Révolution VHS (2017) - full transcript

This is a 2017 video game.

- This is bad.

You've gotta get here.

You've gotta ahh.

♫ I slay, okay
, I slay,

♫ okay, okay, okay, okay

This is a video from 2016

by one of the world's biggest stars.

♫ Now let's get in formation

Ooh, find your
light, there, perfect.

Can you please introduce yourself--



And this is a 2017 commercial

for an ultra trendy fashion brand.

How should I call you?

- You can call me Anthony.

In a world dominated

by super slick aesthetics
the tracking lines,

dull colors, and grainy image of the

video cassette have made a comeback.

The last remaining VCR manufacturer

ceased production in 2016,

but new apps allow you to
shoot VHS style videos.

It seems for an entire generation

the poor image quality
makes the memory richer.

After all, for '80s kids this



little black box was a revolution.

In the 1980s one item had pride of place

in households around the world, the VCR.

Young and old alike spent their evenings

in front of a television set

which radiated a magic aura once more.

Almost unawares the welded experienced

a social, economic, and
artistic revolution.

But the most profound social changes

are rarely the showiest.

They occur on the fringes first

hidden from the general public's view.

As often happens with consumer goods

it was in the United States

that the pioneers dived head first

into the video pool
instinctively, enthusiastically.

- Three, two, one, I'm Ray
Glasser, Cleveland, Ohio.

I've been collecting videos since 1976

one of the first true Betamax collectors

I guess you could say.

And as of right now in 2016 I still have

2,000 Betamax tapes and I have
lots of blank Betamax tapes.

So if Sony stopped making earlier
this year, doesn't matter,

I'll never run out of blank tapes.

The Sony Betamax.

Its only purpose is to serve you.

When the Japanese brand Sony

launched its new video
format the Betamax in 1976

it sent shockwaves around the world.

In cinema or in television
the moving image

had always been the
stuff of professionals.

The first videotape recorders
were the size of a room

and cost as much as the average house.

But after a fierce technological

and commercial race
spanning several decades,

Sony suddenly abolished this privilege.

Betamax made video accessible to everyone.

Yet only a handful of
enthusiasts understood

what a radical change this represented

and were willing to dig deep.

- Wow, what is that?

- This is the Sony Betamax.

- The SL 7200 at the time cost somewhere

around $1,200 and for somebody like me

I was lucky to make $100 a week.

So imagine how much it took for me

to save enough money, and get into debt,

and buy a VCR like that.

- Back in 1976 I was
working in a restaurant.

I took a second job to
make some extra money

so I could afford one of these.

And in June of '76 I got
my first Sony Betamax.

- If it boiled down to
am I going to eat today,

or am I going to spend some money

on two or three blank tapes?

I'd choose the blank tapes.

- You're obviously a man
who's having troubles at home.

You're constantly
fighting with your family

over what TV shows to watch.

Well fortunately you're looking at

a simple solution to your
problems, Sony Betamax.

At the time Sony marketed

its machine as a simple recording device.

For TV viewers in the '70s it was

nothing short of a miracle.

- So you can watch it whenever you want.

- I can record the eight o'clock movie

when I'm at work, or the
TV show, whatever I wanted.

Come home at 1:30 in the morning,

rewind the tape, and watch it back.

And that was perfect for me.

- The Betamax completely relieved me

from the tyranny of the TV schedule.

And remember at this time, 1976,
1977 this was a revolution.

No one could imagine this kind of thing.

Not surprisingly the

early days were exhilarating.

- How ya doing?

This is the first annual
VCR Plus Michigan Convention

in Fremont, Ohio, February, 5th 1979.

Enthusiasts
organized conventions,

a group of 50 video fans would bring along

their VCRs to record as much
as their tapes would allow.

From the outset the little black box

had its own distinctive community.

The pioneers exchanged tapes too

with their peers all over the country.

Thanks to ads placed in
a specialist magazine

that was just a few
xeroxed pages at the time.

- My friend Gary and I began running ads

in the Video Files newsletter for things

we were looking for as
you can see right here.

In return for your favors,

this is so funny 'cause it's so dated.

I currently have 76 Betamax tapes.

In part my library includes 16 Star Treks,

15 movies including The
Day the Earth Stood Still,

The Silent Earth, The Exorcist--

- One of the first collectors that I got

in touch with in 1976 was Ray Glasser.

