What's Happened to the Cinema Experience?

My friend and I went to see Us (2019) last week, and while I'd love to sit here and discuss how good Jordan Peele's second feature film is (don't worry, I'll write a review soon), I found myself waking up this morning still incensed from the experience I had at the cinema itself.

"Back in my day!"

I know, nobody likes hearing people hark on about the "good old days" when things were different to how they are now, and why that somehow requires a 20-minute lecture about the abhorrent state of society. But hear me out, because to understand my gripes with the current cinema experience, we have to consider context.

When I was younger, one of the first film's I ever went to see was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). I nearly shat my pants when the undead monkey popped up on screen, I cheered through Captain Jack's heroics and laughed at his quips. And aside from the film being everything 8-year old me could hope for, I remember loving the whole experience of visiting my local cinema. 

Geoffrey Rush and co. in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Pick-and-mix on tap. Pop music in the foyer. Families laughing and crying at films together. It was a formative part of my childhood to go to a cinema because now I am so in love with films that it's ridiculous: I don't think I would've turned out that way had I not been taken to see things on the big screen. 

Now, an important aspect of any cinema visit is snacks. As a kid, we bought things from the concession stand: they were pricey, yes, but actual film tickets cost less than a fiver, so it was a luxury to splurge a bit on that extra large bag of popcorn or gorge yourself on too many chocolate M&Ms. It wasn't a necessity but it was just something you did to add to the experience.

Many of you who still go the cinema will know this, and I will explore it further in a second, but unless you only go the cinema occasionally, frequent movie-goers never buy anything from the concession stands anymore.

Why?

Well, I'd rather not have to take out a fucking loan to buy a small popcorn or sell my organs for a Coke.

Capitalist utopia

Let's fast forward back to the night in question. My friend and I enter the cinema, elated to see Us: I have personally been waiting well over a year to see this film and I've waited nearly a month to actually go because I pre-booked (yes, I was that damn excited).

Because I'd been gifted a voucher for my birthday, I had a little bit to spend of snacks: a rarity at this point because, as aforementioned, you don't buy food at cinemas anymore. The price of food is extortionate, to the point where people (including myself) often buy snacks in bulk from local corner shops before ever entering the cinema. 

Average annual cinema ticket price in the UK from 2000-2017 (in GBP)

You smuggle in your 99p chocolate to enjoy alone or with others because, seeing as cinema tickets now can cost anywhere up to £8 in the UK according to statistics dated in 2017 (though my local cinema charges up to £14 for an adult ticket, which is double the average), snacks are just not feasible. It's not stingy to turn around and refuse to pay £4.35 for a small popcorn when you can buy a bag from your local Tesco for a quid: that's called using your common sense.

Anyway, my friend and I decide to indulge ourselves in buying pick-and-mix: you're never too old for slightly chalky sweets that may or may not have been manhandled by a curious toddler beforehand. We chuck a couple of the ol' favourites in (I personally like chocolate mice, raisins and Smarties) and then go over to the register. To my absolute horror, she rings the bill up at £10. For pick-and-mix. 

I give a nervous chuckle and just pay what I can off my voucher card and then pay the rest by debit but my god, what kind of absolute madman must you be to price your sweets that high? Who on earth would pay for that? I know damn well my parents never would have bought me a bag of glorified corner shop sweets at a cinema if it meant costing them an arm and a leg to do so.

Cinema etiquette

So, at this point, my bank account is weeping in the background and I'm slightly disgruntled. But I acknowledge that this happens, that the average cinema is designed for #consumeristlife, so spending money is going to inevitably happen (even if it means throwing away £10 on fucking pick-and-mix).

On to the best part: watching the film. 

There's an unspoken rule, I believe, when it comes to seeing a film in public: be respectful of the audience. That means if you're watching something suspenseful, don't bring in bags of food that make a lot of noise. If you're seeing something subtitled (or, in my opinion, any film, subtitled or not), don't talk during the runtime. And the absolute obvious one: don't use your bloody phones. Don't take them out. Don't even have them on, unless you have to in case of emergencies. 

