Niche versus mass market: big just isn’t better at the cinema
Chris Murray laments the demise of independent cinemas and the rise of generic shopping centre multiplexes with their get ‘em in, bang ‘em out culture.
Punters visit the cinema for an exciting communal experience, not the ease of parking.
As the multiplex struggles to keep the candy bar traffic flowing, automated cogs pump out digital images and the passionate few who strive to make their independent exhibition houses a cultural beacon (The Ritz, The Astor, Chauvel and so on) face impending doom. It’s an education problem, to be honest.
Kids these days have no idea what it means to sit in a cinema where the environment is part of the experience. Moviegoers of past generations were spoilt and didn’t know it. They had choice with unique cinemas specialising in various genres and programming. Today it’s just a shopping mall with seemingly no celebratory effort. Get ‘em in and bang ‘em out.
They don’t even bother to use curtains anymore. ‘Who cares, we’ve got their money and they will take what they’re given.’
Franchised exhibition, as a creative business, is lacking the gusto and inventive passion that smaller independent venues offer. As a result they’re all clambering for the next big thing to keep punters from illegally downloading or just waiting a few months for the DVD. The small guys have known and acted on this all along ironically due to the back-room blanket deals that have shut out mainstream product from independents for decades.
Much like how the music industry sucked on a shotgun, it’s about freedom of choice, a passionate delivery and getting people excited.
Wouldn’t it be great if instead of having one building with 20 screens, have 20 buildings with two screens scattered across town? Spread ‘em out, show different things, have each venue exude different atmospheres and attract likeminded audiences.
Don’t for a second tell me there’s not enough product.
That’s like saying there’s not enough bands for numerous live venues. CD sales are down, record labels are failing miserably, but kids are still out every night watching their favourite bands.
If people are downloading films, it means they want to watch them, right? So why don’t we take the effort to make that experience affordable, irreplaceable and somewhat magical once more.
Chris Murray is the creative director of Popcorn Taxi.
- This feature first appeared in the relaunched print edition of Encore magazine. To subscribe, click here
Like our little cinema in Yarraville, Melbourne……….www.suntheatre.com.au
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The spirit of community is rapidly fading from cinema and its not just about the absence of specialised buildings. At a screening of Melancholia (a film that only the remaining art-house outlets will show), a sensitive moment was ruined by a woman in front of me using her phone; another woman to one side of me started texting; another phone persisted ringing and the mood sustained by the film’s craft was diminished. Perhaps because its a film that divides opinions, those against it seem willing to exhibit casual disregard for others in the cinema. Technology has created a new restlessness, an impatience. We’re no longer prepared to wait and absorb what the film-maker is saying. Everything has to be delivered in quick bites or we’re on the phone telling the world it sucks. Little wonder we’re killing off the auteur. Many of us are now so used to wraparound sound and big screens with anything and everything downloadable that we no longer distinguish between the cinema and our lounge room. We act as if we can make as much noise as we wish and have lost respect for the gradual unravelling of storytelling in the dark. We’ve been fed a pop storytelling formula pepped up with sex and violence for its own sake to reassure the big money. And its well known that big money has little time for dreams or dreaming, only for the ‘cold hard realities of life’. Too many movies are manufactured rather than created.
We need a phone ethic in movies; perhaps the bloody things should be banned altogether (but maybe that’s my generation speaking). Cinema has lost the presence of audience attention. I’d love to recapture the sense of a big movie I had as a schoolboy sitting through the overture of Ben Hur with vast red curtains opening as the film did. The sensation was far better than the film itself. At a recent viewing of War Horse, the audience was required to check in their phones. It improved the experience but made for a queue and a bit of a wait at the end (pity about the movie).
I like the odd chat with Siri but I switch her off in the movies. Why is that such a big ask? The only way I get an undisturbed and uninterrupted movie these days is on my home system with the lights off. But I also enjoy good 3D as a cinema experience because the glasses create, for me, an intimacy with the movie while sharing the experience with an audience/community. The trouble with that is that the technology dominates the story (Tin Tin and Avatar are superb visual experiences of mediocre storytelling). Maybe technology and the growing range of projection systems will create a multitude of specialised communities where individual tastes can be shared (cinemas that seat fifty for the chance to share a Fellini retrospective or a trip through Film Noir). We were stumbling toward that experience with a film club through one of the community colleges (and the opportunity to discuss film, director etc) but a dispute over the cost of the club brought that to an end.
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Great ideas and insight Chris..David you nearly made me weep..We act as if we can make as much noise as we wish and have lost respect for the gradual unravelling of storytelling in the dark.”..too true too true.
Bring on the smaller spread out cinema’s..great idea
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