Movies & Memory
About a year ago, I saw a movie in a movie theater, Emma., staring Anya Taylor-Joy. I saw it with my mother at Des Moines' fabulous Fleur Cinema and we sat on the left near the back. I, of course, didn't realize it would be the last new movie I would see in a theater for 52 weeks and counting. Last month, some friends rented out a screen for a birthday party and a few of us watched Back to the Future on a Saturday afternoon. Liz and I sat on the right in the last row and it felt wonderful to eat popcorn and candy in the dark and pretend like we had, appropriately, gone back in time to a day when masks and vaccines were not topical concerns.
Movies are meant to be seen collectively, social distancing is antithetical to their spell for mass empathy, excitement and catharsis. Thomas Edison is probably the closest to being the inventor of "the movies," having come up with one of the first movie cameras and film studios but his Kinetoscope, an exhibition device for the earliest movies, totally misunderstood the potential of the new medium. For a nickel, a person would purchase the right to approach the Kinetoscope and bend over it to observe the film being played through the peephole at the top. To make money on a 15-minute film that could only be viewed by one person at one Kinetoscope at a time, you either needed a lot of Kinetoscopes or a patient consumer. It wasn't until France's Lumière Brothers and their Cinématographe, which projected films onto a wall for many people to watch at once, that the concept of movies as we know them was born.
If a movie is good I can remember where I sat in the theater for years or decades. Movies differ from live theater, of course, because when we talk about The Wizard of Oz, say, or Lawrence of Arabia, we're all talking about the same thing, a movie doesn't change over the distance of geography or years. You can't see the same production of Wicked I saw even if you saw it with the same cast on the same tour. If you saw it on a different night you saw a different show, albeit slightly. Yet, movies are alive in the same way that visual art is. Why do people walk around a painting in an art gallery if not to see the thing from different angles? A picture of a sculpture in an art history book is not the same as seeing the thing in person, there is no "correct" front of a sculpture. So it is with movies. "Live in the same building," the philosopher said. "But we got different views."
The great German director Werner Herzog speaks of the "voodoo of location" to justify why he prefers to shoot in real places as opposed to a controlled studio. He feels the audience can absorb the realness of the location through the screen and therefore gain a much more genuine experience. Of course, Herzog is certifiable, a man who can get shot during an interview without blinking an eye, will eat his own shoe on stage, and will spend 35 years with John Waters, a man so camp he is in permanent danger of floating away, before suspecting he may be gay. But he's also right. The voodoo of location works with theaters as well. It is part of the movie experience—it can't save a bad film but it can enhance a good one. Where I am, where I'm sitting and what I'm seeing are all part of the same thing.
The first movie I distinctly remember seeing in a theater was Mr. Holland's Opus, in 1995. I saw movies in theaters before then but this one sticks out because I had just gotten eyeglasses not an hour or so before, and seeing a movie with clarity for the first time in years made an impression. We saw the movie in a mall, convenient to pick up my specks at Lenscrafters and then walk to the movie theater without having to move the car. The theater had a wonderful single-screen cinema, at one point the largest screen in the state of Iowa. Years later, in high school, I went there frequently to take advantage of the classic movies they would show on weeknights. I saw Star Wars (center, midway back) there and Rear Window (center, near the front). I took a date there to see A Hard Day's Night (right, towards the back) which remains one of my favorite movie going experiences though she didn't like the black and white photography or the "old music" (clearly, the relationship didn't work out). It was also there that I took a first date to a new movie, The Tuxedo (left, close to the back row), a terrible, brain-dead action/comedy starring Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt. When we both hated it in much the same way, it was the first inkling that I might spend the rest of my life with that person. 19 years later, so far so good.
When I lived in Los Angeles, my theater going options were endless. We lived across the street from the theater at the California African American Museum, where I snuck across Figueroa and saw Wattstax, the documentary of the groundbreaking 1972 soul festival. Figueroa Street, a large north-south thoroughfare, was like an artery to varied theater options. Going north, you could hit the megaplex by the Staples Center, where I endured Avatar while wearing those ridiculous 3D glasses (I would warm up to 3D movies more if they a) weren't distracting and terrible and b) were still referred to as "deepies" like they were in the 1950s). Going south gave you access to a Magic Johnson theater in Baldwin Hills. Half of everything south of Crenshaw has Magic Johnson's name on it (back then we were surviving on gift cards that we got somehow and ate a lot at the Magic Johnson's T.G.I. Friday's in Ladera Heights, this was the definition of beggars not being choosers) and Magic had gotten out of the cinema game long before I lived there. I liked that theater even though all the Cokes tasted like Cherry Coke because I had read somewhere that Quentin Tarantino sometimes went there to see his own movies (though I didn't see him when I saw Inglourious Basterds there [right, towards the front]).
