This year, the Bratislava film festival decided to pay homage to a little plastic item that once shaped the way we perceived films and life around us – videocassette. On the first glimpse, it may appear as an obscure episode and a marginal medium in the history of cinema; however, the VHS boom is a true phenomenon that has forever changed not only the face of the film industry (have you seen Boogie Nights?) but also life in many societies locked behind the Iron Curtain – at least that’s what young Romanian director Ilinca Calugareanu is trying to show us in her feature documentary, Chuck Norris vs Communism.
True pioneers of the VHS industry were certainly Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, two Israeli cousins who arrived in America with a strong desire to make films and money. In 1979 they bought a small studio called Cannon Films and in the course of a single decade they turned it into a huge brand that gradually became the synonym for action B-films. Their business model was based on viewers’ strong appetite for such films (which walked hand in hand with the rise and dominance of the VHS medium), endless sequels, catchy trailers, bombastic advertising and sleazy yet smart pre-sale policy.
The studio made household names out of wooden actors such as Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme or Dolph Lundgren and prolonged the careers of once respected ones such as Charles Bronson; however, from time to time it also showed a touch of genius when it produced films by respected filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard (King Lear), Andrei Konchalovsky (Runaway Train), Barbet Schroeder (Barfly) or even Franco Zeffirelli who insisted that his Otello produced by Cannon Films was his best picture ever. The Golan-Globus tandem shamelessly plagiarised box office blockbusters and parasitized on their popularity; for instance, their King Solomon’s Mines somewhat spoofs the Indiana Jones series while their Missing in Action has been “slightly inspired” by the story of Rambo II. In order to make money, the cousins did not hesitate to make often pathetic sequels to more or less series such as Superman 4, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 but also Powaqqatsi by Godfrey Reggio.
The story of Cannon Films teems with bizarre stories that are discussed in great detail in Mark Hartley’s documentary, Electric Boogaloo; however, the main mission of the section Nostalgia: VHS Stories was not to make fun of Cannon Films but rather to make festival-goers view the VHS phenomenon without prejudice and appreciate its indisputable impact on cinema and society.
By Tomáš Hudák
Translated by Daniel Borský