Cinema is H-O-T-T-O-G-O

ENTERTAINMENT | HEALTH

Written by Nathan Cosmic (he/him) | @nathan.cosmic / Letterboxd: GenKlytusEyes | Contributing Writer

Ah, the holy sanctum of cinema. When you walk through the hollowed lobby of your favourite cinema, a flurry of excited anticipation permeates the air with the added buttery aroma of popcorn. The lights dim, and the film begins. For two hours (or more if a film by James Cameron or Christopher Nolan), you are transported to another world. Whether it be the meticulously crafted and grand Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings or the prison break of dinosaurs on Isla Nublar in Jurassic Park, we constantly return to these films to be enthralled. The fans and audiences of these films escape their own world to enter one where imagination kindles and excitement blazes.

As we embark upon journeys into these near or far worlds, relationships develop with characters. Cultural icons like Hannibal Lecter, Ellen Ripley, and Captain Jack Sparrow personify this idea. We are immersed in their worlds.

While partaking in the ritual of watching a film, audiences reach peak delight. They scream with excitement as their hero triumphs or fall into a nadir of anxious anticipation or melancholy when their characters are faced with adversity. The emotional rollercoaster of great cinema is an energising force. Afterwards, even for a week, you are sometimes gripped with euphoria. There is an added vibrancy to life. The world is different from before.

Many punters feel that films themselves are lacking. Films are great experiences, yet the medium seems to be dying and instead being replaced with streaming, gaming, and social media. With modern films being part of a larger cinematic universe or based on previous IP, many cinephiles, cultural critics, and audiences are left with questions. Is cinema dead? They may ask. Or is it a sign of the times?

Cinema! Fuck yeah!

“Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul” Ingmar Bergman. 

Some days, the encumbrance of life weighs us down. You get a blanket, a few snacks, and put on that silly rom-com or an animated film that never ceases to make you laugh. Slowly, the troubles of the day peter away. Like a ghost, you exist outside yourself for a few blissful hours. 

Psychology Today noted that comfort movies require “no guesswork, cliffhangers, or stressful anticipation when watching an old favourite — which makes it easier for our tired, overloaded brains to process.” The swirling existential problems of life sometimes get in our heads; we lose ourselves, and our mental and spiritual selves decay. But our comfort films restore our hope as they grasp us and hug us tight. They act as the comfort zone that is always there. The film is tied to our souls.

The out-of-body experience felt with a film is accredited to showing us personal narratives removed from our own. Only in the cinema can you be exposed to stories and be educated through a character’s life you could never imagine living.  Famed film critic Roger Ebert said, “Film is an empathy machine — you can learn a lot about the complexity and diversity of the human experience.” Film audiences will hopefully never be in an asylum with mentally ill criminals like One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but we feel empathic to society’s most depraved. In the film, the audience is challenged to consider how we can keep our humanity when it’s easier to exploit those deemed lower than us. Another is The Exorcist, where audiences are exposed to the idea of what they would do when their religion is challenged. Through Father Damian Karras, it presents the scenario of how a worldview can change when personal faith fails.

Vital to an age where we are isolated in our own algorithmic hypnotism of social media, audiences can be exposed to longer, more in-depth, new stories with cinema.  Whether it be cultural, sexual, religious, or any other theme, audiences can come to the cinema to be enlightened and wrestle with these newfound ideas. Extroverts and introverts are united under one roof and are entertained whilst pondering what it means to be human in this world.

Along with catharsis, cinema is a greenhouse for creativity to grow, serving as a fountain of opportunity to flourish. Cinema propels us into inspiration with tropes of being the underdog, doing the impossible, or taking the high road. Films like Up,  Do the Right Thing, Cool Runnings, Whiplash, Good Will Hunting, or Dead Poets Society tell the audience in a concise message that they can do it. Life is hard, but films are the light in the night. A beacon to tomorrow.  A sign of a day with endless possibilities that will get us out of our devouring abyss.

Manners Maketh A Cinema.

“Hey, it's me. Your old buddy Toecutter in the future, the world is a wasteland of sand and ash all because the downfall of society was brought upon by the callousness of humans. Do yourself a fucking favour and pretend to care. Turn off your cell phone and shut your face!”  Hugh Keays-Byrne. Mad Max: Fury Road PSA for Alamo Drafthouse.The idyllic imagery of what films are and their potential is often shattered by the modern-day film-going experience. Children running in the aisles, the subdued chatter, the dismal projection, and the worst of all. The startling ringing and distracting vivid glow of a mobile phone. 

These satanic devices have become the bane of watching any film-going experience. In the last year, I have seen people enter cinemas late with their flashlights on to find seats. People were videoing the film, and the most disturbing: someone in front of me was watching porn with full brightness. All of these can be enough to push you away from a cinema and instead watch YouTube or Netflix. However, films are special. There is nothing like sitting in a darkened room with strangers and experiencing something great or terrible with strangers. United in the fact that the film has affected everyone in different ways. A study out of the City College of New York has observed audiences have “synchronised” heartbeats when they are engaged in a film. When we watch a film, it isn’t just an emotional response to what we see and hear, but a soul-awakening experience.  The same study showed that being distracted during a film does the opposite.

You sit there in the dental chair and watch the most biennial shows like Doc Mcstuffins or Coronation Street. There are always waiting rooms at the doctors or the fish and chips shop that will play the daily soaps or sports. Aeroplanes are a common place where people are trapped to watch films, à la Ludovico’s Technique in Clockwork Orange. We live in an ultra-busy world, but the answer is not to engage with the chaos but to go to the cinema and, as an audience, feel the film together and come out revitalised. 

Cinema is like Tears in the Rain.

“My dentist said to me the other day: I've enough problems in my life, so why should I see your films?” David Cronenberg

Every month or so, Twitter Gremlins (or X Orcs) of the internet decry that cinema is dying. This year, when Furiosa, Fall Guy, Garfield, and Planet of the Apes had poor opening and second weeks at the box office,  again, people decried “the end is near”.  Soon enough, the crying subsided with the premiere of Long Legs and the bombastic success of Deadpool and Wolverine. Nonetheless, the concern exists. And who can blame the general populous for stopping going to the cinema? Not only are the prices of tickets exorbitant, audience etiquette is also lacking. 

Cinema’s creative prowess has also taken a back seat. Studios have transformed into corporate offices that fund and promote films based on intellectual property (IP) rather than films with fresh and compelling concepts. This year alone, from my own counting, around 30 films (that have come out and are coming out) are adapted or sequels. The reason for this is simple. Money. Audiences will pay for a sequel to a film they liked or to one where the IP being adapted is one they enjoy or know. The consequence of this is a cinema experience full of cliffhangers and “parts”. Instead of seeing something new, society will pay to see parts of Dune and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. Cinema then becomes made up of vacuous marketing schemes and billboards for IP. Rather than a medium that showcases directorial ability and exposes audiences to unique points of view.

Increasingly, people are becoming uninterested in films as a whole as we live in an age of hypercontent saturation galore. Our media diet is tumbling towards a famine. Finding a good film is hard if you don’t know where to look. Having friends as cinephiles can be helpful and equally annoying with their elaborate and often pretentious takes. Most audiences want a good film, yet we live in a time where we are paralysed by the choice of what content to watch. Film is often put to the side for safer, more consumable products like TikToks and other curated online media. 

Audiences can benefit by diversifying and consuming older films, indie films, or foreign films. As Parasite director Bong Joon-ho has said, “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films”. There are a plethora of possibilities within cinema. To starve or limit ourselves from these possibilities, we deprive ourselves of understanding the essence of the human condition.