of whom paid £250 for the honour. Schuman's caustic commentary hilariously undermined Field's absurd homilies. "Sid Field is like a showbiz Buddhist he has such confidence. The only positive thing I brought away from that was that maybe a writer could use it to kick start their way into beginning to produce work."
AFTER 23 years of writing for television Schuman is also beginning to move into films. Nervous Eneey is a moving, funny, semi auto biographical film, which tells the story of a gay couple trying to deal with Aids. Made originally for World Aids Day on the BBC earlier this year, the film has crossed over to film festivals around the world.
"The film tries to look into the essential nature of how love works," says Schuman, who knows that movies on the subject of Aids can find themselves ghettoised, but is defiant about making a film around the issue.
"Nervous Energy was the first drama to be made on British television about a gay couple. There have been plenty of documentaries and stage plays, but television hasn't done its job on an issue level."
He is now writing for cinema again, after a "terrible experience" in the late 1970s. "I wrote a script, which became a film called Breaking Glass, although I had my name removed from it. The director had a lot of qualities, but a sense of humour wasn't one of them. It became the usual kind of sappy, sentimental rubbish. I'm hungry now because I think I have gained a sense of movie rhythms. There's also a level of energy and optimism among people making films in the UK now.
"One of the nice things about Moving Pictures is that young film makers are under the misapprehension that I have some power, so I've been invited along to a lot of the venues where new work is being shown. The work I've seen is very idiosyncratic and identifiably British these are people who have real stories to tell. I think that's the strength, as well, of films like Trainspotting and Secrets and Lies. Trainspotting's importance can't be overestimated, although we're probably going to get Trainspotting 2, 3 and 4, but that's probably better than yet more Merchant Ivory."
Schuman returns to the BBC with another series of Moving Pictures in January. Last season it was shifted from its prime time Sunday evening slot to late on Wednesday nights. "It took a while for people to realise that we were on." Let's hope that it isn't a sign of the programme being marginalised out of existence it's one of the remaining jewels of the BBC schedules. Long may it roll.
