This Must Be the Place

in the darkness
I
find myself in solitude most days.
Not alone, since the New York City
cliché about never finding privacy
in public spaces rings pretty true. But
turned inward rather than outward, not
seeking conversation or companionship,
just existing by myself. Part of it is a
reaction to being away from my home
and therefore my friends and family; part
of it is the desire to preserve some energy
to make the city’s day-to-day demands
less exhausting.
Inevitably, my solitude drives
me toward a movie theater. I had only
been in New York City for one full day
before I went to the Alamo Drafthouse
in downtown Brooklyn, where I caught
a screening of Pretty in Pink. It was the
eve of my 20th birthday, and I knew I
wouldn’t be celebrating it with anyone
whom I cared deeply about, and I’d
suddenly become overwhelmed with
sadness and loneliness. So I went to the
movies.
Movie theaters have always been
deeply therapeutic for me. It’s not about
film as a medium, per se — that’s a
different conversation altogether — but
the establishments themselves, the idea
that whenever I walk into a cinema, I’m
connecting to a cultural practice that’s
been shared for well over 100 years. And,
across different venues and cities, I can
expect a relatively unvarying process and
experience. It’s a way to immediately
ground myself in the familiar no matter
where I am.
So I suppose it’s my version of going
to church. I methodically pick a seat that
centers me exactly within the auditorium,
the best vantage point to view the screen.
I tuck my phone away, because even if it
turns out to be the worst movie I’ve ever
seen, I would never text in a theater. And
when the lights veer into darkness and
the projector’s bulb flicks on, catching
dust in its beam of illumination, I fall
silent, like a pastor has opened his Bible,
and I hold my breath in anticipation of
bearing witness to something beautiful
and spiritual and godlike.
Nothing holds more importance
in a cinema than a film, certainly not the
patron nor his concerns or woes; quite
literally, everything else surrenders to
the shadows. In the darkness, film works
its magic, and you begin to understand
why Plato’s subjects stayed in the cave
— although projections on a wall are
supposed to be mere replications of
reality, once you stumble out of the
theater and into the light, you find that
nothing is quite as in focus or immediate
as the images you saw onscreen. And
if you’re watching one of the greats —
Kurosawa or Fellini or Hitchcock —
the sheer detail of a film’s composition
floors you, and you quickly realize that
you never want to watch a movie on your
iPhone again.
It’s indisputable that the
technological era has given us every reason
to avoid movie theaters, or perhaps even
view them as nearing obsoletion. Movies
are no longer restricted to cinemas and
televisions since the rise of the screen era,
and some filmmakers don’t even shoot
movies with big screens in mind anymore,
given the understanding that their film
will most likely be watched on a 13-inch
laptop. And, sadly, we have less time in
our day for indulging in movie theaters,
with our bloated 40-hour work weeks and
hourlong commutes, and phones are easy
to pull out on the train or bus. Plus, I get
it, movie theaters can be incredibly shitty.
Old, torn fabric seats and overpriced
popcorn, couples making out in the back
row, someone chewing with their mouth
open, sticky floors and loud whisperers —
they suck.
And yet, we still flock to stadiums
to watch football games and arenas to see
bands perform, in spite of the fact that
watching the game at home or streaming
an album are far more economical,
convenient, and superior in quality. Of
course, we all know why we do those
things — to experience what we love with
other people who love it too, to view art
in a communal setting, to feel a little less
alone. (I’d also like to point out that all
of these places — stadiums, arenas, movie
theaters — have been targeted by violent
men with guns or bombs. Remaining in
public is an act of resilience.)
Perhaps most importantly, movie
theaters are one of the only tangible
things left we have with regard to movies.
Film lost its body when celluloid was
rejected for digital cameras, and DVDs
are slowly slipping into extinction with
the rise of online streaming. Cinemas
are spaces in which film is treated as
a medium deserving of full, undivided
attention, where everyone collectively
agrees to reserve two uninterrupted
hours of their day to participate in a
communal film-watching experience.
And, most certainly, no one cares if
you’re alone in a movie theater, because
when the lights dim and the projector
flicks on, “me” and “you” fade into a
movie and its audience, a pastor and his
congregation, preaching its sermon to
an enraptured crowd.
LEFT: THE VIEW OF MANHATTAN FROM THE BROOKLYN HEIGHTS PROMENADE. OCTOBER 2018.