Hi, I’m T.R. Witcher. Welcome.

In the roughly 10 years that the DVD has been with us, one thing has become clear. What makes the DVD great is not its video or audio quality, though both certainly represent a major leap above VHS cassettes. It’s not the convenience of skipping around a movie at the push of a button, although I’m happy I can find my favorite scenes quickly.

No. What makes the DVD is the commentary.

DVD commentary is more than just talking heads. It’s a phenomenon at the center of the digital age. It is the growth market, the new information channel. It is the chief output of our digital economy, which loves to atomize information into 1s and 0s and mash it back together—and then tell you about it.

Everything now has a back story. A story behind the story. The multiple ticker tapes at the bottom of the newscasts. Magazines that tell you how their covers were chosen; reporters discussing how they reported the story. This is the world of the mash-up, of the blog. Every story, every damn scrap of digitized cultural information, demands, desires, assumes, requires another story running beneath it, a would-be Greek chorus, an off-the-cuff riff, spontaneous addenda, footnotes.

The above passage is an example of the writer trying to reach for a profound insight in a sort of stylistically interesting way, which usually means cadence-like volleys of examples cascading down upon the reader’s head.

Was the DVD there first? Probably not. But it’s at the center of these multivalent times—when multiple versions of movies and TV shows (as well as real-life events) are all around: alternate endings, deleted scenes, “ultimate editions,” different versions for different audiences and different mediums, “expanded universes” and reboots. This can be exhilarating stuff, to actually see “lost” scenes that otherwise might simply play at the edge of the imagination, to feel, in some way, as if we are part of the creative process.

But this has its dark side, too. I seem to recall Francis Ford Coppola remarking that one day average kids would be able to go out and make incredible movies with cheap cameras. A quick perusal of the fan films and fan trailers of various movies on YouTube should confirm that that hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t think it will. The technology, after all, doesn’t really make the artist. In some cases (see Coppola’s buddy, George Lucas), (Sorry, mandatory George Lucas reference.) the power of endless revision inherent in a digital world—that irresistible impulse to not just talk about the paths not taken but also to actually take them—is not only cheapening the original works of art but also weakening artists’ own instincts. (There’s no artistry in choosing to go with every idea you came up with.)

I think the best art works with constraint instead of running from it.

Of course, by DVD commentary I include all the “extras”—trailers, interviews, documentaries—but the heart of the commentary are the talking heads. Audio commentary usually takes one of two forms. The first is the insider gossip, the tales of practical jokers on the set. The other commentary tends to treat the story of the movie as the main thing—here it’s writers and directors (and sometimes actors) who are expounding on the dramatic and thematic and psychological elements of the story.

Like everything else, commentary can be good, and it can be bad. When it’s bad, there are all sorts of reasons. Sometimes commentary sucks because the movie itself is so awful, and the commentary so straight-faced and earnest.

That a terrible movie—say, the sci-fi actioner "Jumper," which wasn’t even 90 minutes long—even has commentary suggests that there should be a committee to determine whether films are good enough to merit commentary tracks on DVD.

The worst commentary typically matches voices talking about nothing important while the most interesting scenes of the movie parade sadly by.

James Bond movies, disappointingly, are among the worst in this regard. Hosted by a narrator, different voices flit in and out, and so we get incongruous moments where third-tier Bond girls hugging the edge of the frame are given a chance to reflect on how cool Sean Connery was. I know Sean Connery is cool. Where is Sean Connery?

Of course, almost all commentary suffers some when actors spend their time braying about how much of a pleasure it was to work with … well, other actors. In scenes of dubious quality. It’s preening passed off as careful consideration. But, for the most part, good commentaries strike the balance between entertaining digressions and staying on message. In our age of ever-increasing information, good commentary respects the primacy of the screen image and provides context, not just more information.

David Fincher movies are usually rich in intelligent commentary, though the gold standard for commentary excellence is probably The Lord of the Rings trilogy.