The Cinema Experience — Why Moviegoing Matters More Than Ever
An emotional trigger that’s never left, never faded
My earliest memory is a trip to the cinema. A four-year-old boy with his mum and dad, lost in a sea of limbs and overcoats as we stood in the cold outside the Monico cinema in Cardiff, shuffling towards the entrance on the night I first saw Star Wars.
It was Christmas 1977.
An occasion embedded into me, an emotional trigger that’s never left, never faded.
The hazy recollection of the cold on my face, the chill creeping inside my big green coat with the fur-lined hood. A night where the air came alive, swirling from mouths and nostrils and shimmering in the arcing light of the street lamps, over frosted car tops and glassy pavements.
A shudder of excitement, a giddy quiver at being out late. A treat: the big boy out past bedtime while baby brother slept at home, in the care of grandparents.
The climb of the staircase, sweeping up and around to the top of the building in a lazy spiral. The brass rail, the dim light, and the waft of nicotine-tinged smoke that seemed to embed itself into the very fabric of the era.
The murmur of fellow guests and the creak of seats being pulled down, of apologetic patrons edging along the aisles. Sitting in the huge dark theatre in my own seat, legs dangling off the edge of the cushion; sucking orange juice through a plastic straw, sharing a box of Jelly Babies that my dad bought from the lady behind the window downstairs.
A Film That Formed A Childhood
From the opening fanfare, seeing the words scroll up the screen, the resounding orchestral score I could feel in my chest and made my face prickle. Luke Skywalker staring out at a duel sunset while his melancholic score plays in the background.
Laser guns and lightsabers, the ominous rumble and overhead loom of the Star Destroyer on the giant screen. The animals and people and gunfights and rescues, goodies and baddies, and the ceremony at the end that made me shake, made my eyes water in a way that wasn’t crying but something else; neither happy nor sad.
Every moment, every character, every sound: all infused with memories of my infancy. Of a time when I would play with my friends; when a climbing frame was the Millennium Falcon and I, with my shock of white-blonde hair, was Luke, always Luke.
Even the drive home afterward. Sitting low on the back seat and seeing the light from the rows of street lamps flash across the car as we passed, making our own jump to light speed.
The car stopping on the driveway; the hand brake raised with a crunch. And the quiet in the car for a few moments before the doors are opened.
It’s upon this memory that all others seem to form. Cinema moments, the films that I watched, the occasion, acting like cerebral hooks, each visit a timestamp to a period of my life. Where I was, who I was, who I was with.
Cinema’s Cultural Impact
From the opening of the first picture house to the midnight premieres of Avengers: Endgame or The Rise of Skywalker, cinema has created experiences shared by millions on a global scale.
The so-called ‘Golden Age’ of the 30s and 40s may be revered as the birth of the film star and the rise of the great studios of Hollywood, but what made the era shine was the audiences, attending in extraordinary droves.
Cinema and cinema-going was a cultural experience on a mass scale.
In the US, more than 60% of the US adult population averaged at least one visit per week to the cinema in the 30s and 40s, with a similar tale to be told in the UK, peaking in the immediate post-war years at 1.6 billion visits in a calendar year.
Were they going because of the high output of quality? Of course not. It was the social experience of attending.
A shared event.
The physical act of going to the cinema, the experience itself, was at the heart of the enjoyment. If you saw a good film as well, that was a bonus.
My grandmother used to tell of one night spent at the Capitol Cinema in Cardiff, a film interrupted by Hitler’s Luftwaffe and their indiscriminate bombs falling from the sky. Evacuated from theatre to cellar and later a walk home, past houses and buses ablaze, the acrid smell of smoldering rubble and gunpowder. A neighbor’s house leveled to the ground; a family perished in a shelter.
A story I often heard as a child, the visit to the cinema always the centerpiece to the tale.
Of course, no such drama from my own cinematic memory bank, although I did once get evacuated from a viewing of JFK due to a bogus bomb scare at the height of the IRA’s activity in the early 90s.
The Moviegoing Experience and the Memories It Creates
They’re the moments we recall, the memorable scenes and soundtracks, the set-pieces and quotes we bring into the conversation.
It’s the gleeful holler of an audience as Captain America picks up Mjolnir, the gasp at Luke’s parentage, or the collective cry of ‘Ghostbusters’ when asked who to call.
It’s a somber silent walk from the theatre at the end of Schindler’s List and the run home while punching the air after watching Rocky duke it out with Drago.
But more than this, we remember the occasion, regardless of the film, irrespective of quality.
Early memories of time spent with parents and friends. A birthday treat, a first foray into adolescence and youth, trying to get into films you’re too young to see.
They’re the nights out with friends and the first dates with prospective lovers.
Birthday party trips to see Raiders of the Lost Ark and Ghostbusters with friends for life. A date to see The Full Monty with a girlfriend who is now my wife.
Cinema is not just about film. It’s an experience, an indelible part of our lives and cultural heritage.
And for this, it needs to be loved, cherished, and preserved.
