cinema

Surrounded by a hundred odd strangers, massive figures projected on the screen in front of me, aurally swimming in thumping noise, sharing the same perspective, the one given to me by the director, yet drawing different conclusions and opinions from anyone around. The smells of popcorn, cleansing agent, candy, and the man in front of me diffuse around me. Each stranger is reduced to a glowing outline.

The experience cannot be matched. The largest home theaters give you the large picture and the organ-vibrating acoustics, but still can’t match it. Those around you in a theater of your own making are too similar. Their thoughts during the film will parallel yours. The film can be paused, for drinks, snacks, or the restroom. The sound is loud, but without the vast expanse of a theater, it is not the same experience. Because of the familiar surroundings, conversation and comments spray out.

A film is ideated, produced, and distributed to be seen as a whole. It is meant to be an experience, supplied by a director and his team of producers, crew, actors, editors and hundreds of others. It is their telling, their perspective, and their recreation of a vision. Movies are becoming more and more realistic, more money is spent on them, and the theaters that show them are exponentially larger, but at their core, they’re still pure entertainment. But something’s changed.

DVDs have destroyed the theater. They have eroded conventions and attacked societal manners. A child is brought up with films at their fingertips. They ask inane questions and their parents answer them. They have conversations throughout. When they enter a theater, their habits are not altered. They don’t see a difference. They don’t separate a social event from one in their homes. They have no respect for the hundreds of others around them. They see them as strangers, but they aren’t seen as strangers sharing their experience, which is what they are. The movie has become about them and thus the experience is lost.

There were a set of guidelines before home theaters manifested. One should not talk openly during a film, but whispers and private conference are acceptable. There were no cell phones or pagers. Children were brought, but this was before ratings. All movies were designed for the masses. Their messages were universal and children were welcomed into the experience, no matter how annoying they may be. But those unwritten rules, those assumed norms, are disintegrating.

A film this past weekend reminded attendees to silence their cell phones several times. The film was rated R and billed as horror. The audience, a very small one, laughed at ridiculous parts and made comments during lulls. It was part of the experience. A shared joke among a dozen people who will never meet again. The film was dismal, but entertaining, and the audience was respectful to the necessary degree. The audience was enjoyable, but this is becoming rare.

Another film, seen at a discount theater, had only one reminder to silence cell phones. The theater was filled with over four hundred attendees. The film, a western of varying levels of drama, was quite good. The audience, for the most part was respectful and attentive. A cell phone ring went off well into the film. It rang for almost a full minute as an inattentive moron searched through his coat and finally muted the digital distraction. There wasn’t even an attempt at a quiet apology to those around him.

Two people behind me, to my right, were speaking conversationally throughout the first half of the movie. The girlfriend, young son, or wife was turned in my direction, his/her foot on the seat beside me, asking plot-related, but simple questions as if she were standing in a line for concessions. His/her questions were answered by her associate in a loud whisper with his hand angled against his mouth, ineffectively blocking his oral interference. They only stopped after I commented.

Silencing your cell phone and respecting the rest of the audience should be understood, but habits are formed in the comfort of one’s home and consideration is no longer passed between generations. We have lost simple decency and theaters are a glaring example. I follow the simple guidelines of going to a film. I am little distraction to other audience members.

I sit here, on the balcony, overlooking hundreds of people, with no one in the row directly in front of me. I stretch my leg to the arm of the seat in front and place my foot on its back. The screen is blank as more people file in. This film is also restricted, but this, as always, didn’t stop dozens of people lining up outside. A woman enters the row ahead of my companions and myself. She no doubt asked to be excused at the end of the row, but as she passes the seat below mine, she utters, “this is a theater, not your living room,” in a tone that reflects general disdain for our age and postures.

I want to stop her, to reply to her off-handed remark. I wanted to say, “If this were my living room, people like you wouldn’t be here and we’d all be happy. A courteous person would realize we were only making ourselves comfortable while the row ahead of us was empty. They would notice how quickly we accommodated their arrival and not make disrespectful remarks.”

But I don’t. She would fume, and apply any number of assumptions to my response. She would remain upset, start an argument, or have her husband defend her. Whatever the case, her experience would be deterred, and I choose to avoid it. I respect her enough to realize she’s just acting on previous notions and generalizations. If only she could muster the same.

Half through the movie, a child no older than a year begins to cry after a series of gunshots. I guess it’s just part of the new cinematic experience.