Digital entertainment and Northgate Cinema

Back in town, and catching up on some blog reading, it's hard to read this from Kevin:

On the plus side, McCall apparently has an interest in bringing digital entertainment like concert and sporting events to the theater, along with revitalized concessions.

and not think of this:

The most immediate of these   changes–the replacement of film in movie theaters–is due to get a   lot of media attention in the near future, and you can count on much of that   to be of the gee-whiz, isn’t-technology-amazing variety so beloved of entertainment   writers, scoop-hungry editors and, presumably, gadget-loving Americans. I doubt   that many negative notes or calls for resistance will be heard, or that the   overthrow of film by television–which is what this amounts to–will   be related to a dissolution of cinema esthetics and the enforced close of cinema’s   era in the history of technological arts.

The latter is movie critic and erstwhile Triangle resident "Gilbert" Godfrey Cheshire's (his articles are much funnier if you imagine them with Gilbert Godfrey's voice) article, The Death of Film/The Decay of Cinema. 

It's a bit of a gloomy piece, as the name might suggest.  The article is worth a read, and although the predictions Cheshire wrote about in 1999 have been slow to come to pass, Kevin's brief aside at the end of his post shows the forces he saw still creeping inexorably forward.  In brief, though, for those who don't want to dig into eight year old speculation on film media and the trajectory of an art form, I'll give a brief summary.  Cheshire argues that the replacement of actual 35mm film with digital technology, in addition to changing the subtle qualities of the viewing experience, actually spells the death knell for what he deems the "age of cinema."  Films will continue to be made, he argues, but piping in sports, news, whatever into the movie theater will become more profitable than making 110 minute feature length Hollywood movies.

With this forecast seemingly coming true slowly, I guess I've found myself in agreement with his prognosis, but I'm a little less pessimistic about that future than he is.  I think I can sympathize with his sense of loss—however much he tends to grumbling about the state of modern cinema, he always shares through his reviews and articles a profound love for the art.  I can respect this love, but I must say I do not entirely share it.  I often find movies, particularly in a theater but even on DVD, too intense an experience.  Even if the movie is awful, I find myself fretting about the outcomes of the characters months later.  It is a powerful surrender to sit oneself inside a dark room and let a single medium monopolize ones senses.   But regardless, to return to the topic at hand, I think good cinema enriches our lives the way any good art does, and I would (or perhaps will) be sorry to see it fade.

To a cinephile like Cheshire, this transition can only seem awful.  But I guess I see a bright side to the change.  For one thing, could the Super Bowl broadcast on a 50 foot screen really be less artistically engaging than Mission Impossible II? (Cheshire's evisceration of that mess still cheers me up.)  Once theaters start to make money putting reality crap on screens instead of faux cinematic crap on screens, does this just mean that Tom Cruise and John Travolta finally just go away?  Secondly, where Cheshire sees the cinematic experience shrinking, I see the opportunity for something beneficial that is currently unique to film spreading a bit. 

I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 the day it came out.  Like other Moore movies since Roger and Me (I haven't seen Sicko), I found it overbearing and obnoxious at times.  But in 2004, being opposed to the Iraq War was at times filt like a very lonely and frustrating position.  I'll never forget going to the Carolina Theatre and watching that thing in Fletcher Hall with over a thousand other beer drinking, cheering lefties, all of us laughing at Donald Rumsfeld.  Cheshire frets that theaters will no longer be quiet, but will be full of people talking back to the screen.  I'll admit that I think that could be kind of fun. 

Maybe it's a brave new world coming.  Maybe I'll welcome it....