Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Laserdisc Player
My friends, both on the Internet and in the real world, seem surprised that I have decided to drop anchor at twitter.com. Originally, someone had suggested that it might be a good way to ‘promote the website’ (which even my own relatives a) hadn’t heard of, and b) couldn’t spell) but, once the necessary forms had been filled out and the word ‘unfollow’ explained, I soon realised that here was a fantastic time-saving device; no longer would I have to bombard everyone with endless e-mails urging them to ‘Click here, select “Cat That Can Play the Piano” and thank me later’. Now I could simply whack it up on Twitter and let them do the legwork (after first pestering them all to sign up themselves, saying, ‘No, it’s not just something Josh Thomas would be into, it’s fun and really easy to use! Hello? Are you still there?’). Also, it looked to be both a way to draw attention to my new book, currently fighting a losing battle against Bryce Courtenay’s The Story of Dolly Dunn, and a fast, effective delivery system for cheap jokes about Tony Abbott.
But, due to my general tardiness in regard to embracing ‘new things’ like the mobile phone, the iPod and waxing your testicles, most of the cheap jokes have been at my expense. Even recently discovered additions to the family tree have been pelting me with zingers, most containing the word ‘laserdisc’. This is because I was, for many years, both publicly and privately, an outspoken advocate for that most mocked of home-video formats. ‘Loserdisc’, one friend dubbed it, as I struggled to flip over the massive silver platter at the half-hour mark. And yet, in an irony that perhaps exists only in my mind and those of the 120 other people who embraced the system, for a time there I was actually ahead of the curve. Laserdisc was the way of the future. Just as Microsoft’s Cinemania was for a few glorious months until the IMDb came along, crashing over it like a tidal wave and leaving discarded CD-ROM boxes strewn across nature strips all over the country.
DVD was, of course, laserdisc’s tidal wave, but it took a long time to hit. ‘What are you doing buying all these laserdiscs?’ people would say. ‘Don’t you realise that DVD is just around the corner?’ I was hearing that for twelve years. You can watch a lot of movies in twelve years, in correct aspect ratio and surround sound.
Here are a few random memories from my laserdisc years; halcyon days, interrupted only by the continual need to get up from the couch to turn the disc over.
I remember buying my first laserdisc player from that now-forgotten shop Xanadu, in Melbourne’s Chinatown. The sign on the window was an exact replica of the logo from the Olivia Newton-John movie, and I was there, browsing in the shop (wondering what sort of person would pay $85 for a copy of Legal Eagles, to be precise), the day a car pulled up and several men spilled out, wielding baseball bats. The bloke behind the counter did not even flinch as the plate glass window was smashed and the car sped off, like a scene from one of his outrageously overpriced movies; apparently, this was a regular occurrence. I remember thinking, as I crunched carefully through the broken glass, that someone was going to have to go and find a copy of the movie in order to re-do the logo.
Aside from Xanadu, there weren’t many places where you could buy the discs. There seemed to be some question as to whether it was even legal to sell them. The main outlet was nestled above some shops in Elsternwick, and to get in you had to know who to ask for; there may have been a secret knock. It was like visiting a brothel for movie nerds. The cheapest discs were priced at around sixty bucks, and so the clientele was evenly split between trembling film buffs who’d saved for weeks to buy the Criterion edition of Blow-Up, and men who looked and sounded like Neville Bartos from Chopper, cashed-up and greedily clutching armfuls of Van Damme. The discs were so expensive that most people belonged to a ‘laserdisc circle’ (the leader of my ‘laser gang’ was the esteemed Ivan Hutchinson), and titles were exchanged at coordinated ‘handovers’. Or sometimes you’d purchase a ‘share’ in a disc; Greg Fleet and I split the bill ($150) for Criterion’s Taxi Driver. I insisted it stay at my place. If you know Greg, you’ll know why.
As I may have mentioned, you had to turn the disc over at the one-hour – or, with the higher-quality discs – the half-hour point. Lawrence of Arabia was spread over eight sides! It was exhausting. Eventually, Pioneer came up with a machine that ‘turned the disc over’. On-screen the image would freeze as, for fifteen seconds, gears whirred, machinery clunked and the entire unit vibrated like a train was going past. But, compared with VHS, the picture quality was amazing. I remember freeze-framing a moment from the first disc I ever bought, Miller’s Crossing. It was the shot of the copper-coloured horn from Albert Finney’s gramophone at the start of the ‘Danny Boy’ sequence.
‘Look at that colour!’ I gushed. ‘And how sharp is that? And watch this…’ I produced two LP sleeves and used them to demonstrate how much of the frame would be cut off on either side if the film were being screened on a standard 3x4 VHS.
‘Can we just watch the fucking movie?’ was a response I would hear again and again in years to come.
I recall that melancholy feeling as, one by one, the laserdisc companies threw in the towel. I remember visiting the Image website and reading the sad announcement that their new special edition of Two-Lane Blacktop would be their last. How appropriate; the movie ends with the film itself literally bursting into flames (possibly in response to the ‘acting’ of James Taylor and Dennis Wilson). Within months, my laserdisc player would become an object of amusement to visitors, as though I were still using one of those screens that you place in front of a black-and-white TV to make it look like it’s colour.
Occasionally I’ll muster enough energy to defend the laserdisc, pointing out how many of its best titles, like The Magnificent Ambersons, along with dozens of classic early commentary tracks (Scorsese on Taxi Driver, Altman on The Player, the Spinal Tap cast not in character), still aren’t available on DVD, but by this point people are usually calling for a cab. On their mobiles. But the truth is, it’s been years since I watched one. There they sit in their cabinet, looking like old LPs. Every now and then, I’ll slide one out to startle a young person, like a survivor of the Boer War unsheathing his cutlass to impress the grandkiddies.
But, lest we forget the Simpsons episode where Homer visits the tip, and drives past a huge pile of VHS tapes and laserdiscs to a spot marked ‘Reserved for DVD’. Blu-ray is making its move. I’ll never forget the look of shock on my friend Pete Smith’s face when, a few months back, I broke the news of this new format to him.
‘But, Tony,’ he said. ‘I’m too old to start all over again.’
And, as many people have said to me, ‘How much sharper does the picture need to be?’ It seems the big winners, as is so often the case, are the pornographers. Last week, the Internet’s ‘Mr Skin’ announced that, thanks to Blu-ray’s increased clarity, he had found, in several movies, full frontal nudity where none had previously been detected.
See, now you’re interested, Pete.
Tony Martin is the Melbourne-based author of ‘A Nest of Occasionals’ and ‘Lolly Scramble’. Podcasts of his radio show ‘Get This’ are still available for free download at iTunes (type in: ‘Get This: Richard Marsland Lives’). He is currently directing new episodes of ABCTV's ‘The Librarians’.
Back