- Live and Let Die, Diamonds are Forever,

Dracula Prince of Darkness--

- Who was this crazy,
passionate, film fan in Ohio.

- Man with the Golden Gun,

The Forbin Project, Westworld--

- And because we lived in completely

different parts of the country,

I was in Central Florida
and he was in Ohio,

we had access to completely
different kinds of programming.

- Time Tunnel, Voyage at
the Bottom of the Sea,

and Mission Impossible.

- But we would regularly start sending

each other video tapes back and forth.

- And we made so many connections,

people would call us long
distance on the phone

and this went on for years.

And this is how we got our
collections to be so big.

Remember this is before video stores,

before movies were available for rent,

this is how you hooked up and contacted

other people and began trading tapes

and building your video tape library.

- Take three, this is Ray
Glasser speaking from Cleveland.

I am real as you can see and now

here is your Betamax dubbing request.

But Ray Glasser and his gang

were too busy having fun to notice

the darkness on the horizon.

It's a simple
process just turn the power on,

set the time, put in a tape cassette,

push a couple of buttons,

and you are taping a movie off television

in the privacy of your own home.

There's only one thing
wrong here, it's illegal.

The video
fan's uncharted interlude

had come to an end.

Seeing the revolution on its
way the studios took fright.

They realized the industry's
future was at stake.

TV content giant Universal
took Sony to court.

For Hollywood, copying
was akin to shoplifting.

- It's always been our position

that the copying in home, or
outside the home, is the same.

Copying is copying and it's illegal.

Typically the
entertainment establishment

was scared of changes to an arrangement

it had put in place decades ago.

Legend has it Universal's wrath stemmed

from a row mainly about fans of TV series.

- One of Sony's big ads said you know

now you don't have to miss Columbo

when you're watching Kojak.

The television networks
relied on being able

to program against each other.

The idea was people had to choose

and it was all about
winning their attention.

And now all of the sudden there's

a technology let people watch both.

And that shifted the balance of power

between viewers and the studios.

And it was not something that the studios

and the networks were happy about.

The fact of
the matter is royalties

and the possibility of
cutting out commercials

were the real problem.

The studios and networks
feared one of their

main sources of revenue would dry up.

Watch it disappear.

And to be honest
they were not entirely wrong.

- Back in the earliest days of home video

all of us religiously
cut out the commercials.

- The problem with
eliminating the commercials

from TV shows and movies is I'd have

to set an alarm clock and wake up

at two, or three, or four
o'clock in the morning

and be very bleary,
and sit by the machine,

and start the recording
at the right moment.

And then the moment
they went to commercial

I'd have to rewind the tape,
and make an edit point,

and put the machine in pause,

and then be absolutely ready to go

the moment they came out of commercial.

So it was like having your
finger on the trigger,

you had to be absolutely ready.

Oh there's the show, boom.

And you'd have to hit the button.

- And all of my tapes on the wall

still have no commercials,

and I'm very proud of that.

Video disc system--

The case
lasted almost 10 years.

The stakes were huge.

A potential market of
several billion dollars,

and more importantly citizens' freedoms.

In 1984 the case went all the way

to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This is NBC Nightly
News reported by Tom Brokaw.

- Good evening, if the video tape recorder

is running in your home tonight, relax.

You don't have to draw the
drapes or bolt the doors.

You're not breaking the law.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today

that it is okay to videotape

television programs in your home.

Russ Ward NBC News.

The ruling
was very close with just

five out of nine judges finally

coming down in favor of Sony.

A narrow but an anachronistic victory too.

In 1984 some 20 million
Americans owned a VCR,

not just a handful of geeks.

- Millions of Americans already had VCRs

and suddenly to make them all criminal

how would you do a recall, right?

- I think even a few of
the Supreme Court justices

had to admit, yes, I own a VCR.

Good afternoon
Lieutenant Lucerne--

And even Lieutenant Columbo,

the man at the heart of the
scandal got in on the act.

- I'm just silly, sir,

but that machine is weirdly fantastic.

Stop, pause,
let's not fast forward

the tape of history, rewind.

As early as 1977 Betamax faced

a formidable competitor in the VHS.

This newcomer could
record for twice as long.

Winning the price war VHS

quickly became the market standard.

By the mid '80s many
Westerners had already

succumbed to the VCR's charms.

And as in all true romances

the first encounter was key.

