Cinema as Secular Prayer

There is something mystical about the moment when the lights begin to dim in a crowded movie house. The reel changes from trailer to film with a jarring series of clicks, and in the best of times, the theater goes silent. We sit there in the austere tranquility, drinking up the shadow puppets acting out their play, occasionally contemplating their significances, or otherwise simply existing in a sort of refined ecstasy for 2 hours. It draws us in collectively and yet still personally to partake of a shared experience: the beholding of something that seems in those darkened hours to be greater than ourselves.

In fact, there is not much difference between this cinematic experience and prayer. In the darkened theater, everyone is on the same page, everyone leaves their baggage at the door to delight in the simplicity or complexity, whatever may be the case, of the film being shown. It is as if we are all kneeling to a secular deity, a deity of film, who will take away our worries for awhile, never promising resolution, only offering solace. Our heads are not bowed, instead we stare reverently up at the screen, speaking in silence, seeking community amidst our solitude.

But with this analogy in place, it seems that we have lost something over the years. Instead of allowing the emotion and catharsis to wash over us in a deluge of release, we demand certain reactions and reflections, we insist on feeling a certain way about films. We no longer respect them. When we go to see a standard rom-com, we are either disappointed or elated because it made us laugh and cry all at once. But our attitude towards it is one of superiority, as if we have the right to condemn it for becoming the very thing that our insistence has forced it to become. Filmmakers, if those who churn out the drivel to which I refer can even call themselves that, must make films that appeal to everyone, that elicit a very specific set of emotions, that follow a tried and true method. Little room is given for innovation. But when we walk out disappointed because they don't feel natural, we should insist on originality, not on adherence to a norm. We should foster creativity, not allow functionaries behind a camera to call themselves artists.

In the older cinemas, there was an architectural oddity (that became the standard) that served as a pleasantly coincidental and surprisingly symbolic barometer of our appreciation of cinema in years past, an appreciation that has since become lost in the shuffle, though not irretrievably so. It was usually the case that the screen was situated above the eye-line of everyone except the projectionist. We were forced to be lower than the screen, to perpetuate our gaze of reverence directed upward, recognizing its superiority to us. Now, because it is architecturally and acoustically better, the screen is located at or below our eye-line. We look down on it, as a symbol of our supposed subjugation of it. One difference between Catholics and Protestants is the tradition of kneeling during prayer. When you kneel in the Catholic church you perform an action of only symbolic value, an action devoid of intrinsic meaning, but brimming with implicit significance. If you kneel, you actively recognize God's superior role. You may still be able to make this recognition without kneel, but the constant reminder isn't there. It is the same way with the cinema: having the screen located below us, and not being accustomed to our newfound place in the theater, it is easy to forget the beautiful moments of profound serenity that accompany true emotion, true pathos appearing on that screen.