We are all going to the cinema, right?
I mean, actively getting ourselves out and sitting with our fellow audience members. Supporting the art form. Supporting the venues. Supporting filmmakers we love.
Right?
I ask because I see a lot of really great discussion about the kind of films we're making, the kind of ways we're financing these films, even the ways we're distributing them. But I see less discussion about how important it is to go and watch a film in the cinema. Way too many filmmakers I know watch films on links or in the comfort of their own home without stepping out and going to a cinema.
I'm writing this from San Sebastian Film Festival and I've watched lots of films in great theatres. So my vantage point is giddily excited. But I've always believed that watching films in a cinema is absolutely vital to understanding the art form, and understanding the power it has on people.
Watching films with an audience is an ESSENTIAL part to being a filmmaker.
Yes, you should study works at home. Yes, you should watch films on your phone on the metro. Yes, you should devour films in any way you can.
But you MUST do it in the cinema as part of that.
Sitting with people alongside you and feeling the tremors of a laugh, a scare, a realisation, a moment of heartbreak, teaches you so much about how the pace, imagery and craft of a film affects you. Watching with someone nudging your knee by mistake reminds us that we are not only individuals. Feeling excitement or boredom build teaches us about how an audience's expectation unfolds.
That’s a big reason why I love doing rough work-in-progress screenings of my films. Not only for people's comments (which are, of course, incredibly helpful) but to see where people start fidgeting, or slumping - or better yet, laughing and crying. I get to feel when a shot doesn't make sense. I get to feel when I haven't given space for people to enjoy a moment. And I’m feeling how it all plays with a collective audience. I’m not relying only on notes, I’m experiencing it with them - and there's no doing this outside of a theatre.
I worked in a cinema in my home town of Exeter when I was in my late teens. It was a Picture House, a great little cinema in terms of what they played. I watched hundreds of films there and I watched the start of some films hundreds of times. It really taught me about the process of cinema-going as part of the art form. It also taught me about the idea of passing your film off to an audience and how much it can change from when that happens.
The projectionist there, who was in the running for the grumpiest man I've ever met but who was quite nice to me, gave me an incredible lesson in presentation and cinema. About aspect ratios and sound and respect for the process. But he also took great delight in telling me that, whatever my vision for a film was, he could still ruin it by projecting it wrong. (There is a long and detailed post that I haven't written about screenings of films of mine that have been utterly ruined.)
Filmmaking doesn’t stop when we export a link, or make a DCP. It’s a living, breathing thing that relies on audiences. And audiences coming together in specific, special places whose sole purpose is to show films.
A cinema to me is not only the single most inspiring place on any given day. For me, it's a way to make myself feel calm. If I spend a week without watching a film in a cinema, I start feeling out of balance. It transports me to a place that makes me feel full of potential and full of connection with the world.
There are small cinemas all over the place doing great work in the face of great challenges, and we need to be turning up. The first time I moved to London, I would go to The Other Cinema there all the time - it was really cheap during the day, had incredible programming and as a bonus I really fancied a girl who worked there. That's one of the many great cinemas that we've lost.
There are magical places out there that we need to be supporting.
Here’s three, for a start…
An incredible example of not just being a cinema, but a place that is encouraging the whole ecosystem. Films for kids. Parent-Baby screenings. A podcast, talks, events. A great cafe/bar. And absolutely fantastic programming.
I love this place so much that when I moved out of London, I gave a huge stack of film books to their library. Film as art embodied in its programming. A perfect, small screening room that’s available to hire (I used to do test screenings there). And a great library that has almost all my old copies of Projections (the film books series that Faber used to publish, and which I see as kind of like FilmStack now).
When you want repertory programming and classic cinema, but you also want a massive screen and banging sound. I saw Close Encounters here and it blew me away.
If you're not going to the cinema regularly and you claim to love film, don't be surprised if it goes away. We've all had the restaurant around the corner that we claim to love but just don't go to frequently enough, that one day closes it’s doors. Don't let it happen to cinema. It's like music - if you love music, pay to see your favourite band, buy their album. Don't just pay for Spotify and hope that they keep making music.
And if we are at a new stage in cinema, filmmaking, and the whole ecosystem, then I think it's even more important than ever to nail our colours to the mast. If you love cinema, you need to be going to the cinema, you need to be paying for tickets and showing up for the kinds of films you want to see in cinema in the kinds of places that show it.
So please, if you're a filmmaker, do yourself and your art form the huge, the important respect of going regularly to see a film in the theatres.
I’d really love to hear — what’s the cinema that means the most to you, and why?
The cinema that means a lot to me was our local Putney odeon.
It was small, damp, and, if i remember rightly, had a stalactite in the corner of one of the screens.
We went there as a family and came back as a family who had just had an experience together.
Forged.
I choose a new release to see in the theater each week (and post about it in advance). Get in the habit and it'll be second nature -- good for you and for cinema!