- My first memories of a VCR was me

coming home from school as a 13 year old

and I come into the house

and there is my dad
counting money paying a man

and there's this huge box, I had no idea.

- Oh man, first of all they weigh a ton.

I mean they have steel chassis.

They're this wide, this deep--

- And there was this huge chunky machine

sitting on our sideboard at home.

And my mum said it's to
record and play films.

- When you hit the eject
button there was a top loader

so it came, the cassette
came up from the top.

The flap opened,

you had to shove the cassette in,

then push down hard, and press play.

- And you were recording your program.

- And it just opened up a whole world.

- It's an exciting world we live in.

Now capture it and
relive it again and again

with the new Sanyo Betacord.

The video recording system that saves

all of your favorite
shows on video cassette.

Turn on to Sanyo and turn on life.

♫ I said that's life, Sanyo

But this
amazing new world opening up

before viewers was in reality very poor.

The few video cassettes available
for sale cost the Earth.

So in the United States and Europe

some people got the idea of renting them.

The first video stores

belonged to perfectly ordinary people.

They were just family run businesses.

You even had co-merchants
in grocery stores

with videos for rental.

- You might be going to a delicatessen,

you'd get a ham and Swiss,

and you'd walk out with a movie as well.

Then the rental stores started to pop up.

- Let me tell you when we first started

we had one cabinet and it was about

from here down and that held
every video tape we had.

Yeah that held every one we had.

And it took us probably almost a year

to get all those because there's

no companies selling videotapes.

I mean this a brand new thing.

There's no distributors.

No, all that had to be built.

The first
video rental stores opened

while the studios continued to look down

on the little black box a niche sector

stepped in to the breach.

A genre that preferred darkness to light,

but which helped the market take off.

- 100 % porn played a role in the VHS boom.

There's no doubt.

I was there in retail when people

were getting VCRs and every new customer

would come in and they were interested

in the regular movies but everyone

was interested in those adult movies.

The recent opening
of the adult video center

on Prospect Avenue is testimony

to the growth of the VCR business

and the heavy business
done by blue movies.

Porn producers are often

a step ahead of the game.

They understood before everyone else

the true nature of the VHS revolution.

For the first time in
the history of cinema

a movie could be watched
in the privacy of the home

and by an infinite number, a revolution.

This revolution wasn't

a high culture revolution,

but a revolution of ordinary folk

who were thrilled they no longer

had to go to porn theaters but could

rent tapes to watch in the privacy

of their own homes instead.

- I have never been in that
type of theater, never.

But now in the privacy of your own home,

people don't know.

I mean I don't know anybody
here, I don't even know you.

The bravest may have dared

talk about it openly on camera,

but the majority still
preferred to keep quiet.

The video store became the very symbol

of society's ambiguous
relationship to sex.

- And that was in a back room all the time

with a curtain or like a bar.

What is that called where it's

the short doors and they swivel?

- What do you call them?

Like the, what do you call them?

Like the Western doors right?

- It was like an old Western
like those swinging doors.

There would be a sign on
the door saying 18 and over

and you'd go through the swinging doors

and they'd be like oh my god.

- And then it's just bodies,
naked bodies, on every case.

They looked
just like slaughterhouses

with all this pink flesh on the covers.

To be honest it wasn't very arousing.

- After putting a number of the things

back on the shelf, the cases,

I would have to wash my hands.

It might have been psychological.

It might have been
because they were dirty.

But after you put a number of adult movies

back on the shelf, I was like,

I'm just gonna wash my hands.

Sex remained
a forbidden fruit.

The video cassette was
still in its infancy,

but it had already titillated
the West's moral values.

Society suddenly stiffened.

Mississippi is considered
a pornography free zone.

At local video stores X-rated
movies have been banned.

Even Playboy and Penthouse have been

run out of Tupelo by anti-porn crusaders

who have made smut a four letter word.

- Don't aim your pornography at me,

if you don't want me to aim my .45 at you.

- It did become very political for me,

because I was watching my customers

and my friends get
indicted, and go to trial,

and in some cases go to jail
for selling an adult movie.

And almost through the
entire history of owning

that business it was really
driven more, at that point,

about First Amendment than anything else.

And you know the First
Amendment, freedom of speech.

But the sheer force of
people wanting the product,

the sheer force of consumer interest

kept people going,
because even during those

eras where the government
was going after it

sales were big and people
were making a lot of money.

