A Screen of Empty Chairs

I have to admit something. This is something that people either react to with near hostility, or with hushed confessions that they feel the same way. Here goes: I hate the cinema.

Not film, no! I love film, along with most of its media brethren. I just hate going to the cinema. People are generally quick to jump to its defence, pointing to its fantastic immersion and escapism. I don't disagree. In fact, escapism is one of my favourite things. Glossing over whatever that may say about me psychologically, I just don't have to go to the cinema to do it; if escape into myth is my goal, there are many more available and enjoyable ways to do it.

This also conflicts with the other common line of defence, "it's a great social activity". No. NO. No it isn't. Watching a film with friends is a great social activity. Spending endless hours gushing over or dissecting (n.b. I hope never to use the words 'gush' and 'dissect' in the same sentence again) what you've just seen is simply fantastic. It's another one of my favourite things. But the cinema is not the place to do that. If I wanted to sit in silence and darkness with a group of people I like, I'd... well, I don't have any analogy for that that isn't creepy. Anyway, you'd have far more fun doing so in someone's home, somewhere with an actual atmosphere. And if you're discussing the film you're watching in the cinema, well, you're too far gone to be saved anyway.

Representation of the cinema social experience

When you go to the cinema, you get the genuine experience of having your spleen gouged out with a spoon. You pay a small fortune for tickets, and then more again for some of the worst food known to mankind - ersatz sustenance which is either entirely devoid of any kind of nutritional contents whatsoever (like popcorn), or which you wish was devoid of any (like dog spleen in a bun covered with choleric paste). Now, I'm no stranger to trash food, and, honestly, the expense of tickets and reconstituted proteins does not inherently bother me all that much. But I at least want to feel that I'm getting something close to what I'm paying for.

Instead, what I see in a lot of cinemas is this horrible class system for their customers. You get in and try to find a seat with something resembling a decent view, somewhere where you can sit for 2 or more hours without developing neck-strain. 'Ooh,' you say, 'those two rows there are perfect, just the right distance from the screen. And yet no-one's sitting in them already! What a lucky chap I am!'. Then you get closer and see that, no, these are 'special' seats for 'VIP guests'. 'Wow,' you think, 'I didn't know the Croydon TelePlex had so many visiting high-profile actors that they needed permanent VIP seats.' But, no, they are, of course, for those that are willing to pay their way. Sorry, pay more of their way.

Again, I have no actual problem with a business charging more for a thing. The problem is, in every cinema I've ever been in with these, those rows are always empty, or near enough. Which means that they're blocking out the best seating in each screen for very little benefit to anyone, with the added bonus that you make the more curmudgeonly and reluctant cinema-goer (i.e. me) feel even less happy about spending £10 on a ticket and still not being able to sit where they like, when I can buy a film for less than that and enjoy a vastly better experience in my own home.

Isn't it galling when the screen is full apart from the VIP rows, and they still run that ad about piracy destroying the cinema? (Image: Dennis Gerbeckx, cc-nc-2.0)

As I said, despite my deep dislike of 'movie theatres', I very much value the film industry, for all the flaws that it too has, and those two are as inextricably intertwined as a pair of ouroboristic sex snakes. The mainstream film industry is reportedly struggling. This page has a concise summary of some of the key reasons, which should serve as a reminder to you next time you groan at the announcement of the latest sequel or reboot.

But are cinemas struggling in the same way? It sounds like a lot of the smaller, independent cinemas or franchises are, partly as a top-down result of how the studios themselves are struggling. But the big chains don't seem to be doing too badly. Cinemark Holdings and Regal Entertainment, two of the biggest US chainholders, have seen a steady upward trend in their stock prices over the last five years, as has Cineworld Group in the UK (they appear to have made about £20m after tax last year). I'm not going to claim that stock price is a total benchmark of success, but it does represent something pretty substantive about the companies.

With that in mind, I feel much less bad about not supporting them, and feel less guilty for inciting others to do so. Vote with your pocket book. Demand a better class of service; if at all possible, support your local, smaller cinemas (even Picturehouse, now opened by Cineworld anyway - show them how much better this model is within their empire. Beer in your (comfy) seat, fewer disease-ridden Pick N Mix sweets). Demand Better.

Approximate depiction of the small cinema experience (source: elitehts.com)

Nor do I quite buy that not going to the cinema is the thing hurting the film studios. I haven't been able to find a specific citation for what percentage of a film's takings tends to come from the box office. The most specific source (and I don't think it's a great one) indicated that, at least until recently, DVD sales were expected to account for about 50 percent of a film's revenue (search on page for 'fifty percent'). The same source indicated there was a pretty big decline in this, though, driven by the change in the way film is consumed (and not uninfluenced by piracy, I'm sure, though the tendency is always to vastly over-estimate the impact this has).

So, at that time, the box office would account for up to (but presumably less than) 50 percent of the takings. Now, it's possible that, in the wake of the decline in DVD sales, the portion of the takings the box office accounts for has decreased, but that seems unlikely, as significant new streams of revenue have not emerged (the video on demand services that have edged out the DVDs don't seem to be as good a source of revenue for the studios). So, I expect that the box office is now more critical to the studios than it has been for decades. If I were in the studios' position, I'd be doing all I could to encourage cinemas to keep retention high and grow their audience (rather than squeezing every possible penny out of them on the cheap). Personally, I'm not seeing that, and I think the rise in 'movie franchise recycling' (between sequels, reboots and adaptations), while designed to pander to an established audience, is actually having the opposite effect, and is introducing a wider movie malaise into the general public, which is bad for everyone.

I couldn't find a CC licence image that conveyed 'video on demand', so here is a picture of a bear (image: hectoriz, cc by-nc-sa 2.0)

Not strictly relevant, but I thought I'd throw it in here: I was pretty appalled to read about some of the tricksy accounting practices the film industry has adopted towards paying its contributors. I honestly don't know if this sort of thing still happens or how widespread it is, but it doesn't exactly cover the movie industry in glory (and, admittedly, I keep talking about the 'movie industry' as if it's some cohesive whole; like it's just one guy with a camera).

Maybe I'm just a curmudgeonly idealist, but there you go. Bottom line: demand more bang for your cinemagoing buck to tempt you out of your dwelling and into the open. Alternatively, if you disagree with me, disregard what I have said and go about your cinemagoing business.

What do you think? Is this just me, or do other people feel the same way? Do cinemas just have it locked up, and people are always going to keep on coming back to see the big hitters there first, no matter what? Are they reacting the right way to a changing media landscape? Am I just straight-up wrong? What do you love/hate about the cinema? Let's hear it in the comments.