Photo by Kathleen McGivney

Can you speak a little bit about new media and what Zeitgeist's interest is there, like maybe digital distribution? Do you think the availability of movie-making technology is the great equalizer, or has it created a glut of movies that maybe aren't that great?
NG: Well, it's certainly created a glut of movies. [both laugh] Whether it's a positive or a negative thing, just in terms of the quality, I think it's hard to say. Whether it's a positive or negative thing in terms of how many films are released every week, I would say... that it's a negative thing, and it's a difficult thing that a lot of those films really just get a week in the theaters and they go into whatever limbo they go into.

Our philosophy and what we're interested in doing is giving films at least at first a theatrical release, and they go on to other areas — you know, they're on television, they're on DVD, and so on and so forth. But theatrically, we really want to stay in theaters as long as possible. So we have a lot of competition, and it's getting much, much harder to make a stand, you know, make your film stand out.... It's really almost like giving the audience the responsibility to make a choice that's much more difficult than the choice they had to make even ten years ago.

A related aspect of that is online media and the argument if critics are really necessary anymore. Anyone can open a blog and talk about film. You know, critics are fighting amongst themselves, but film criticism, someone that has a great knowledge and appreciation of film, that seems incredibly valuable.
NG: Well, film is a very democratic process. Anybody can have an opinion about a movie, which is one of things that's nice about it but, it's a true that a really great critic, you know, somebody who just knows history, knows film by the director or the genre, [that] is very valuable and those people are really disappearing.

A service like Netflix where you get any fabulous well-received movie in your region on DVD has really made it empowering to see whatever you want, as well.
ER: It's really great to have Netflix, but it's also great to go to the movies.

Yes, I agree.
ER: So do we; that's why we really still believe in that model. And for all the new changes that are coming, and there certainly are, but we still ... hope that it's not going to push out the old model. That there will still be people who will want to go to a theater rather than turn on their computer.

ER: MoMA gave such a great opportunity to really revisit these films in their original format and I think they chose very well in picking the titles that they did.

NG: And they've done very well. It's been great. It's been a really popular retrospective.

Trouble the Water opens August 22nd. Visit the film's official website.