The video
cassette had spoken.

Market forces are irresistible.

In the wake of porn producers saw

the full potential of this new medium.

They began to make programs
specifically for VHS release.

The first huge hit was a tape made

to be watched again--

- Stomach flat, butt tight,
roll up out of your torso--

- And again--
- Roll up out of your torso.

- And again--
- Roll up out of your torso.

And again--

- Roll up out of your torso.

Head to the right, back, left,

really stretch it out, front--

- You couldn't go to a theater and have

Jane Fonda on the screen
doing an aerobics exercise

where that you could
practice along with you.

You couldn't do that in the theater.

You can do that in your living room.

You can do that at 10 in the morning,

nine in the morning, you
could do it at midnight.

That's the great thing.

And she says you've only got

to do it 20 minutes a day.

Do this 20 minutes a
day, five days a week,

and you'll look like me at 60.

Not like me like Jane Fonda.

And she looked pretty good
at 60 let's be honest.

- But I think Jane Fonda's
workout was the first one

and she sold like 10 million copies.

So then everybody jumped on the bandwagon.

♫ Let's go jazzercising, exercising.

- Okay that's good, looks
good, feel the beat.

- There's one called the
Baby and Mom Aerobics

where the mom holds the baby.

- One and heel, two and heel, three.

- And what else?

- There's also a prayer aerobics

where you can pray to God and Jesus

while working out--
- Blessercise.

- Let's warm up with a
bible verse, 2 Samuel 22:40.

And it goes like this, thou
hast girded me with strength.

- Another favorite category obviously--

- Christian tapes, those
are just something special.

- How to videos is another big one.

Like instructional videos so you

can watch somebody do something.

- Anything that is for kids is incredible

because the universe that adults create

for kids is pure
psychedelia, pure insanity.

- I think the best example is a video

that we found called Rent-A-Friend.

Where it's like this guy is
gonna be your video friend.

And so he records himself just sitting

on a chair, like this,
and he talks to the camera

and then he leaves a pause so

that the person watching can answer.

It's 45 minutes long.

Hi.

What's your name?

Yeah, you know I see that.

I really that is you isn't it?

Yeah.

VHS shattered the norms

and paved the way for
all kinds of wacky stuff.

Aspiring producers stepped
in to this nascent market.

No more need for sophisticated cameras,

or film, just a camcorder.

This was the heyday of
videos that explored

innovative seduction techniques.

- Welcome to seduction through hypnosis

the revolutionary new way of seducing

the woman of your dreams.

Videos made
to be watched by dogs

complete with spoof game shows.

Others even turned the
TV set into a fireplace.

All trod a fine line between commercialism

and poetics of the absurd.

- I think it's that moment that we're

pretty into is like what are we?

We're not animals, I guess
we're better than animals,

but we're still operating
on the same instinctive

junk that we're standing around a fire

but it's on a VHS tape.

It's like crazy what we've become.

- We know it's all
garbage, media is garbage,

everything is garbage, let's enjoy it.

Let's like rub our faces in it.

- Or a movie like Citizen
Kane, great movie,

but like I'd rather watch any one of these

stupid videos before that.

And I think that, yeah, I think that

these videos say more
about American culture

than Citizen Kane does.

- This is who we are.

This is what American culture--

- It made us--
- It made us.

- This moment was made by
all of this stuff behind me.

Boosted by this new content,

VCR sales exploded at last.

In the early 1980s VHS
took the West by storm.

In this age of electronics for the masses

the VCR became the number
one must have gadget.

- And I hear that it's the biggest craze

since the hula hoop.

- I think it's gonna move
into the necessity stage.

It may be the fastest
growing business in America.

This was the
golden age of video stores, too.

Which sprung up on every street corner.

For the first time in
the history of cinema

you could mix all types of films.

It was the heyday of unabashed
and joyful cinephilia.

- I'll give you the
nickel tour for nothing.

The outer perimeter of the
wall is the normal films,

and then we have our live entertainment.

These are our foreign films.

We've got silent films.

We've got a religious section.

We've got an astronomy section.

We've got a UFO section.

- My dad took me to the video store

which was a few miles away from our house,

and it was, it was like heaven.

And that was my idea of heaven.

I can still remember how it smelled.

It was some kind of weird
plastic smell in there,

but there was no separation of genres.

