Two years ago the largest video rental store in the UK, 20th Century Flicks, turned 40. Watching films on VHS and DVD takes a large portion of time in film culture and marks how people have engaged with the art of moving pictures for generations. Through unseen possibilities, the store was transformed into a micro-cinema creating opportunities for people to watch a variety of films not available on streaming platforms. Moreover, the store has a collection of over 21,000 films. Dave Taylor, a co-owner of 20th Century Flicks, had kindly agreed to share his insights on film viewing, audiences, and much more.
Angela: I found an article about you and the video rental stores around the UK in The Guardian. I thought it would be lovely to talk with you, Dave, and provide some information because renting films on VHS and DVDs takes a large chunk of time in film culture. This is a fruitful research topic for film historians.
Dave: Yes. There’s a lot in it. How we find art and engage with it is a huge part of my thinking as well.
Angela: I was thinking we should talk about the video rental store as a way of preserving a living part of film culture. I saw a YouTube video on the Black Country Museum in Dudley. They said they have a cinema where they screen silent movies the same way they were screened back then. One could experience what people at the time were experiencing watching a film.
Dave: Yes. Having a pianist and sound devices, as well.
Angela:When did the first video rental store open in the UK? I think like the 1980s or probably before that?
Dave:In the late 1970s, it started mostly in America. In the UK It’s probably about 1980, 1981. The first ones were there. We’re the same shop that opened in 1982. We’ve continued. A lot of places were earlier than us. They started earlier than us and were closed, a long time ago. It’s difficult. I think in the 90s, especially in the mid-90s, it was when everyone had a video shop. And that was probably the time that most people experienced video shops. I think it was in the late 80s, early 90s.
Angela: You’re right about the 90s. I grew up in the 90s and going to the video shop was an everyday activity for our generation.
Dave: Yes. I grew up in a small town and the video shop was huge to me, like maybe there were six or seven in my small town. That’s how popular they were. I remember it was the only cultural outlet besides the festival in this town. The music was all very pop. The cinemas were just mainstream Hollywood, but video shops had, you know, these strange, slightly unusual pieces of art. I didn’t appreciate them as art, back then, because, I was like 10. I do appreciate them now. I was watching some strange things that helped me and developed me.
Angela: Can you recall how did you pick the movies? Did you talk to the person working there?
Dave: Yes. Your email, was interesting because I started thinking about how I, as a young person, picked movies. Because when you are young you’re very susceptible to marketing.
Angela:Indeed, you are.
Dave: If it’s a colorful video cover and the VHS were a bit bigger than the DVDs. It was like, you pick up this object and it would have a big picture of an explosion or treasure. As a young person, I would choose movies from the cover, and then I’d turn it over and read. Often it’s very inaccurate, it’s all advertising. So it’d be the most incredible adventure while in reality, it was a dumb movie. But it would have three or four images from the film, very carefully chosen. A lot of it would be very misleading. They would have pictures of things in the movie that are, just one second, they spent some money on a shot and it would be on the back. Torrenting movies and pirating movies was probably the biggest blow before streaming. I hate the way streaming works in terms of selection, scrolling, and clicking. There’s no real art to it. As well as it doesn’t allow any space for reflection after the film ends. That’s what credits are for. On Netflix, you are immediately offered to click on something else, something new. There’s a complete lack of empathy.
But it’s important to remember that there was a lot of advertising on VHS. Specifically, the visual style of the cover. They used to employ very good artists to design the covers. And they would be completely unrepresentative of the film. They would be really beautiful, especially fantasy movies, with swords and dragons on the cover. Then you would watch the film and it would be a guy in blue underpants with a puppet dragon. I think that’s a key part of it. It was almost the difference between what the film looked like on the case and what the film and the experience of watching it were. It is a kind of a lesson in capitalism for me.
Angela:How people who come to the video rental store now, are picking their movies?
Dave:Not by the cover. I think maybe for the first 10 or 15 years, in the 80s and 90s was so important. Then I think people got a bit older and more cynical about movies lying. And it was also in the video shops, there were a lot of independent movies. These guys, couldn’t afford expensive advertising or artwork. So they would just have a very cool-looking still from the movie. I can’t think of another place besides video shops and high art cinemas, I suppose, where independent film was celebrated and the whole culture of discussing philosophy and politics, drinking coffee and smoking… a kind of environment for discussing the ideas of film and sort of critiquing them. That was the only place for me, the video shops.
Angela:There was a social side to it. Like the cine-clubs from the 50s and 60s in France. The New Wave approach to cinema. After the screening, they used to gather usually with the director and discuss with the audience. This was very nice. It was sort of an education in film history and in appreciating art.
