I'm fascinated with questions of how different art forms are properly received, so this is a welcome and thought-provoking essay—thank you! Your first footnote leads me to wonder about the ancestry of the cinema. Is it, in fact, derived mostly from the stage? If so, I agree with your point, since there's nothing worse than watching a stage performance with a miniscule audience (the painful experience of Emma Stone's character in "La La Land" being a good dramatization of the feeling). However the fact that the screen mediates the experience of the actor's performances—not to mention the fact that animated films exist—leads me to posit that the cinema derives much of its expressive power, and its aesthetics even, from the world of visual art. I've never heard anyone praise the visuals of the theater with as much adulation as they do the cinematography of directors such as Malick or Scorsese.
Unfortunately, for me, I will probably still watch most of my new movies at home; I'm squarely in the middle of the parenting years and time and money are both at a premium. We have a tradition of taking the kids to the cinema for the first time on their fifth birthday, but after that, opportunities to see films on the big screen are rare. We watch a lot of movies at home, though, and the oldest ones are just beginning to be old enough to want to see new films in the theater—so that's fun.
The cynic in me believes the whole Oppen-bar-hiem-bie thing was synchronized for the specific purpose of getting people to talk about the movies as cinematic experiences, thus driving interest in seeing them at the theater, and thus raking in money for the cinemas. Perhaps . . .
I'm fascinated with questions of how different art forms are properly received, so this is a welcome and thought-provoking essay—thank you! Your first footnote leads me to wonder about the ancestry of the cinema. Is it, in fact, derived mostly from the stage? If so, I agree with your point, since there's nothing worse than watching a stage performance with a miniscule audience (the painful experience of Emma Stone's character in "La La Land" being a good dramatization of the feeling). However the fact that the screen mediates the experience of the actor's performances—not to mention the fact that animated films exist—leads me to posit that the cinema derives much of its expressive power, and its aesthetics even, from the world of visual art. I've never heard anyone praise the visuals of the theater with as much adulation as they do the cinematography of directors such as Malick or Scorsese.
Unfortunately, for me, I will probably still watch most of my new movies at home; I'm squarely in the middle of the parenting years and time and money are both at a premium. We have a tradition of taking the kids to the cinema for the first time on their fifth birthday, but after that, opportunities to see films on the big screen are rare. We watch a lot of movies at home, though, and the oldest ones are just beginning to be old enough to want to see new films in the theater—so that's fun.
The cynic in me believes the whole Oppen-bar-hiem-bie thing was synchronized for the specific purpose of getting people to talk about the movies as cinematic experiences, thus driving interest in seeing them at the theater, and thus raking in money for the cinemas. Perhaps . . .