The Shortening Lifespan of the American Movie Theater
What is the actual future of going to the movies? Anthony Lane asks, as "video on demand" begins to bully the poor besieged theater-owners of America. "Showmen like James Cameron, I suspect, will continue to haul us off our couches for the grand, marquee events, but smaller fare may be streamed to us direct, and new films whittled down into just another channel on TV"—and this is a bad thing, he thinks. His argument is unusual, and it's not one that has ever crossed my mind before.
There’s only one problem with home cinema: it doesn’t exist. The very phrase is an oxymoron. As you pause your film to answer the door or fetch a Coke, the experience ceases to be cinema. Even the act of choosing when to watch means you are no longer at the movies. Choice—preferably an exhaustive menu of it—pretty much defines our status as consumers, and has long been an unquestioned tenet of the capitalist feast, but in fact carte blanche is no way to run a cultural life (or any kind of life, for that matter), and one thing that has nourished the theatrical experience, from the Athens of Aeschylus to the multiplex, is the element of compulsion. Someone else decides when the show will start; we may decide whether to attend, but, once we take our seats, we join the ride and surrender our will. The same goes for the folks around us, whom we do not know, and whom we resemble only in our private desire to know more of what will unfold in public, on the stage or screen. We are strangers in communion, and, once that pact of the intimate and the populous is snapped, the charm is gone. Our revels now are ended.
This comes amid a review of Tower Heist and Melancholia, and while the first is perfect in-bed, at-home, only-while-extremely-ill viewing, I can't imagine seeing Melancholia anywhere but in a theater. In part, that just has to do with size and projection: you can't possibly appreciate the first five or ten astounding minutes on the small screen. (The following 5004238 minutes, though, you probably could.)
This hand wringing presumes that movies are the only communal cultural experience out there to be had. They're not.
@laurel Take 'em to church!
@dntsqzthchrmn Talk about surrendering your will!
If you enjoyed this, I suggest you additionally check out the philosophical meditations attached to his review of "Boat Trip"
Get "the folks around us" to stop acting like they're at home and I'll go back to seeing movies in public. Until then, there are plenty of other aspects of collective cultural life where no one is going to sit behind me screaming into a phone or dump their nachos in my lap when they get up to go to the toilet for the 15th time.
@City_Dater Exactly! The communial movie-going experience has become more unpleasant as public behavior has worsened. Why does anyone need to eat nachos in a movie theater? If it's a movie I really need to see in a theater (?!) I make sure to go when I think it will be lightly attended.
@Trilby
The Movie Theatre Steam Table = This Is Why We're Fat.
Why can't people sit still for two hours without eating?
@City_Dater You haven't lived until you've gone to a matinee at a movie theater right across the street from a retirement home.
"WHAT DID HE SAY?" "IS THAT A GOOD GUY OR A BAD GUY?" "WHY IS SHE DOING THAT?" "WHAT?"
Appointment television.
How did Aeschylus and "carte blanche" get into this essay?
Also, how remarkable that someone actually got paid to write it.
This reminds me of the time television was supposed to kill radio, the VCR was supposed to kill television, and the Internet was supposed to kill everything.
@boyofdestiny But those things did that. They just all survived as zombies.
@dntsqzthchrmn That reminds me of the time I accidentally shot my Blu-Ray player because it looked like a DVD player.
@keisertroll Aim for the heads!
@boyofdestiny Faster, Internet! Kill, Kill!
Also the way people dress to go to Broadway shows these days!
@HiredGoons Back in my day, we didn't wear clothes to Broadway shows at all!
Not to be That Guy (but I totally am): going to the theatres often leaves my blood boiling. If it isn't some idiot teenagers who won't shut up, then it's the middle-aged couple next to us who repeat every punchline or beat of the movie to each other as it's happening, as if they didn't hear it the first time. (Yes, I'm looking at you, annoying couple who sat next to my Dad and I during Moneyball.) People can't go 90 minutes without whipping their cellphones out during a movie. I'm no different, but at least I wait until I'm in the fucking bathroom. His argument only holds water until you realise no one should be let out in public, ever.
/rant
@Connor : no one should be let out in public, ever
At some point, there will be a Gef The Talking Mongoose action figure, and this will be what it will say when you push the button on its back.
@Gef the Talking Mongoose are you taking pre-orders?
What generation am in if I find both the "get off my lawn" and "get on my lawn" arguments to be annoying?
@boyofdestiny The Pepsi Generation.
@boyofdestiny Catalano, duh.
Except that home-movie-watching is often about compromising on what to watch, when to watch it, etc. etc. Compulsion is there, it's just not the manager of the theater doing it.
Let's start talking specifics, people.