It was just a complete mix of films.

- Being able to go to a video store

and to be able to have
this like wide array

of just choice was just so incredible.

- It's amazing.

- No a video store was democracy

that's really what it was.

The video store
became a community facility.

Everyone frequented these
new temples of entertainment

regardless of age or gender.

People would meet there and
improve their movie culture.

A utopian world for an entire generation.

- There you go, thank you.

It's getting on
towards closing time now,

but the scene at Eddie's still looks like

rush hour on the Hollywood Freeway.

- What you did have in the early days

of video stores was
this was a social space.

You wouldn't just go in,
grab a movie, and leave.

People would have
conversations in the aisles.

They would talk about different movies.

There was always a very social experience

in the same ways you
would talk to a bartender.

So you've been
looking for this for what

nearly 20 years now?

Since '77 yes.

And I found it because of Donovan.

- Just got lucky I guess.

- And man I want an action movie.

I want a science fiction movie.

I want a romance movie.

It was nice to talk to people.

I mean I know Netflix,
if you like this movie

other viewers said you
might like this movie.

Computers only do that
'cause some knucklehead

in a cubicle told the computer to do that.

It's much nicer when you talk to people

and that was a great
thing about video stores.

Generating
curiosity and excitement

video store openings were
often festive occasions.

But in all the excitement
people quickly forgot

these stores were first of all markets,

which turned movies into commodities,

and as in any market packaging was key.

- The cover art if that
would pop out at you,

and you'd just be like oh what is this?

- If you're browsing a shelf and you're

sort of moving along first it's got

to get your attention enough

to make you want to take it out.

So first there's that
immediate sort of like, huh?

- My grandmother used to
say a great expression,

you buy the picture.

- Well this kind of packaging

where it's like a pizza box kind of.

It's the Gospel Bill Show where it's,

he's like a singing cowboy or something.

He's got like puppets.

I mean that's just weird.

And I just can't leave this stuff behind.

I can't walk away from this.

I mean this is just too cool.

I love the strange stuff.

Another good example--
- It's a good movie?

- I haven't watched this yet,

but do I really need to?

I mean it kind of
you know what I mean?

But I will, now I will.

In video
stores all over the world

one section had the most
eye-catching covers.

A movie genre that had always made

the sensational the very
essence of its existence.

And with VHS it found
a whole new audience.

Kids get the movies from

the horror section of the video store.

Most of the violent movies are rated R

and aren't supposed to be seen

unless you're 17 years old.

- I had rented Bloody Moon with my dad

and it was a phenomenal
day because Bloody Moon

was just so, had some
great gory killings in it.

Bloody Moon, summer
nights filled with horror.

A killer whose lust for
blood will stop at nothing.

- I also remember renting
Cannibal Holocaust.

- Return of the Living Dead

really scared the crap out of me, man.

That thing shook my whole world.

- And then there were the Fulci films

the zombie flesh eaters.

- Basket Case or the puppet master movies.

I mean really low budget horror movies.

While the movies
may be the rage with kids,

it's a different story
when they're parents

learn about what they believed
were simply horror movies.

- I had no idea that it was at the depth

of this absolute mutilation.

I won't watch it, I'm sorry.

- It's all these little
experiences that just shape you.

I don't know for the better or the worst,

I think I turned out okay.

But you know I just never
knew that kind of fantasy,

that type of programming existed

before I saw it on tape.

In fact the
market for these videos

has become so popular--

Ghoul was
the perfect genre for VHS.

The video rental market knew no bounds.

To attract consumers the producers

tried to outdo each other
in the outrageous stakes.

The most excessive hit the jackpot.

Do you know a director
called John Alan Schwartz?

- How's his last name?

- Schwartz--
- No.

- Who I'm sorry?

John Alan Schwartz.

- John, what did he make sorry?

- I don't know if I know him.

- John Alan Schwartz?

Who is it?

- No I don't believe I do, who's that?

Who is John Alan Schwartz?

- John Alan Schwartz is my brother.

He was responsible for coming up

with the idea for Faces of Death.

- Oh yes, okay, all right.

- Oh, well I absolutely
know Faces of Death.

- Faces of Death changed my life.

- I mean that is the movie.

- Oh Faces of Death you know I still

have not been able to
stomach Faces of Death.

- Yeah I can't do it.

