“if technology has expanded our cinematic choices, it has circumscribed our cinematic spaces, mostly to our own private screens”
“What’s lost in the process is the experience of moviegoing, of actually leaving the house, fighting traffic to make it downtown, waiting in line, perhaps in the rain or snow, and then enduring 15 minutes of commercials so that, for an hour or two, you may sit in a dark room with a group of strangers and watch images flicker on a screen the size of a tennis court.”
“Of course, you could argue that what matters most is not where you see movies, whether at home or at the ArcLight or at 42,000 feet on the back of an airplane seat, but that you see movies and which movies”
“But theaters aren’t merely film-delivery systems. They are cultural meeting places where art, commerce, and conversation cross paths.”
“From the very beginning, movie theaters were premised on equality. They were cheap enough — five cents a ticket in the early years of the 20th century, thus the name “nickelodeon” — that nearly everyone could afford to enter.”
“Furthermore, there was no economic hierarchy within the theater, no private viewing boxes or reserved seats. Front, back, and middle all cost five cents. First come, first served. Rich and poor, migrant and Boston blueblood alike, all sat side by side.”
“Even the flatness of the screen was touted as an egalitarian innovation. Comparing films to stage plays, a 1916 article in Exhibitors Herald explained,
One is viewed on a flat screen which viewed from all positions is always the same — a picture; the other is composed of people on an actual stage, with a perspective, which changes to every seat. People in various parts of the house see it differently because of the angle of vision.”
“That’s stretching the point a bit. Clearly, the writer never tried to follow the action onscreen while sitting front row center. Nonetheless, movie theaters were more democratically constructed than just about any other public space at the time — and remain so to this day.”
“Movie theaters are, and have always been, stuck in an awkward place, trapped between technology and taste.”
“They have the misfortune of being permanent structures — large and expensive permanent structures — in an industry that is constantly being buffeted by mechanical innovation on one side, and by the fickle whims of the public on the other.”
“For this reason, they have a way of bearing the imprint of the age into which they were born, leaving, in their ever-changing architecture, a fossil record of cinema’s evolution.”
“even as the movies shaped the theaters, the theaters, in turn, shaped the movies.”
“Democratic institutions, like movie theaters, depend on democratic choices that draw in everyone, not just a narrow target demographic. If movie theaters are the places where conversations begin, then they must provide enough variety to make those conversations interesting, for it is in discourse that true artistic appreciation comes to fruition.”
“Graham Daseler is an editor, animator, and sometimes director. His writing has appeared in Senses of Cinema, Bright Lights Film Journal, Offscreen, The Moving Arts Film Journal, and elsewhere.”