Melancholia will be showing in Angelika. I guarantee you, you will not be able to find a spot in that piece of shit theater where you will be able to see that movie from a better angle and with better perspective than I can from my couch on my TV. Same goes for Film Forum, as well as the third floor of Sunshine.
As others have noted, the big theaters (AMC, Regal, etc.) suffer from the invasion of general population (mostly due to the programming that's geared toward them), which makes you want go back home and watch the movie curled up under the safety of your covers on your iPhone.
So, unless the movie is showing in one of the 3 big theaters at Landmark, or at IFC (or, unlikely, at that hidden Regal at Battery Park), the problem is not that "on demand" is more convenient or cheaper, the problem is that theaters suck, and they don't actually amount to places where film watching cultural events should happen.
If you really want to enjoy the art of film the way it's meant to be, get on the plane and go to Europe (and combine that with some good clothes shopping, like I periodically do). When in US, take advantage of what it has to offer: cable, Internet, and big TVs.
@Niko Bellic Oh, you just think flying to Europe at the merest hint of difficulty can solve any problem.
@skahammer Just those related to culture and taste.
@Niko Bellic: I have been to the movies in (small cities in) France and Spain. I expected everyone to be sitting on their hands, silently staring wide-eyed at the screen but people ate and talked there too.
Wow, people here sure dislike going to the movies! For what it's worth, Lane does acknowledge some of the problems with moviegoing:
“Can you blame us?” they will cry. “Who wants to pay for a sitter, drive twenty miles in the rain, and sit in a fug of vaporized popcorn butter next to people who are either auditioning for ‘Contagion 2’ or texting the Mahabharata to their second-best friends?” And the answer is: me.
Also for what it's worth, I agree with him. I like watching movies at home, but going to the theater is qualitatively different. (Per many of the comments in this thread, a lot of people feel it's not just different but worse.) There's nothing quite like the together/alone, communal/individual experience of going to the movies.
Manohla Dargis wrote about the same subject, more or less, this spring in the NYT. Generally I am not a fan of hers, but I did enjoy this piece: Out There in the Dark, All Alone
@finn I go to theaters whenever I can, simply because I often just want to get out of my small apartment, and going to movies is an easy way out. In fact, even the subway ride is a part of the experience for me. It stinks, but hey, "it's communal"! However, every now and then the following happens: I catch a movie like "Silent Light" at the Film Forum, and I think "wow, that movie was so good I have to get a DVD and see it in it's full glory on my TV!". Of course, I would like to see it in it's full glory in, like, a "real theater". However, in this country, that's just not gonna happen.
@Niko Bellic Did they sound the all clear on the bedbugs-in-the-cinema problem? Because I'm staying home until then thanks.
@Niko Bellic you know where you can find really tiny apartments? europe.
@roboloki Europe has a lot bigger problems than tiny apartments (I do have good reasons for not living there), I'm just sayin' they do the whole film thing a lot better than we do it here.
@Niko Bellic I guess ultimately I just agree with happymisanthrope below—there are few experiences I enjoy more than going to the movies. I also prefer the quality of projected film (be it 16 mm or 35 mm or something more esoteric)—even on the relatively small screens at a place like Film Forum!—to watching a DVD. I have no illusions that I am going to convert anyone to the joys of moviegoing. I've had this conversation enough times now to realize it just comes down to personal preference. Regarding all the complaints centered around going to see a movie in a theater, I do experience these problems from time to time myself, but for whatever reason it just doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother other people.
@finn I never watch moves because I spend all my spare time reading the Awl.
There are few experiences I like better than going to the movies, if only because for those few hours a single thing has my attention. There's no real distraction. If I find my mind wandering I do not check my email or phone, or start multitasking by surfing the internet.
Not everyone agrees, and you all probably have better attention spans that I do because I can't watch movies with the same concentration at home.
@happymisanthrope it really is the immersion factor for me, too. give up on the rest of the world for 90-120 minutes (hopefully) and be absorbed. also, my fiance can't watch teevee or movies at home and not start cleaning things, going through piles of magazines, etc., and it's good for both of us when we can just sit and watch a movie from beginning to end.
that said, I got to maybe 3-5 movies a year.
Best review I've read of Melancholia.
OK, Anthony Lane, I share your love for going to the movies but I also love that loads more people are watching loads more movies (and far more obscure movies) than before Netflix, etc., which I think is good for people and for movies.
Teens will always need a place to go where they can snuggle in the dark with a legitimate excuse. When that changes movie theaters will die.
I make a point to see 1-2 films a week. Typically, I'm one of the few audience members. I attribute this to the fact that I seek out relatively obscure movies (The Family Tree, anyone?). I tend to attend shows midweek afternoons, more often than not sitting in an empty theater. So I'm that schmuck paying $13.50 to sit by himself in the dark. Sometimes I feel I'm singlehandedly supporting indies.