When was the last time you when to see a movie? Many of the people I ask answer with an uncertain shrug, more often than not I’m told a few weeks, months, or in some cases even years ago! To me this is something I can’t really comprehend. I’m a total movie buff and my opinion’s extremely biased; I attend the cinema almost weekly and I think of it as a fundamental part of my routine, something that I would really miss if removed.
But on my weekly visit, the decline in my fellow moviegoers has gotten too much to ignore; even when the lights go out it’s hard to hide all those empty seats. Then one of my local cinemas, an all-round personal favourite, announced that it would be dimming its lights for the last time in the coming months.
Saddened by this news, I decided to write this little piece to hopefully remind people of the magic of the movies, but I want to be realistic too. We’re in an age where a month’s streaming on Netflix can cost less than a single cinema ticket.
Spelled out in black and white, I can understand why people’s viewing habits have changed. But when I walk into a cinema, I don’t buy a movie, I buy a ticket and just like a bus, train, or plane ticket, I’m purchasing the experience of travel. I’m gonna tell you about one of my journeys in the world of cinema.
Sudden glimpses of Paris flashed before my eyes. How did I get here? Just moments ago I was sitting in the QFT, 20 University Square, Belfast and now I’m in Paris! How did I get here? I purchased my ticket to Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris and over the course of the next 94 minutes travelled in the infinite dimensions of the silver screen.
Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris is an interesting movie and one that makes for an interesting journey. The movie’s sharply-edited opening sequence shows a modern, bustling Paris where I meet Gil Pender, not a character, but a person that I like. I learn that he hopes that the city will inspire his writing, dreaming of the great writers and artists that graced Paris in the 1920s, a dream much rejected by his fiancée.
A disheartened Gil walks alone through the streets of the city of love at midnight, takes a ride in a stranger’s car only to end up at a party, where we are just as shocked as him to see that the other guests at the party include F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Gil realises that he has been transported to the Paris of the 1920s and as he explores further he and we meet Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and many more of the great creatives of the time.
Yes, buses, planes and trains can take you to Paris, but most certainly not the Paris of the 1920s. When I went to see Blade Runner 2049, I journeyed to a dystopian future Los Angeles; when I went to see Phantom Thread, I walked the streets of London in 1954; and every time I go to see a Star Wars movie I travel to “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”
The spectrum of different worlds in cinema is truly endless, with a filmmaker’s imagination coming to life on screen in godlike acts of creation, sound and vision. In that dark room with a single window you can’t hear the washing machine spin or your neighbour shout, you can’t look at your phone or answer the door. Something so simple and distraction-free is often underappreciated, and when there is nothing to distract you, that is when the movie can work its magic. You’ll cry at the sad parts, you’ll laugh when it’s funny and you will probably have a panic attack when the killer is chasing the teenagers in the forest.
I could go on listing films, genres, my opinions and theories of cinema forever, and this piece would probably never end. But I’m busy, you’re busy and I’ll probably never be able to truly describe the beauty of the experience fully anyway, so here’s what we’re going to do: let’s go see a movie. I’d ask anyone reading this to give the cinema a second chance, even if you haven’t been in years. This weekend, go to your partner, kids, parents, uncle, friends, cousin or anybody else you might want to ask, and repeat after me: “do you want to see a movie?” And if they don’t want to go? Go yourself. Tonight, to celebrate finishing this post, I’ll be treating myself to a trip. See you there.
© JOSEPH “JOE” GRAHAM, [2019].
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Photograph by Joe Graham (showing the Movie House Cinema, Dublin Road, Belfast which will be closing down in the coming months).
Joe Graham 