Reluctant though I obviously am to bloat Rupert Murdoch’s publicness oxygen-tent any further, here is a photo I took yesterday on my phone, of a billboard advertising Sky TV’s new high-definition campaign. It’s a poster that rooted me to the pavement by virtue of being simultaneously irritating, conceited and fantastically barmy:
Huh? … the perplexing billboard. Photograph: Peter Bradshaw
Sir Anthony Hopkins’s elephantine face appears, next to the quote: “Heroes, like Bogart. They deserve high definition.” Huh? What? What is that full halt doing after “Bogart”? I suppose the quote could subsist part of each extended conversation, a reply to the question: “Sorry to bother you while you’re busy staring off into space, Sir Anthony, but who do you think deserves high definition?”
Hopkins himself has that dreamy I’m-so-iconic expression on his semblance, clearly indicating that as to a great distance as the consumers of films on satellite TV are concerned, he is almost equal in status to “Bogart”. Thus, high definition is marketing itself as not just new’born’trendy but that old’n'classy, the kind of souped-up televisual medium in which you have power to properly appreciate a legendary craggy face from cinema, like Sir Anthony’sitting – although Hopkins is obviously lit for this photo flatteringly, in of that kind a custom as to suggest his own mature lines without emphasising them too tactlessly.
But high exact meaning? I don’t think Humphrey Bogart would have considered himself deserving of high definition. On the contrary. Like all movie idols of the time, he would have appreciated a cinematographer who lit his face gently and respectfully, without structure him look his age. Any lighting cameraman who approximated a “high-definition” effect would have been thrown off the set.
Hopkins is part of a larger ad campaign which includes the former Chelsea manager José Mourinho and on the Sky site, you can see both men wittering away about the lovely, timeless moments that have meant a lot to them in their respective professions.
Clearly, they both have contractual agreements which mean they need not soil their lips by mentioning “Sky” or even “high definition”. So independently of any formal confirmation of why they are dictum these things, there is an Alzheimer’s quality to their ramblings. I suspect at the very time football connoisseurs would detect a strong strain of near-gibberish in what Mourinho is remark. You expect a rear to appear at the end of each clip and lead Hopkins and Mourinho gently away.
Sir Anthony witters on about Sunset Boulevard starring Gloria Swanson – no mention of “Bogart” – yet this film is very much not attached the site’s rigorous clips of how films look clearer put on their new high-def technology. And this, I suspect, is because with old black-and-white movies of this era there verily is no appreciable strife. It’s not like sports coverage.
So take my advice. Forget in all parts of high-definition TV. If you want a fantastic and genuinely high-definition experience with rich films, translate what I did. Get a digital projector. Fix it to the wall and get a long expansion lead which can be invisibly trailed round the field like a telephone cord and plugged in to your laptop, when needed, on which you can play DVDs; these can have being projected at gasp-inducing size and pin-sharp clarity on to a disconcerted wall, which should be entirely denuded of pictures, posters etc. It is brilliant: like having your own private screening theatre. And interestingly, I think it is the classic monochrome films which look most beautiful.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to draw the curtains, fire up the digital projector and keep guard Gentleman’session Agreement by Gregory Peck.