- We would rent it and
we would get together

and we would just be like.

As the monkey
as brought down the hall

and of course this asperity was made.

The waiter presented the men
with a tool for this monkey.

Faces of
Death portrayed itself

as a compilation of footage
of death in all its forms.

One scene stands out for its gruesomeness.

- I came up with the idea to intersperse

real film footage with reenacted footage.

And to make the reenacted
footage so realistic

that there was no way for the viewer

to separate reality from what they were

producing as nonfiction from fiction.

Secured in a special trap

the animal is now ready
to become the main dish.

With this movie VHS redefined

the limits of what was showable.

Selling hundreds of thousands of copies,

Faces of Death posed the question
of ethics and capitalism.

- When I was doing Faces of Death IV

I wanted to make it as grim,

and disgusting, and as
horrifying as possible.

Now is there an element of
morality involved and so forth?

None, zero, it wouldn't be great if I was

the kind of guy that said I can't go forth

with this project because it's just

defiling me as a human being.

I wasn't that guy.

I was the perfect guy for the job.

While Faces of Death

and other similar horrors
barely caused a stir

in the United States they
shocked all of Europe.

Video was a test for the systems in place

a revealer of established norms.

But only in one country did
videos cause a national outcry.

- The problem was the videos
had no classification,

films did, and there
are all sorts of horrors

sort of getting on to these videos.

It mixed sex with violence,

real violence, beatings, killings.

It brought in some awful situations

of using animals, you think of it,

it just went on and on.

For his anti-ghoul crusade,

Graham Bright found a prime supporter.

In the space of months the tabloid press

made horror films the
hottest topic in the land.

In its sights were 40 films
it labeled video nasties.

Bright saw this as a perfect
opportunity to shine.

To convince other MPs incense
of these shameful videos

the wily politician made
the enemy's arms his own.

- So I thought well the only thing to do

is to show them what we're talking about.

So I got Scotland Yard to make up

a 20 minute program with
these horrendous things.

They were taking it fairly lighthearted.

Like say when who's doing the eye screams

and then we brought it on.

- I title like Driller
Killer, Cannibal Holocaust,

and I Spit on your Grave were among

videos watched by MPs this afternoon.

They contain scenes that were

so offensive and so
appalling that some members

had to leave the room.

- To be honest with you
I'm absolutely delighted.

I mean the Prime Minister
made it quite clear yesterday

that she was behind the bill,

and the government was behind the bill,

and that she wanted the bill to pass

through the House as rapidly as possible.

- Of course it's a perfect thing

for politicians to get behind,

because it's kind of easy compared to

all the other things like unemployment

and the Falklands War and stuff like that,

where it's like oh shit, this
is really hard to deal with.

What we can do is direct
everyone's attention

to these dangerous videos,

and how we're gonna save the family,

and save the children, and
the good of English society.

We're banning a few of these films.

And that's exactly what they did.

- We are there to protect decent society.

And anyone who wants
to take the other path

has got to admit, they've got
to account for themselves.

What better
way to annoy young people.

VHS made a liar of George Orwell.

In 1984 the British government sought

to control freedom of expression,

but it was to learn and its expense

that banning or cutting
films was no longer

the best way to stop people watching them.

History repeated itself
like the video pioneers

in their day, The British Pirates proved

the video cassette was a punkette.

♫ Catch catch the horror taxi

♫ I fell in love with a video nasty

- If you're a horror fan
you picked up fanzines

like Samhain, or Shock
Express, or the Darkside,

and you found other horror
fans through writing letters.

And people would swap their lists

of the films that they
had, and you'd copy them,

and there'd be an underground of people

either selling bootleg
copies of uncut versions

of Zombie Flesh Eaters of whatever it was,

or selling the actual video nasties

which had been taken off the shelves.

And it was driven underground,

and once you drive something underground,

it makes you all the
more passionate about it.

♫ All I want is to make a killing

♫ To drill a killer
might be really thrilling

♫ Why are my victims so unwilling

A new era dawned.

VHS laid down the law.

Videos could not be censored anymore.

- First off I don't feel comfortable

children, at all, watching
movies intended by adults.

But that is the price we pay for freedom.

The price we pay is that kids can go

into their parent's liquor cabinet

and get drunk on a bottle of vodka.

It's unstoppable.

It's the beautiful freedom that we have

that kids could be exposed to stuff that

in an ideal world wouldn't
want them exposed to.

