“Watching cinema inexorably die … brings me little pleasure,” writes cultural observer and film critic Lou Aguilar. “I dedicated most of my life to the art, first as an admirer then a critic.”
Aguilar is a colleague of mine at The American Spectator. What inspired his lament, a piece that he dramatically titled “The Darkening Light of Screen,” was recent news that 39 Regal theaters are closing, in addition to a bunch already shut down since the parent company filed for bankruptcy. “Going to the movies enriched my life from infancy, as well as the cultural and social life of the country (and the world) for well over a hundred years,” Aguilar writes.
He’s right.
Aguilar recalls examples from his own youth. He remembers in 1979 watching “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” on the big screen, and in 1984 sitting next to the first girl he ever loved only half viewing “The Karate Kid.”
I’m about the age of Aguilar and have similar memories. I vividly remember watching “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in Emporium in 1981, before the old theater forever closed. More recently, I recall watching the breathtaking 2012 film adaptation of “Les Miserables” by Tom Hooper (with Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe), and in 2004 sitting in stunned silence soaking in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”
There is no substitute for watching those films on a big screen in a theater. None.
A few weeks ago, I watched “First Blood,” the first of the Sylvester Stallone “Rambo” movies, with two of my sons. I found myself repeatedly saying to the boys, “I remember seeing this scene in the theater. Watch what happens here. …”
My kids, unfortunately, are seeing these movies for the first time on a TV set. They are rented, streamed, whatever — channeled into a living room. Convenience has overtaken experience.
If you’re over 50 like me, you have similar memories. Folks older still will recall watching iconic black-and-white films. A few years ago, my local theater in Grove City, The Guthrie, did a week of classic films. I took the family to see “It’s a Wonderful Life” on the big screen. They loved it.
All of which brings me back to Aguilar’s lament. With the closing of these theaters, such experiences are vanishing. The shutting down of the Regals is a heavy hit atop the rapidly disappearing small-town theaters, which continue to head toward extinction.
I wrote a Trib column in September 2020 about the attempts by The Guthrie to stay open amid covid. I regret to report that the former Grove City College student who had saved the theater recently had to sell it, at a shockingly low price. I wish I could’ve bought it. Someone else did and converted it into a combination of a bar and a theater. The renovation is nicely done, but so far, the TVs in the bar section are running more than movies on the big screen. I hope the movies start up regularly again. We’ll see.
Aguilar’s lament is sadly accurate. We’re watching cinema inexorably die as the big screen darkens. To many in our modern world, who somehow can watch a movie on a phone, the loss isn’t so lamentable. But to me, it’s sad to see.
