Is Criterion's Release of Roma a Sign of Hope for DVD Lovers?

Sitting proudly on my shelf in my basement is nearly every film that I have nominated for my annual "Best Picture" awards, at least from the past 15 years or so (some of my tastes from prior years are a bit more "juvenile" and not worth revisiting).  In the past two weeks, arguably the most elusive film managed to land on the list as Roma came home.  This is an historic moment for streaming services, particularly Netflix, as it's the first time that the studio has released any of their original movies on home release, with one exception (The Cloverfield Paradox, which sounds like it was negotiated into the deal to be released on home video before Paramount handed over the picture to Netflix, probably so it can be included in future boxed sets).  What does this mean for the streaming giant, and for the future of DVD's?  Let's have a chat.

I have long been a proponent of films being released not just on in theaters, but also for home consumption.  This includes a DVD/Blu-Ray release, as well as making it available for purchase on a streaming platform like iTunes or Amazon.  If it wants a third place to also be available for a subscription fee on a platform like Hulu or Netflix, or wants a fourth spot to be seen like a cable giant such as HBO or Cinemax regularly playing it, more power to the studio for expanding all of their options to make a profit.  My goal with film is always to get as many people access to the film, certainly not for free, but for a fee in order for people to enjoy, own, rent, and stream the picture.

That "and" is important, and one of the problems I've had with Netflix in its roll-out from simply housing movies that are already readily available for home video purchase (those created by other studios), and creating their own content.  One of the great revolutions of film history and cinematic choice was the advent of the VHS in the 1980's, when people were no longer reliant on a studio to view or study a movie they loved (as long as the studio continued to release all major motion pictures on DVD, which even today is extremely common practice).  For the price of one disc or tape, you would no longer need a studio to place a film in a theater or on television-you could simply add it to your own collection.

That freedom is important for anyone who seriously appreciates or studies film, which I do.  I've written literally thousands of articles on this blog where I needed to reference older films in order to better discuss new films (and vice versa), and whether through purchase or rental, most of those have been on some sort of physical home consumption.  Closing off access to those films is a sort of artificial iconoclasm, one that the studios create to pay a monthly fee, but it also means that that freedom away from the studio, where you could own and watch at your leisure (for a finite amount of money) a movie, could go away.

Netflix's move to release select discs on Criterion is a start, and a promising one.  Not only has Roma now been released by the company, but later this year The Irishman, Marriage Story, Atlantics, and American Factory will be released under the illustrious Criterion banner.  But this still leaves countless movies on the Netflix platform that aren't available for personal purchase, aren't available for the freedom away from a studio.  These include award contenders such as The Two Popes and Mudbound, critically-acclaimed pictures from important directors such as The Other Side of the Wind and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, or even a film like To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which is not in the right wheelhouse for a company like Criterion, but is certainly one of the more culturally-relevant films that Netflix has created, and would definitely have been released on DVD/Blu-Ray had it reached a similar place in the zeitgeist from a Paramount or Warner Brothers.  That latter film almost made me wish that Netflix had created its own "Netflix Signature" DVD line to rival Criterion, as it could have more easily included a film like To All the Boys.

Netflix is hardly alone here.  Amazon refused to release Cold War on DVD until Criterion picked up the tab, and threatened to initially not release Wonderstruck despite it being in the filmography of a filmmaker like Todd Haynes and starring notable actors like Michelle Williams & Julianne Moore.  Mike Leigh's Peterloo and Woody Allen's A Rainy Day in New York still have not been released in the United States on home video; these are Oscar-nominated filmmakers who should at the very least have academic copies of these films released in the United States so that film students/historians can study them. 

Because the reality remains that there are no guarantees that these films will continue to exist and be found in the future.  Netflix could easily pull a Buster Scruggs or Amazon could stop streaming a Cold War, and we would simply have no legal access to these films.  This needs to be fixed.  Criterion and Netflix partnering is a great step, but it doesn't stop that Netflix doesn't allow physical media (or owned streaming) of virtually all of their products.  Is it right that Netflix can basically blackmail you into staying on their service just by denying you access to these films otherwise, and are artists okay that their work could be evaporated under a corporations decisions to erase their art?  These are questions all film lovers must answer, and hopefully will give a resounding "purchased" to at least one of these five releases from Netflix so that this evolution into home purchase can continue.