Tarantino actually did own and operate one my favorite theaters in LA, the New Beverly 3, where you could see weekday matinees for three dollars. For an underemployed émigré with little money but lots of time in the middle of the day, this was a godsend. Of course, you got what you paid for. I went three times to see a documentary about Joe Strummer, The Future is Unwritten (left, towards the back/center, near the front/right, near the exit), because the projector ate the film all three times. I've still never seen the end of it. The theater had a leaky ceiling, normally not a problem in sunny southern California, but I saw Revolutionary Road (center, near the back) on a rainy day, and the dripping water really enhanced the moody, crestfallen tone of that particular movie. How's that for the voodoo of location?
Speaking of Herzog, I saw his Stroszek at the Egyptian in Hollywood with the director in attendance, sitting right in front of me. He was so disappointed in the state of the print of the movie (which was admittedly terrible; washed out, scratchy and with baked-in subtitles that included embarrassing typos), he audibly complained the whole time.
Favorite theaters become sacred places. The Vista in Silver Lake, where I saw There Will Be Blood twice in two days (among dozens of other movies), is the greatest theater in the world, a true movie palace with stately columns, balconies and an elegant velvet curtain. In Des Moines, the Varsity Theater, which started operating in the 1930s, was one of the few places to see interesting movies in the city and was everything a local theater should be with quirky decorating from the theater's various decades and some of the best popcorn available. I saw one of my favorite movies, Certified Copy (back, center), there, though my date that time couldn't stand it, proving that I still have work to do as far as instilling good taste in my partner.
I've been thinking of this because every theater I've mentioned is an independent theater and many of them, including the one in the mall and the Varsity, have closed. There have been no shortage of think pieces about the dim future of movie theaters and independent outlets, which add much needed diversity in a landscape dominated by big studios, are the most endangered. Perhaps Edison had it right from the get go, he just couldn't anticipate that 130 years later, everyone would have a Kinetoscope in their pocket, ready to watch movies by themselves.
I'm not convinced. The death of movie theaters has been predicted before, brought on by radio, television, premium television and the internet. Yet, something fundamental about seeing movies together remains undiminished. The pandemic poses a severe threat, there's no doubt, but we talk so much about a return to normal in other crowd-dependent industries, why not movies? Despite studio's hedging on streaming services and one-time home purchases for new movies, those have yet to be adopted en masse and investors are anticipating the post-pandemic theater scene. I know the stock market is insane right now but it shouldn't go unnoticed that AMC theaters saw their stock jump 300% recently as speculators grew confident they would see the pandemic through. Is that number soft in the wake of the GameStop mania? Absolutely, but it's not insignificant either.
In Des Moines, like everywhere, there are scant places to see great movies in a unique setting which became even scanter when the Varsity closed in 2018. The good news is, there is no shortage of film lovers. I joined the Board of the Des Moines Film Society five years ago when the new group had just been formed and was solidifying what it wanted to be. I became aware of how many engaged cinephiles that loved and supported the art of movies with few outlets to express that love. Last year, the Film Society bought the Varsity with the intention of refurbishing it and reopening it in 2022, complete with a bar, an additional screen and event space. After raising nearly $1 million dollars, we officially announced the launch of our $3 million dollar capital campaign yesterday.
When we moved back here from Los Angeles, it was the film scene I missed the most, but we moved in part because the city operates as close to a meritocracy as any metro area I've ever encountered. Good ideas are supported here and the community has an uncanny ability to rally around its art scene. When we moved away, you couldn't live downtown, neighborhoods lacked character, the city needed a refresh on its culture. Because a number of people had supportable good ideas, that has changed with a vibrant downtown that grows daily, distinct regions and a diverse cultural life enhanced by a mixture of independent outlets alongside the world-beating art center, performing arts organization and opera company. The new Varsity Cinema is a good idea and it will absolutely enhance an art scene that already punches above its weight. As a board member, a film fan and a resident, I'm asking you to donate to this project and grow the film scene in Des Moines. This is a city where its possible to put your name on something that changes the make-up of the town. I'm proud to put my name on this.