The typical movie theater screen falls between a width of 45 and 65 feet, with a height ranging from 20 to 30 feet.
In an average household a television might measure 55 inches? 65 inches? 85 the most?
Laptop screens come in around 13 to 15 inches.
The most common iPad screen size is 11 inches.
iPhone screens range somewhere between 6 and 7 inches.
As technologies (and their sizes) constantly change, so too do our options to undergo the wizardry of cinema. However, one must wonder if the ways in which we now take in film are enhancing our experiences or corroding them.
Art, of course, and the ways we perceive art always need to change. The static is stale and stale is death to creativity. Furthermore, change is inevitable. But there are always those who will romanticize and adorn the past while scorning the present and foreseeable future.
Sometimes I think of acclaimed writer and critic Susan Sontag’s 1995 essay “A Century of Cinema” in which she explores, from her perspective, the decline of both the cinema and the very concept of the cinephile, the devoted and inspired moviegoer who seems to have seen every flick ever made and knows everything about them. Sometimes I wonder what she would say about the state of this art form now - 30 years later. Well, I know what she would probably say about the continued survival and growth of franchises (and it wouldn’t be positive).
It strikes me as ironic that during the time Sontag wrote that piece about the dimness of cinema, I was a child experiencing my own excitements towards film. The Friday evening trip to Blockbuster was ritualistic anticipation incarnate. First was the smell. If you ever walked in one, you know it: a bouquet of popcorn and plastic. I recall I was allowed to rent two items every week. I either went with two movies or one movie and one video game. In terms of the movie, I had a usual rotation. You can count on one hand the film or bundled episodes of a television show on a single VHS I would want. Looking back now, I wonder why my parents didn’t just purchase these items for me instead of spending who-knows how much renting Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman over and over and over again. Actually, this intrigues me as someone who now partakes in the throes of filmmaking. My instinct as a child was not to watch all the movies. Rather, I wanted to study a selective group of movies and understand them inside out. I don’t think I was cognizant of this process at the time but in retrospect I believe that’s what was transpiring. I could repeat all the lines from the 1990 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or 1995’s Mortal Kombat. I would even write down the lines on loose-leaf as if I was scribing a novelization.
But back to Blockbuster. What made it special for me, like most things that are special, is that it wasn’t at my fingertips. It was a once a week event where I could indulge with our television screen before the school week began again. Thus, I immensely looked forward to it.
The theater was also a special place. Friends had their birthday parties there. We took class trips to watch (debatably) age-appropriate films. The room would darken and in the mystery of blackness magic would commence.
When a teacher would roll out a TV on an AV cart, we knew the class would be an exciting one. We would race home from school in time to watch a show. We would wake up on Saturday mornings to see cartoons. We perused the TV guide to ascertain our options. To be clear, however, I don’t mean to paint an unrealistic picture where our lives revolved around TV and film, as that wouldn’t truly be the case. As children we split our time between playing outside (sports, manhunt, riding our bikes, etc.) and playing inside.
As I grew older, I viewed the theater as a sort of sacred place. I never truly enjoyed going with a group of people as I found them ultimately distracting (though I can think of a few distractions in the theater I was glad to experience #yolo). I also preferred to visit during the afternoon, as there would be less people in the space. I was delighted when I was the only one there as if it were my own personal theater. I remember my dad telling me when he was young he loved the crowd because the audience participation made it fun. He has a point. The movie theater is indeed a collective social phenomenon. But I needed to focus and so I demanded absolute silence in service of the reverence required for a proper viewing. I smirk now at the ridiculous level of seriousness I always had for film. In short, I will shush you.
I take you on this little trip down memory lane only to present a juxtaposition. I have become increasingly aware that many people nowadays, in particular young people, have an extremely different relationship to cinema.
I teach undergraduates at Long Island University and so I often jump at the opportunity to question them in regard to how they view film. It should be of no surprise that those studying film express great enthusiasm as one would expect (though I do worry this too might somehow shift in the future). Theatre majors too are able to really discuss film in an analytical way, though I have noticed an abundance of actors who have barely seen a significant number of films (which always shocks me to no end).
And then I come across comments that, at one point in my life, I would have never expected to hear. Students tell me they don’t really like movies. Many view them as mere ambience – something to put on in the background to quell a saturation of silence. Others watch but not intently. They spend half the movie scrolling on their phones or laptops, often ironically watching video reels on social media. They enjoy certain shows, especially ones that make them laugh. But what I so rarely see is even a degree of infatuation. Films almost feel like old news.
Ironically, almost all of them have seen a few Marvel movies; the superhero trend continues. I don’t particularly mind this as our modern mythical heroes can serve as a wonderful entry point into true cinema. Also, superheroes rock. I grew up an avid comic-book reader and adored seeing many beloved characters on the big screen for the first time. But Martin Scorsese was right to liken those films to theme parks. They have a different purpose and function than films than are generated first from an artistic need to exist. But they are extremely accessible and that is a net positive in my book.