But that's the reality of the world.

Imagine the perfect video store.

It would have a great selection, right?

Right over 10,000 videos.

The United
Kingdom was tearing

itself apart over horror movies,

but VHS had already changed the stakes.

The rules of cinema itself
would be overhauled.

1987 was the turning point with the launch

of the video store chain Blockbuster.

The name said it all.

♫ Blockbuster Video wow what a difference

- Only had to go into a Blockbuster

once or twice in my life,

but I always found it very bright in there

when I would go in there.

I didn't get it why it is,

it's like are you guys
doing surgery in here?

Why is it so bright in here?

What do I know?

Blockbuster
imposed new rules on the sector.

It spruced up its aisles and its act.

This new generation video store

sold good, clean, family entertainment.

The chain's launch also marked

the end of the pioneers era.

Financial wheelers and dealers moved in

to the home video market.

A sign of the times,
Blockbuster's main investor

had made its fortune in rubbish.

Video was now just another business.

- When that shift happened
and that you would notice it

was the moment when you
walked into your video store

and in the back there was
a wall of the new release,

much like in a grocery store you'd put

the milk in the back and a couple of

the other things you know
people are looking for.

- You know you'd go to your local store

for a new Hollywood release,

and you'd have to get on a list.

It's like, no I'm sorry that's out,

because they only had two copies.

- Now all of the sudden
they were guaranteed that

that first week whatever movie

was the big exciting one was in.

And that's the moment when it shifted

from the video store owners being

these kind of early pioneers who were

just building their own collections,

to them starting to go into
partnership with the studio.

The alliance between VHS

and the studios were sealed.

Hollywood took over and invested massively

in the home video market.

Symbolic of this historic U-turn

was a movie Universal had
produced back in 1982.

With its ongoing lawsuit against Sony

the studio had always
refused to release it on VHS.

When director Steven
Spielberg made the movie

he swore he would never
release it on home video.

He finally caved in to
the all the pressure.

Profit had a lot to do with it.

The E.T. video cassette is expected

to make $150 million dollars.

- After 1987 home video was making

more money than theaters.

And so eventually theaters would become

the kind of advertising
window for home video.

- In fact the theatrical was a lost leader

to promote the video.

It was simply a marketing
tool for the VHS.

VHS had laid
down the law in the West.

In the United States and Japan

some 70 % of households owned a VCR,

12 million West Germans, too.

And there were already around
30 million tapes in France.

Home video now dominated entertainment

in the capitalist world.

It had one last battle to fight,

maybe the biggest, the
hardest, this time the upstart

was to take on an ideology, communism.

The more oppressive the regime,

the more violent the shock.

In the Eastern Bloc the first
cracks appeared in Poland.

In this state under General Jaruzelski's

iron-fisted control, one movie
came to symbolize the revolt.

The story of a young woman arrested

and tortured by the regime.

It was set in the '50s
but no one was fooled.

When the film was shown

to the authorities it met with hostility.

The officials were livid.

There was a sort of committee
of military personnel

under Jaruzelski's command.

They decided Interrogation definitely

could not be released because
it was anti-communist.

The film was put aside.

An attempt was even made to destroy it.

That's when we decided
to copy it onto VHS.

The VCR was the new arm

in this fight for freedom.

Copying tapes became an act of defiance.

Ever so patiently the Polish rebels

transferred films from
one tape to another.

Their means were limited but
these political activists

understood just how high the stakes were.

There was a huge
reaction to video cassettes.

More and more people were buying
or getting a hold of VCRs.

A whole social life developed around this.

If you own this kind of equipment

you'd invite your friends
and acquaintances over.

We had our own unique form of home cinema.

I have yet to meet someone

who didn't see the movie
on VHS at the time.

The government's efforts to prevent

it being seen failed miserably.

Soviets,
Hungarians, and Poles

fell in love with video immediately.

At the time a VCR cost as
much as the average car.

No problem, the stores were empty

and there wasn't much else to consume.

For the young especially it was

a means of escaping the gloomy reality

of life and the ideology
of Eastern European cinema.

There was a huge black market for tapes.

The VCR was a chink in the curtain.

First I saw all the movies

everyone had to see.

Movies staring Chuck Norris,
Arnold Schwarzenegger,

and Sylvester Stallone.

It was normal,
everyone watched those movies.

