A great art form is in the process of being killed
Last Wednesday, I went to a cinema in Leicester Square. On Saturday night, I read that the cinema is temporarily closing down. The sudden mothballing of Cineworld – the UK’S largest operator, employing over 5,000 people – is a canaryin-the-coal-mine moment. Covid, and our response to it, is killing the entertainment industry.
Truth be told, it’s already overleveraged and fragile. What did for Cineworld was MGM’S decision to delay the release of the Bond film No Time to Die until spring 2021, which will no doubt be followed by the delay of Dune and Wonder Woman 1984.
As our brilliant critic, Robbie Collin, points out, cinemas have Covidproofed themselves. The problem is that a cinema without a blockbuster is like a pub without beer.
And many customers are still too frightened to leave the house. We went to see Tenet and there were only six of us in the cinema. Thus far the movie has pulled in about $285 million, which sounds good until you hear that the film was made for $200 million, indicative of how Hollywood relies upon the success of a handful of insanely expensive epics to bankroll the rest of its craft. One weakness in the chain – one bad winter – can imperil the entire industry, and not just an industry but an art.
My fear is that we’re seeing several years of so-called creative destruction take place in a few weeks. We know the direction of travel is away from the big screen and towards Netflix and Amazon, etc; if studios feel the internet offers a safer return on their money, that’s the medium they’ll favour. I deeply resent this – not just because I despise the internet (can’t see the point of it) but because I love film, and film is defined by its size and its audience.
Movies are meant to overwhelm us. The reason why we keep churning out Bond, Star Wars and Marvel is because each one is an event, and the cinema is a kind of trashy cathedral to the modern imagination. The projected image – like Peter O’toole leading a charge across the desert or Ingrid Bergman getting on that plane – sears itself into the consciousness for life. I don’t know why my father took me to see Bambi, but I’ve always felt a little sad when I eat venison.
We watch movies with other people. Their company salts the experience. Comedies are funnier on the big screen; horror movies are scarier. I saw The Exorcist in a cinema and found it terrifying. I watched it at home and laughed all the way through. The medium really matters, and this one deserves a second chance.
There are two schools of delusion in this crisis. One, that Covid’s not that bad and we should carry on as normal. Say that again in December, when the infection rate is way up again. It’s a pandemic: they return.
The second is that we must shut everything down to save lives – and the economy can take it. Say that again in the summer, when Britain is bankrupt.
Economically, we’ve not been through the worst yet. Remember, this disease hit us only in February, after the winter, and our national lockdown was lighter than those of other countries. Also, the Government applied a generous furlough. The next lockdown will probably be longer; Christmas will be cancelled; services will be wiped out; and this time, the Government is not being nearly as generous.
The Treasury is effectively saying it will only support viable jobs, ie, productive work that can survive with limited government support. But the only reason why certain jobs have become non-viable is because of the restrictions imposed by the Government; their viability cannot be judged in normal, free-market terms. For all the problems of the cinema business – including popcorn that costs more than crude oil – people would still be going to the flicks were it not for the lockdown and its attendant paranoia.
We’re going to see more and more jobs and businesses mysteriously become unviable in the next few months, and hardly anything will take their place, because you can’t find new work or launch a start-up in the middle of a pandemic. There is plenty of room for destruction, barely any for creativity. If the Tories think the country will accept that this is some sort of natural process, they’re mistaken. Yes, the virus is real; yes, we have to do something about it. But what we’re doing, and the confusing way we’re going about it, is entirely in the hands of the Government.
Apart from cinema shutting down, Mrs Lincoln, how was the show? Great. Tenet made no sense, but then Christopher Nolan never does. His critics say his movies are just a box of tricks, but who doesn’t love a magic show? He’s one of the last auteurs of pure cinema.
He’s also a Boys’ Own adventurer whose movies play to the brain, not the heart. Female characters are absent or a pain-in-the-neck; there’s one main woman in Tenet and she’s awful, self-obsessed and almost destroys the world twice. Nolan prefers teams of men doing extraordinary things with ropes, and they’re usually alienated or a bit depressed, which means he doesn’t have to script any emotions. It’s a breath of fresh air.
I am sick to death of all the crying on TV. It’s not “an emotional roller-coaster”, darlings, it’s lazy shorthand. Great acting is often beneath the skin; implied and inferred. John Wayne never cried, he made the audience cry – and that is a star.