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe go fuck yourself." - The Departed (2006)

When we went to see Us, not only did people rustle behind us with their popcorn and crisps and whatnot, not only did people talk over the film when there were suspenseful moments and important, expositional dialogue, but they committed what I consider to be the worst of cinema sins: a couple of people were on their phones.

I watched one girl scrolling through her Insta feed and thought, "why the fuck are you here?"
Who pays this amount of money on a film and accompanying snacks to just...not watch the film? If you wanted to scroll through social media at your leisure and half-ass watch something, do it at home where you're not bothering anybody else. And I'm not trying to be some kind of elitist when it comes to cinema experiences, I just believe that it's "cinema etiquette".

I spoke to my best friend and fellow cinephile, Lili (@cinemellon) on her experiences with outlandish and rude cinema patrons, and she very kindly told me her experience when it came to seeing Hereditary (2018):

"When the film began, everything in the screen was fine, and during the first 20 minutes, everyone seemed to share the same sense of quiet tension with occasional nervous laughs. 

However, as the film went on, younger audience members started laughing at serious moments, talking loudly over dialogue, making jokes and making disruptive sounds. All of this was extremely distracting and I was completely thrown off. I was getting more and more angry and wasn't able to enjoy the film at all, no matter how hard I tried to focus.

I loved what I was seeing on screen but, after a while, I was just overcome by rage and sadness, wishing I would have waited until the DVD release.

Don't get me wrong, laughter alone would have been perfectly fine, but people were actively making fun of the film and ignoring the possibility that some people might actually want to pay attention and enjoy the experience they paid almost £15.

As soon as the credits rolled, I stood up and stormed the hell out of there."

Why bother, then?

The question you might now be asking is, "well why do you even go to the cinema then?"

Good question. The answer is simple: I don't.

And that's absolutely not to discourage anybody else from going because when I used to go to the cinema, I would stroll through those popcorn-scented corridors with my rose-tinted glasses firmly wedged onto my face, and I don't see any reason why other people shouldn't experience that.

My argument here is that...well, I don't get that experience anymore. Cinema has become so deeply imbedded in capitalism and profiting off their audience rather than setting up the perfect fairytale-esque experience that most people deeply crave when they go to see a film. 

There has been a debate recently on whether Roma (2018) should have ever qualified for being at the Oscars, considering it's a Netflix film: of course it does, it's a film that elicits strong, powerful emotions, directed by (in my opinion) one of the most visionary and kind directors of our generation. Of course it has a place at the Oscars, an award show that celebrates cinema, people. And a damn sight more filmgoers were able to see it because they were able to access Roma in the comfort of their homes for a considerably cheaper fee.

I understand that money has to factor into filmmaking: we wouldn't have films otherwise. But when did cinemas start to lose that magical edge? When did they forget why people came to see films at their establishments in the first place?

Because, as it stands, I only ever visit cinemas around once or twice a year. And it's not for the popcorn. 

- K

Art vs Artist: Can We Separate Entertainment From Those Who Tainted It?

[Reader disclaimer: this piece contains material of a sensitive nature].

Roman Polanski on the set of Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Following the controversies surrounding Leaving Neverland (2019), wherein the documentary follows Michael Jackson's child abuse allegations, and recent war between actors Amber Heard and Johnny Depp (which has now alluded to both being victims and perpetrators of domestic violence), there has been a question and thought on everyone's mind: are we still allowed to like the films/music they've made?

I've talked with people in my life about this, some of which argue that you are indeed able to seperate a problematic person from their format, others that disagree and say that by supporting someone's film/song/product, you are complicit in supporting that artist as a person. 

For me, I find this to be a difficult question to answer. On the one hand, one person's actions should not condemn a whole film: one actor does not equate to an entire movie, there are directors, cinematographers, producers, camera technicians, special effects and makeup teams...the list is endless. They were not responsible for a leading man/woman's faults. 

However, that being said, I recently watched Moon (2009) for a review, and despite him not even appearing on screen, the sound of Kevin Spacey's voice made me feel incredibly ill. It didn't detract from the whole experience of watching the film but it certainly made me uneasy just hearing him be in it.

