"I like DVDs so much - it's such a better format than VHS"
About this Quote
Roland Joffe praising DVDs over VHS lands less like a hot take and more like a timestamp: a working director openly rooting for a technology that finally treats movies as authored objects, not disposable recordings. Coming from a filmmaker, the line isn’t really about plastic discs versus magnetic tape. It’s about control, fidelity, and permanence - three things VHS routinely sabotaged.
The intent is practical, almost craftsmanlike. DVDs offered sharper image, cleaner sound, easier navigation, and (crucially) durability. VHS was a format built around compromise: tracking errors, fuzzy resolution, degraded replays, and pan-and-scan cropping that could quietly amputate a director’s framing. When Joffe says “better,” he’s implicitly defending the idea that cinema’s meaning lives in details - the composition, the color timing, the rhythm of a cut - and that audiences deserve access to those details without technological interference.
The subtext is also about status. DVDs arrived with menus, chapter stops, and bonus features that made “the movie” feel like an event you owned rather than a broadcast you happened to capture. For directors, that meant a new public stage: commentary tracks, behind-the-scenes materials, and special editions that reframed the auteur not just as a maker, but as a guide to interpretation.
Contextually, it’s late-90s/early-2000s media optimism: the sense that better consumer tech could close the gap between theatrical intention and home viewing. Joffe’s enthusiasm reads as a small vote for cinema’s integrity during an era when the living room was becoming its second, and sometimes primary, theater.
The intent is practical, almost craftsmanlike. DVDs offered sharper image, cleaner sound, easier navigation, and (crucially) durability. VHS was a format built around compromise: tracking errors, fuzzy resolution, degraded replays, and pan-and-scan cropping that could quietly amputate a director’s framing. When Joffe says “better,” he’s implicitly defending the idea that cinema’s meaning lives in details - the composition, the color timing, the rhythm of a cut - and that audiences deserve access to those details without technological interference.
The subtext is also about status. DVDs arrived with menus, chapter stops, and bonus features that made “the movie” feel like an event you owned rather than a broadcast you happened to capture. For directors, that meant a new public stage: commentary tracks, behind-the-scenes materials, and special editions that reframed the auteur not just as a maker, but as a guide to interpretation.
Contextually, it’s late-90s/early-2000s media optimism: the sense that better consumer tech could close the gap between theatrical intention and home viewing. Joffe’s enthusiasm reads as a small vote for cinema’s integrity during an era when the living room was becoming its second, and sometimes primary, theater.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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