Cinema Social Distancing

Photo Credit: Online pic.

The shopping mall is closed, which means movie theaters are also a no-go area. Before you blame COVID-19 for depriving you of the pleasure of sitting in a dark place with other people, munching popcorn and watching a movie for 90 minutes, you need to do two things.

l Watch Cinema Paradiso, by the Italian director Guiseppe Tornatore. If you’ve never seen it, you are not a film addict as you claim to be and I hope all ‘cinema studies’ in ivy-covered institutions, red brick universities, steel and chrome, and also open plan universities, teach this movie.

l Secondly, you need to rewind and remind yourself, how you practised cinema social distancing before COVID-19 got here.

CINEMA PARADISO

Sound and picture were stored in cans separately, edited,

then mixed into one thing later, in a studio.

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

Alfredo works in the projection room of a local cinema, showing movies. His greatest fan is Toto, a young boy who could be his grandson if he had children. Toto loves movies but is particularly interested in the projector, how it works, how it shows that Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion roar and how Alfredo cuts out ‘kissing scenes.’

Alfredo tries to chase the small boy away but Toto is adamant. Alfredo finally gives in and shows him how to handle film cans and the projector. Alfredo also teaches Toto about analog film, how it can burn when it’s too hot. CINEMA PARADISO is a delightful film, about Toto and Alfredo, local Catholic priests, and other characters whose lives are affected when the cinema burns down.

Photo Credit: Online pic.

Time passed. Movies moved from cinema houses like CINEMA PARADISO to more intimate spaces like Beverly Hills and Atlanta mansions of the rich and revered. Nobody called it cinema social distancing, but it is.

1. Drive-ins as social distancing. Not all countries had drive-in cinema like the U.S. where they watched movies sitting in their cars.

2. Television as social distancing at home, sometimes four television sets including the kitchen TV.

3. Video rentals as social distancing. How many books have I read where a character is at Blockbuster or 7-Eleven, renting some movies because Zwelakhe or Gail is coming over on a Friday night?

4. Computers. Accelerated social distancing because parents can still watch late night television movies, while kids watch them on their laptops.

5. Cellphones, the ultimate social distancing as you watch movies on the bus, in the sauna, everywhere.

   
Movie theaters know what time it is. Attendance has been falling for quite some time, but they never thought in a million years that something strange and devastating like COVID-19, will be the nail on the coffin for ‘going to the movies’.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.