One semester I performed a little experiment. I decided to show two films during the duration of my English course. We watched The Matrix during the first half of the semester. It astonishes me how maybe 1 or 2 students will have seen the film prior to watching it in class every time I show it and get this: last semester one student even felt it was a rather slow-moving movie – The Matrix! For the second film, during the second half of the semester, I did something a little different. I brought a microwave to class with movie theater style popcorn, candies, chocolates, and sodas. And yes, I checked first for allergies. Together we sat in the classroom with the lights off, munched on traditional movie-going fare and watched Spike Jonze’s Her on the projector. Other students gathered outside of the classroom as they thought, at one point, we were watching pornography. Kristen Wiig’s off-camera portrayal of SexyKitten always creates quite the stir. On the surface, students often think I am doing something “nice” by bringing in snacks. But when the film concluded, and before we delved into our analytical discussion of it, I asked them to reflect on the experience of watching the film in relationship to the food. The consensus was that the food essentially helped them remain focused, interested and invested. It acted as an aid, supplying a continual need to refuel, which ultimately allowed them to make it through the film nearly uninterrupted. It also harnessed that communal experience (dad should be proud). Many stated they hadn’t been to an actual movie theater in years, some since they were children (I wonder if this has anything to do with the heightened awareness and fear following the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises). I like to think this little classroom investigation provided something of value: a peek into the power of cinema.
It’s not just the frequency of watching film that has changed but how we watch has morphed as well.
Streaming has replaced physical media (I am an adamant advocate of physical media and still request my SAG-AFTRA screeners to come in the mail). I find it interesting to note that far more students watch episodic shows than films. We tend to binge- watch on-demand products, devouring and consuming them like fast food commodities.
From the big screens of the theater, we turned to the television screen, and then to the laptop, next the iPad, and now people watch shows and movies entirely on their phones, ushering in the next generation of the ever-shifting intimacies of cinema.
And intimacy is indeed the correct word here. We hold actors and grand sets, distant planets and visual effects, in our very hands while slouched over, peering into a small little screen. Our fingers accidentally muffle the sound as they glide over our phone’s speakers. We are constantly adjusting the volume based on what’s going on in the external world. We have the power to manipulate our screen’s brightness on a whim. We have control over the art and it’s literally in the palm of our hands.
Does this perhaps have anything to do with why films don’t seem to possess the same magic they once did? Or is it because such magic is so easily exposed nowadays? You can easily lookup a tutorial for anything related to film on YouTube any second of any day. We don’t have to wonder how effects are accomplished. We can just Google the answer. We don’t even have to type it out. We can ask Siri or Alexa. Hop on ChatGPT and learn the intricacies. Knowledge may indeed be power. But it may also be the slayer of the spellbinding.
More interestingly though, how does this change in cinematic intimacy steer our perception of film itself?
In 2022 a film I directed entitled The Concertgoer was released and I had a peculiar experience. During the editing process I watched the film an ungodly amount of times as all directors do. Then I showed some friends and colleagues on my laptop, perhaps my iPad, I even watched it on my phone on the go. But when the film was screened at New York City Short Comedy Film Festival, I felt as if I was watching an entirely different film. I couldn’t quite place my finger on why, but it felt like the level of intimacy, the relationship between the film and I, had wildly changed.
Fun not-so-factual fact: If Joaquin Phoenix’s character Theodore from Her could date my film he totally would.
That’s when I realized it. Much like how Nicholas Carr, in his famous article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” warned us that the Internet might have detrimental effects on our cognition and our capacity for both concentration and contemplation, the ever-shifting intimacies of cinema might be rewiring our very understanding of film and our ability to ingest it.
What does it mean to be truly immersed in a motion picture? Well for starters it means you can’t simply swipe to the next video to simulate a need for fast-paced, highly engaging, and personalized content. A true piece of cinema isn’t an algorithm designed for you. It is instead a privilege we have to be able to witness the execution of another’s vision and what they have to say. If you watch a film and constantly think, “I would have done that differently!” instead of, “Why did the director make that choice!?” I think you are approaching the entire encounter in the least interesting way.
Immersion is complete absorption, an unrelenting engagement. As we climb up the ladder of technology by exchanging the theater for the TV for the laptop for the iPad for the iPhone, are we simultaneously losing, bit by bit, the very ability to immerse ourselves in the ceremony of cinema?
This ever-shrinking immersion coupled with the total unbridled access streaming provides and the removal of the ritualistic elements of a tradition is reducing our very desire for cinema. It’s been dragged out of the dangerous and cryptic darkness and into the over-saturated florescent lights of life. Ever-exposed. Disallowing us to yearn for it. The seduction of cinema has seemingly expired.
Until, of course, it resurrects. And it shall. Even if it looks different. Trends halt, change directions, come full circle, retreat, and surrender to the whims of supply and demand. And as the moneymaking capitalistic machine of the movie business churns out cog after cog, we all know where the artists are - even though we can’t see them. The artists are in the dark. We don’t know them yet. But they have something up their sleeves. Just wait. You’ll see.