Judging a Country by its Theaters

They say never a judge a book by its cover (“unless it is artwork done by Boris Vallejo!” exclaim males in the 15-24-year-old demographic!). You may have to adapt that sage adage to something more contemporary and at the same time depressing: judge a country by its movie theaters. AMC’s recent announcement that it was “improving” the movie experience for viewers by replacing theater seats with recliners nearly made me choke when I read it. For a brief instant, I was bewildered and disoriented. I thought to myself, “Is this for real?” I soothed myself by rationalizing that this was perhaps the latest spoof offered to us by The Onion. But no, it wasn’t and it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

No longer is the movie experience that AMC offers us solely about watching a film on screen, it is about transporting your personal space with you to the theater itself. People can now take naps while the film is being screened. No longer do people have to adjust to the theater; the theater has to adapt to the customers. How distressing! Very soon, I fear, people will soon be able to receive pedicures or drink a daiquiri while a beautiful woman fans them with a giant palm leaf while they watch “Transformers 56: the End of Meaning.”

I live in Cuba now and the theater experience here is incredible! Conversations take place between various sections of the theater….all in good nature, usually talking about certain parts of the film. This became clear to me when I saw the film “42” in the fall. I found the experience incredible and exhilarating! Social conversations have not died out and the film takes center stage in these public and spontaneous discourses. People were talking about racism in the US and what Jackie Robinson had to go through; they asked me what I thought about it. The experience was entirely different from what the theatergoer takes part in when he/she goes to the cinema.

From June 12 to July 12 theaters in Cuba have screened games from the World Cup and this has been incredible! It is an experience to watch a great fútbol game in a cinema with over 300 people in the audience. Breathtaking and lively. They get it here. For Cuban cineastas and most theaters around the world, going to the theater is still a social experience; it is not an individualistic cocoon fashioned to inure people from that social contagion known as public conversation. It is not about extending the confines of home to public spaces. It is disappointing, but all AMC has done is settled one non-existent problem by creating another one: the person sitting behind the audience member who is reclining won’t be able to eat his/her $20 box of popcorn with the back of the seat in their face.