You must remember this: Turner Classic Movies is one of the few surviving cable TV institutions that cannot be taken for granted. It was never a popular destination, not that anyone ever expected a channel allocated to old films to be. But it was and is a lighthouse of history and artistry in a gale of middling noise, featuring thoughtfully collated collections of seminal works made by and starring cinematic legends.
For almost 30 years TCM has offered something other channels don't – a focus on movies that aren't in circulation anywhere else and influence on the people who create great TV and film. The technical methods that make prestige shows that stand above the rest of the rabble weren't plucked from the ether. The directors, producers and writers employing them learned from filmmakers and screenwriters famous and unsung who came before them.
