The Cinema and the Absence of my Happy Place
Original Publication 26/06/20
Photo courtesy of Silver Screen Cinemas
“I have loved cinema from an early age." During my days as a film student, a statement such as this was considered shamefully cliche and, in the context of a prospective students personal statement, would stick out like a big, red sore thumb, or so it was often reiterated to me. While I clearly saw the logic behind such thinking, I also found it to be somewhat exasperating. The reason being, I consider my earliest memory of cinema to be perhaps my most profound and, indeed, my most endearing.
My parents, both film fanatics in their own right, took me to see the original The Lion King (Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers 1994) at our local cinema, The Silver Screen, a theatre I still frequent to this very day. I was two years old and, as my mother tells it, my eyes were glued to the screen as if under a hypnotic spell, something she found to be somewhat peculiar for a child of my age. Something about the vivid colours and the expressive voices resonated with me that day and the setting in which I took it all in defined it forever as my happy place.
Take the aforementioned Silver Screen Cinema, with its portraits of the famous actors of yesteryear, such as Olivia De Haviland and David Neven, lit by low key romantic lighting and surrounded on all sides by resplendent shades of deep vermillion red. Everything, down to the smallest detail like the old fashioned ticket stubs, the uncomfortable chairs and the intoxicating smell of warm popcorn is inexplicably authentic.
Contained within those walls are memories that bring a smile to my face, a glisten to my eyes and a strange wooziness in the pit of my stomach. That old darling, nostalgia. Forever will I cherish watching The Two Towers (Peter Jackson 2002) and The Return of the King (Peter Jackson 2003) with my family on Christmas Eve. Always, will I remember dropping tears as Lance Corporal Schofield ran across the battlefield to Thomas Newman’s scintillating score as explosions erupted behind him in 1917 (Sam Mendes 2019). It’s moments like these that reiterate why I love movies.
During the lockdown, and in the excruciating absence of cinema, I have clung to those memories as a child clings to his favourite toy. With the loving help of my partner, I have created home cinemas in the hopes of recreating that which I hold so dear. It goes without saying that there are of course other ways to experience the wonder that is the motion picture. But, the cinema is my happy place for personal and profound reasons and to take a film out of such a context, is to deprive yourself of a certain sense of unmatched wonder.
Now, following our government's announcement that cinemas can reopen from July the 4th, the long wait is finally over. Finally, I can begin to create new memories. Finally, I can breathe again.
