Drive-in(to) the Post-Quarantine Urbanism: the Future of Italian Socially Distanced Cinema
Italy is currently facing one of the hardest moments in its entire history. As the first European country severely hit by the ongoing pandemic, with the world’s third highest number of victims (as of today, 31,610), Italy has been leading the way in tackling the emergency by imposing an extensive number of restrictions which altered the life of millions of people. Among such limiting measures, all commercial activities except those of primary necessity, such as supermarkets, pharmacies and basic supplies shops, have been closed, as nationwide shutdown is set to thrust eurozone’s third-largest economy into an unprecedented recession, with the third sector being especially affected.
Culture and Cinemas at Pandemic Present
Among the services industry, it is not easy to quantify the repercussion of this pandemic on the culture and creative segment, a system which generates almost €96 billion a year and employs about 6% of the whole Italian population. Although the Italian government has put on a series of financially supportive measures, such as an extraordinary allowance for workers in the cultural fields, suspension of tax payment, and a new €130 million emergency fund, the current halt has been particularly critical in the larger cities, such as Rome. In fact, the sudden and massive loss of revenue opportunities creates a structural threat to the survival of what represented the underlying backbone of an economy highly capitalizing on cultural consumption.
Cinemas are among the places and forms of entertainment forced to shut their doors, being at the same time not a basic need and far from abiding by the social distancing principles imposed by the national authority. Since lockdown began, they have suffered a loss of €60 million, with over €10 million in the first week, and many films officially postponed. Along with the rise of digital distribution, this crisis might represent the end of many cinemas in Italian urban enclaves. However, as suggested by several cultural public institutions and private sector workers, the solution to keep cinema alive is reorganizing its spaces by re-conceiving the outside as a safe and essential feature of visual fruition. As such, a newly-old form of cinematic experience is rapidly seeing a renaissance: the drive-in.
The Drive-in: a Brief History
The invention of the drive-in can be traced back to 1933, when Richard Hollingshead Jr. took advantage of three things that he believed people would be reluctant to give up — food, automobiles, and movies-, to create a space of leisure which would have addressed the main concerns around indoor theatres (Fox, 2018). In fact, by transforming motor vehicles into private theatre-boxes, drive-ins challenged classical conceptions of spectatorship, which prevented audiences from interacting with each other and reacting collectively to the film. Indeed, they encouraged to do all the things proscribed in conventional theatres, like smoking, eating, talking and making out. This special sense of informality created a quite assorted community of viewers, by bringing people together and keeping them apart at the same time. Therefore, the shared, communal experience of film viewing combined with the privacy and comfort of one’s own vehicle.
However, it was not until 1950s, with film audiences moving away from urban centres to the rapidly expanding suburbs, and cars becoming a status symbol and considered for a wider range of uses besides transportation, that drive-ins literally boomed. In fact, this new form of cinematic visuality for the first time provided “a compromise between the giant screen, the ‘going out’ factor of public exhibition, and the domestic hermeticism of the private car” (Friedberg, 2002: 195). Much of the success of drive-ins at the time was attributable to being family friendly, as they offered both an escape from the household and entertainment for the whole family. Drive-ins were also able to solicit audience members forgotten or overlooked by mainstream theatres, such as housewives, people with disabilities and teenagers (Cohen, 1994). Drive-ins represented also a relatively low-priced and profitable investment, due both to the good margin on the sale of food and beverage and to the cheap ticket prices, which provided sufficient returns to pay off the initial investment.
Reimagining the Drive-in in a Post-Covid Society
Provided these features, it does not come unforeseen why drive-ins are being considered as the perfect solution for the new visual consumption of filmic products. In fact, as the Wall Street Journal has suggested, drive-ins seem the perfect match for a global pandemic crisis, since they provide a suitable space to guaranteeing both a recreational and collective experience and at the same time offering protection from the effects of this social interaction. As such, drive-ins should easily fall under the new public-health guidelines, as they are based on the premise that people can all sit in their cars, away from each other, and being provided with a socially distanced entertainment. In fact, just by showing an online-purchased ticket from the window, you can park in front of the screen and enjoy your film in the safe environment of your vehicle.
Hence, what was at first considered as an exercise of nostalgia, now it seems a more concrete alternative. In Rome, where the first drive-in was opened in 1957 (the Metro Drive-in was the first one in Italy and the largest in Europe) the proposal of relaunching this form of film exhibition comes from CNA Cinema e Audiovisivo with the “CineDrive” project, which would take advantage of the new technologies of digital projection and Bluetooth audio systems to offer a high-quality entertainment. As such, new cinemas are ready to open their en-plein-air doors in several areas of the city, with also the possibility of a multivariate choice of location. In fact, as stated by Stefano Di Nola, secretary of CNA, every parking lot or large square with a car entrance would meet the criteria and could potentially being turned into a drive-in.
Nonetheless, numerous challenges are currently at stake. First, considering a generally limited profit potential due to seasonal operation and soft demand in B.C. (Before Covid) era, it is hard to predict the amount of interest this old-fashioned practice might elicit in the long-term, with the risk of remaining a labour of love rather than an economic revival for the cinematic industry. Also, without considering the slow-but-steady move towards a car-free culture, social distancing creates unique challenges for drive-ins, for requiring more space between each vehicle and limiting (or banning) food and beverage stands might represent a huge revenue loss for potential operators.
Further, the costs of entering the drive-in industry are increasing due to the passage to digital projection. Whilst being the only way to have access to new films, the costs of renovations involved are prohibitive and represented the main reason of the decline of this entertainment form (Fox, 2015). Moreover, as mainstream distributors used to avoid renting first-run films to drive-ins, arguing that these theatres would ‘cheapen’ films shown in them, it is questionable if distribution companies will act similarly nowadays, possibly opting for releasing new features immediately on the more profitable streaming platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.), leaving drive-ins with only old releases.
Overall, despite being conceived either as a mere symbolic operation or the revival of the film exhibition industry, drive-ins represent the initial spark of a renewed purpose to put culture and creativity first, as its importance for cities and for society as a whole is apparent. The availability of cultural content is essential, and creating safe modes of cultural and visual consumption during and after this crisis is imperative for the sector’s survival. If drive-ins are one of them, let the show begin.
Bibliography
Cohen, M. M. (1994) Forgotten Audiences in the Passion Pits: Drive-in Theatres and Changing Spectator Practices in Post-War America. Film History, 6(4), 470–486.
Fox, M. A. (2015) The Economics of Drive-in Theatres: From Mainstream Entertainment to Nostalgia on the Margins. Economics, Management, and Financial Markets, 10(3), 43–56.
Fox, M. A. (2018) Drive-in Theatres, Technology, and Cultural Change. Economics, Management, and Financial Markets, 13(2), 24–39.
Friedberg, A. (2002) Urban Mobility and Cinematic Visuality: The Screens of Los Angeles — Endless Cinema or Private Telematics. Journal of Visual Culture, 1(2), 183–204.
