STREAMING CAN’T REPLACE THE BIG SCREEN EXPERIENCE
For some of us, going to the pre-pandemic cinema was like going to church — it brought us closer to our humanity
Fifteen years ago I attended the world premiere of the 9/11 movie “United 93” at the Tribeca Film Festival. Among those in attendance were victims’ family members, seated in the balcony of the massive Ziegfeld Theatre (which closed in 2016). At the film’s climax, the passengers frantically wrest control of the plane from the hijackers. As we know, they ended up crashing in a Pennsylvania field, averting a suicide attack on the U.S. Capitol Building but killing everyone onboard.
The movie concludes with that courageous scramble, then goes silent at the moment of impact. At Tribeca that silence was filled with raw wailing and crying from the balcony, a sound I had never before heard in a movie theater (or, for that matter, anywhere else). At that moment I felt more connected to the pain of that day than ever before. It was an experience I’ll never forget.
I’ve been thinking about that screening a lot these days, and not only because of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It has to do with sharing a theater with other people and why that matters.
I’ve been getting paid to write about movies, among other subjects, for the better part of 25 years, first as a staff writer for the Dallas Morning News, then, after they eliminated most of their arts department, as a free
lancer. When I started there was no streaming. Hell, there was barely an internet. Sometimes, for small films, the distributor would provide a VHS tape, and, later, a DVD. But, more often, there were press screenings, set up so critics could see movies in time to write about them for your Friday newspaper. It was just assumed that movies were to be seen on the big screen.
I carried this attitude into my civilian life as well. There was always something sacred to me about sitting in a big, dark room full of perfect strangers, experiencing the communal rush of sound, vision and story. The movies were made for this. For some of us, going to the movies was like going to church: it brought us closer to our collective humanity.
That collective humanity has taken a hit with the pandemic — just when, it would seem, we need it most. Things have approached a degree of normalcy; stores and bars and restaurants and, yes, movie theaters have opened back up. (Please, please, wear a mask, get vaccinated and observe social distancing.) But habits of the “new normal” have set in. As a society we were already leaning into the stay-athome experience before COVID-19. People bragged about their booming home theater systems and asked why they should bother venturing out to spend an evening with the masses when they could sit back on their couch and settle in. Many of these people, when they did make it to the theater, brought their living room manners with them, yakking away during the movie, getting surly when told to shush.
The thing is, I miss even these people. They were part of the show, bad manners and all.
They represented the human factor, which isn’t always pretty, but is as much a part of moviegoing as parking hassles and excess air conditioning (less collective body heat right now means all the more reason to bring a sweater). Streaming was great too — remember “Netflix and chill?” — but as a complement, not a replacement.
Today I wonder if we have passed a point of no return — and if I’m part of the problem.
Several months ago some friends and I went to the local multiplex to see “Tenet,” the latest deafening brainteaser from Christopher Nolan. It was a surreal experience. Not the movie, which I didn’t care for, but the sensation of watching an aspiring blockbuster on a big screen with only a few other people in attendance. The lobby felt like the set of a classic Western, one of those ghostly towns where the characters have room to roam and some bad guy might step out from the saloon and tell you to draw.
This was movie-going in the time of the coronavirus. It’s gotten a little better since then, at least for those theaters that have stayed open; box office numbers have risen from their 2020 nadir, but still lag far behind pre-pandemic times. (Houston’s biggest theater casualty was the historic Landmark River Oaks Theatre, which shut its doors amid much community hue and cry.) But it still feels strange. With so many distributors opting for streaming release as well as theatrical release — when they opt for the theatrical release at all — the experience is more different than it ever has been.
I recently wrote about a movie and was asked by the publicist if the studio could set up a screening for me. I didn’t know what to say. A screening? It had been a while. I sheepishly asked for a screening link, which is how I’ve watched a good chunk of my TV and film over the past year or so. They said no, you’re going to the theater. I’m glad they did. Held specifically for me (an ego charge I’ll probably never tire of ), the screening had an audience of one. But even by myself, there’s something enlivening about going to the movies: the dark theater, the cellphone turned off, the dimensions of the screen, the whole ritual of the thing.
To which the other half of me, emboldened by pandemic habits, responds: Yes, but the convenience. It’s kind of like being in a Zoom meeting. I can sit at a table, or in my bed, not worrying about what I’m wearing on my bottom half, and watch my computer screen, headphones on, cut off from the world. I have to admit, there’s something about this approach that helps me concentrate; it’s just me, the movie and nothing else. I have fully bought into streaming. And yet, if this were to become the default way to watch movies, I’d be crestfallen. Filmmakers design their creations for the big screen. Visual compositions are carefully planned as such, some even more so than others: I waited years to see “Lawrence of Arabia,” with its immaculate desert vistas, until I could see it on the big screen. Plus, I am by temperament and emotional necessity a social animal. I like to share my visions in the dark.
I just returned from the Venice Film Festival, the oldest festival in the world and a prestigious launching pad for the Oscar season (yes, it starts early). Unlike other big festivals, many of which have offered remote screening options, Venice remains strictly a live, inperson operation. But they have changed how they do things. In a nod to social distancing, the festival slashed its available seating, requiring festival-goers to reserve alternating seats online. Good idea, although I missed being able to sit next to friends, or stumble into a movie last minute that I know nothing about and be pleasantly surprised. Serendipity goes a long way.
Everyone wants a return to normal, and shifting moviegoing habits are the least of the world’s problems. But they are symbolic of something greater. In 1946, more than 80 million people, or 57 percent of the American population, went to the movies — every week. Never were the movies a more popular culture than right after World War II. Cinema was a lingua franca, a common language. The numbers went steadily down
after that, but going to the movies remained a thing. It is currently not.
The problem with the decline of in-person interaction is not just a weaker social fabric, but an undermining of democracy, as Robert Putnam argued in his book “Bowling Alone” back in 2000.
The world has become an ever lonelier place and our society more fractured. Movies, when they remain a communal activity, make it less so. Most people don’t have a “United 93” Tribeca experience, in which open grief bound me not just to everyone else in the theater but to a collective story. But connections can happen anywhere, at multiplexes on the highway or a scrappy main street in a small town. Movies provide common dreams, something we seem to need now more than ever.