Dave: I think in Bristol anyway, video shops stopped being that environment that it used to be. We always had lots and lots of people in at a time. People would end up talking to each other, strangers. Right now in Bristol, we have a cinema called The Watershed that is very much geared towards showing a film, having the director, having a Q&A, and then having a drink in the bar. It is much more like that model you talk about. I ran a little film festival in Bristol where we took out an old IMAX that had been empty for 12 years. People just locked the door and walked away. Just left it because it wasn’t making money. But because the video shop turned 40 two years ago, we had a film festival where we showed films from 1982 like Blade Runner, Dark Crystal, and Mad Max. As a result, we got James Cameron to record a video. We got Peter Jackson and Jamie Lee Curtis. It was nice to get that. Sometimes you don’t need the director to be there and have a conversation. It’s enough for the audience to feel a connection with that director. That kind of lifts your community. It’s like a small community in Bristol, but having Jamie Lee Curtis or James Cameron say: “Hello, Bristol, welcome to watch my film!” It just ties the whole film world together. I think video shops were never part of it. Cinemas used to do that. I’ve always felt that 20th Century Flicks was never really part of the cinema culture in Bristol, it was very much cinemas. We were sort of seen as almost parasitic.
Angela:How did the micro-cinema start?
Dave: So beanbag cinema is sort of how that started. I thought the video shop was going to close in a matter of months because we couldn’t afford rent. We couldn’t do it. I thought let’s just make a small amount of money maybe a couple of thousand pounds and then spread it between the four of us. Then we’ve got a couple of weeks’ wages to go and find other work. And what happened was that the cinema became very popular. It was a very short-term thinking. But it got popular. Then we bought chairs and a better projector and better speakers. Still the same shop still a very small room and it sort of became locally famous. Now you can watch movies in there that couldn’t be watched anywhere else.
Angela: How many seats are in the cinema?
Dave: There’s 18 in the bigger cinema, and then 8 in the smaller one. It’s quite small. I think that’s the other thing. If I did it bigger, I would get in trouble. If I had 30 seats, for example. I think that’s the thing – it’s like an X-wing in Star Wars, they’re small enough to get through. It started off out of desperation, then became popular. Now it is essential to this video shop’s survival, which is quite a strange turn of events.
Angela: Do friendship groups come to the cinema and they pick whatever film they want?
Dave: Almost, almost exclusively. Yes, it’s the friends.
People who know each other. There are language clubs such as Italian, Spanish, and French clubs. We have a horror film club. There are lots of small cinephile communities.
Angela:I’ve been thinking about children as an audience because today most of the animation movies are made with CGI, right? Do children enjoy older movies?
Dave: I remember when Pixar started doing Toy Story. These films looked amazing to grownups and kids didn’t care. But what I’ve noticed was that they have two narratives – one for the kids and one that always includes something for adults. I think kids don’t need CGI. They don’t need 3D. And they certainly don’t need those in-jokes for adults. And so Chaplin works, they’ll engage with 2D animation. I showed them a really interesting animator called Michelle Oslo. He made Kiriku. He’s like a West African French animator.
Angela: Yes, I saw Kiriku last year.
Dave: Beautiful 2D animation. Kids adore that. They loved it. And adults would be like: “Oh, it’s really old-fashioned!” It’s old-fashioned because it’s not for you. It’s for these children. They also like Ghibli Studio films. But nine times out of ten, it’s adults who find films old-fashioned. They like the effects as well as the mature narrative line. Whereas, kids will engage. They’re just so much more emotional and they fill in so much more space with their imagination. As you get older, your imagination sadly sort of dwindles. And then you need the monsters to have really interesting fur. Or you need this 3D thing to fill in where your imagination is lacking. Children could watch the most simple, simple thing. But their brains are creating this entire world that goes outside of the screen.
Angela: Imagination is linked with empathy. If you’re not using your imagination, you cannot place yourself in the narrative and experience what these characters are experiencing.
Dave: Exactly. But as you grow old, your empathy can shrink. Last night, in the video shop, was a group of 16 and 17-year-old kids. There were 18 of them. They chose to watch Mulholland Drive. It was two and a half hours of dark surrealist, non-narrative cinema.
In the end, they were like: “Oh, my God, that film was amazing! Who was Betty? Who was Diane?” I loved it. I felt so hopeful. It’s whatever we’re going through as adults is not happening to young people. It’s reassuring. The spirit is still very much there and they don’t need everything to make sense.
Angela: That’s why they need places like yours. Because otherwise, if they rely on Netflix, they’re never going to engage with such films.
Dave: And also, it’s two and a half hours long. It’s very difficult if you’re at home, you’ve got it on Netflix, and you’ve got your phone. You’re not going to watch this. It’s not going to happen. That’s why I really love working in the shop. At the beginning of a screening, I just say: “Take a holiday from your phones. I give you permission not to answer your phone, not to look or text. You have my permission to enjoy the film!”