Stanley Kubrick and Shelley Duvall on set of The Shining (1980)

We as a society are not unused to hearing people in the film industry attempting to veil their sins off-screen, unfortunately. One of the biggest directors in Hollywood, and one of the most problematic ones, was Stanley Kubrick, who you will undoubtedly know as the man who directed such iconic films like The Shining (1980), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971).

His talents made for some of the most intriguing, awe-inspiring scenes we have ever seen in cinema, and I think that goes without question. But if we strip away his art, if we look at who he was as a person, Kubrick was a self-aggrandising bully on-set, an artist with an inflated ego and a short temper.

He is renowned for his mistreatment of leading actress, Shelley Duvall, who went on to have many mental breakdowns and was as recently as 2016 seen to be suffering from severe mental illness: that is not to say that I'm accusing Kubrick of inflicting Duvall with that but it certainly seems that his influence back in the early 80s left Duvall with arguably severe bouts of PTSD. That is, of course, just speculation...but I digress.

Victor Salva on set of Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Another director who has faced controversy is Victor Salva, which I wasn't aware of until recently (a few years back, I'd say) had been convicted of molesting a 12-year old boy and possessing child pornography.

Insane, right? Surely, then, he was blacklisted from ever making films again.

Wrong.

In fact, after a five year hiatus, Salva went back to being a fulltime film director, his latest project being as recent as Jeepers Creepers 3 in 2017. When I discovered his previous convictions, I was absolutely appalled to know that he was still praised in the inner circles of horror fandoms and still given the time of day to create anything. Then again, people still love Roman Polanski, and he's a straight-up rapist. 

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lars Von Trier on set of Antichrist (2009)

Tobe Hooper. Lars Von Trier. Quentin Tarantino. Ruggero Deodato. 

The list is endless. And these are just horror/thriller directors, I'm not even mentioning the countless others that have committed pretty horrendous crimes within Hollywood.

So why do we still watch their films? Should we watch their films? 

From what I can gather, it's largely down to personal preference. Society claims to maintain a moral compass when it comes to this sort of thing, ready to blow the whistle on anybody willing to step out of line, but if we're being entirely honest here, some of us just...let things slide. 

It's hard, I guess, for some people to accept that their heroes or idols are problematic, indeed, sometimes even as far as dangerous, because we crave what they create. As a consumerist species, we thrive on new film releases, glue ourselves to the TV for the next episode, tune in to the radio or Spotify to hear the new top 40 because entertainment is made for everybody to enjoy. 

But recently I've found myself noticing that a lot of people make excuses to keep that influx of entertainment going, at a point where they will disregard fact and evidence of wrongdoings to ensure that those creative products keep coming out.

Ruggero Deodato on set of Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

This is, of course, not to shame anybody. I am guilty of this myself: whilst I refuse to buy it because I don't want to support distribution of it, I still enjoy Cannibal Holocaust (1980). It's a horror film. It was made to be consumed and enjoyed. Of course I can't stand that they murdered and filmed animals for the sake of their "art" but whether I watch it or not, it's still out there and it's still watched by others.

I think that we've come to a point in time where if we see behaviour that is unacceptable, regardless of your status, you need to be removed from the entertainment industry pending investigation. Kevin Spacey was no exception. Neither was Bryan Singer. Yet we allowed people like Johnny Depp (yes, I know that's a complicated one right now, don't @ me) and Chris Pratt to continue their work because...well...people love them and think they're pretty.

It's so strange to me that audiences will come to the defense of a genuinely shitty person, claiming that "I know he/she would never do that!" as if they have any real impact of their lives as celebrities. You don't know these people and, chances are, they don't know you: they're paid to dazzle you with their acting abilities, they're paid to entertain. Funnily enough, I don't want to pay to see a rapist or a paedophile or an abuser act for me because I'd rather see them rot in prison.

Gunnar Hansen and Tobe Cooper on set of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

So, what do you think? Can we separate art from their artists? Are we allowed to enjoy the creative product without praising the one who makes it? Or do we disregard art if it's created by someone who does not respect the law or the moral boundaries that humanity has set in place?

- K