Regardless of your social
status or education,

whether you were unemployed or a lecturer.

Everyone watched Rambo and Commando.

It was a generational thing

and we all remember the
films from those days.

The copies
were barely watchable

and sometimes recorded in movie theaters.

A monotone Polish voice interpreted

the movie simultaneously.

Chuck Norris is John T. Booker.

But no one cared,

young Poles devoured
tapes of action movies,

comedies and sci-fi anything
that came from the West.

The authorities realized

just how dangerous the
situation was for them.

This video revolution was perilous.

Not because everyone saw Interrogation,

or other similar movies,
but because it was

a revolution of the imagination.

Soft power from the West.

People were fascinated by the depiction

of the West in these movies.

And it reinforced their
longing for the West.

The regimes were teetering.

No need to wait for
the Berlin Wall to fall

you just had to look at the top 10.

In 1988 when a Polish
Daily asked its readers

to list their favorite movies,

there wasn't a single Polish film,

or any from the Soviet Bloc.

Just good old American blockbusters.

Stop, let's rewind one last time.

The VHS revolution may not

have been the one that we thought.

As well as the comrades imagination

it attacked the communist
regime's very essence.

All over Eastern Europe as in Warsaw

in the Socialist Bloc's biggest market,

video piracy was a kind
of fast track training

in the laws of capitalism.

The
distributors and producers

of these video cassettes could be seen

as pioneers of capitalism in Poland.

They put into practice all the principles

of the capitalist market,

supply and demand, pricing,
and a free market economy.

It's no coincidence that some went on

to found the first private companies.

The VHS and its freedom

had got the better of the
communist regime's rigidity.

The sky was now the limit.

Revenge at last for the
political activists.

In 1990 almost 10 years
after its release on video

Interrogation triumphed at Cannes.

Krystyna Janda became the symbol

of a newly liberated people.

But after the initial euphoria

Eastern Europe was to quickly discover

what lay behind the scenes in the West,

and it wasn't always a pretty picture.

I still recall what a shock

my first New York trip was.

I realized I'd already
seen all of these places,

but they had been framed
in such a way as to conceal

the trash and the
homeless on the sidewalks.

There was something that
the system I believe in

free markets, freedom of choice,

economic liberalism didn't realize.

Many people, the majority
in fact, lost out.

And my generation which was fascinated

by all these changes was unaware of it.

A symbol of
the euphoric capitalism

of the '80s, the VHS was not surprisingly

adversely affected by market forces too.

It was replaced in the
mid '90s by the DVD,

then downloading in the early noughties.

These days you're more likely

to find tapes in the rubbish bin

than your living room.

The video stores have closed down.

But it will remain the embodiment

of an economic, social,
and artistic revolution.

A major shift that liberated
the image and the eye,

made censorship obsolete,
and allowed everyone,

everywhere to produce
and watch everything.

The VHS tape will live on in the memories

the world of the '80s shares.

Some will never forget the role this

old agitator played in history.

- This is a reminder, just never forget.

Never forget, a lot of people who see it,

young people do go, is that a VHS tape?

And then truly a lot of older people go,

I love it, still the best, I
still have all my old tapes.

I'm like hell yeah, and we'd
give each other a high five

and we'd go on our merry way.

- There would be no YouTube
if this wasn't here first.

This is what gave people the idea of

I need to see it, I need to see it now,

and I want to see it.

- Those who experienced it look back

on it with great affection.

Because it was a community.

- Personally I can't
think about movie culture

without thinking about it being,

including home video and video stores.

That is me I'm as old
as home video, right?

This little bit of plastic

has been granted the ultimate accolade.

Alongside Plato, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy

the video cassette and its nasties

now line the shelves of the

prestigious Yale University Library.

- This is in the middle of all the

oh my god Zombie Child right
next to a 19th century book.

Skinned Alive.

- It's so incongruent
to have all these tapes

next to 19th century
manuscripts and all that.

But I guess that's the
way of the future, right?

Mixing high and low.

The ultimate
consumer product,

the VHS, has won it's spurs at last.

- So I just made this up now.

Give me a second.

♫ I got them VHS blues

♫ I watch 'em all the time

♫ The VHS blues

♫ I wasn't kind, I didn't rewind

♫ Don't give me no DVDs

♫ Or HDTV, I just want my VHS blues

If you can use that use it.