Why we shun DVDs to watch movies on the big screen

Okay, so this title is slightly more melodramatic than our actual practice is. We don't exactly "shun" DVDs; we watch them on our home screen occasionally. But we especially love to go to a large theatre with comfortable seats, a wide screen, and good sound to enjoy a film, often a classic, with lots of other avid filmgoers in attendance. Experiencing wonderful moments of a movie with others by laughing uproariously together or sitting collectively in suspenseful stillness greatly deepens our enjoyment of any picture. 

Last night we headed to the New-York Historical Society to take in another installment in their series of films about New York City. This one was Gene Kelly's and Stanley Donen's ultimate big city musical "On the Town" from 1949. Of course, it was done better and more stylishly by Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and others on Broadway in 1944. Producers at MGM Studios shortsightedly decided to cut some of the best songs from the Broadway show, including Lonely Town, and to allow only a week of shooting on location in New York City. That week of location shooting would ultimately result in the film's opening - by far, the best 6 minutes of the whole thing. Those moments catch the three awestruck sailors, limited to 24 hours of shore leave, hurrying from one New York attraction to another, pretty much of all which still stand today.

Despite its flaws, the film has an exhilarating effect on a live audience. The dances by Kelly, Vera-Ellen, and Ann Miller, the voice of a young Frank Sinatra, the mugging of Jules Munchin and Betty Garrett, all make for a fun show that seems to grab people, especially the older people in the audience who have such fond memories of post-World War II Manhattan. 

The point I want to make here is that experiencing a film in public on a big screen, alongside lots of others, both young and old (we actually spoke to a 14 year old and a 65 year old just before the film began), fosters this vague sense that it matters to you whether people are having a good time or not, and that this consciousness of others' level of enjoyment changes how you view it and how you feel about it afterwards. It is almost as if you say to yourself, "if we're going to do this together, let's make it as worthwhile as possible," so you laugh more heartily and clap with greater enthusiasm, not just for the film, but to cheer on the value of this collective viewing. It has a shared, civic quality, and if you care about such things, you want to make such public outings more likely in the future, so you do what you can to make sure everyone has a good time.

When it comes to public viewings of films, my ideal way to organize them is to open with a brief orientation about the film, its dates, its initial critical reception, its place in history. You then, of course, actually see the film under the best conditions possible. And finally you end with a panel discussion or even a general open discussion that encourages people to voice their opinions and their reactions. What a wonderful way to bring people together, to promote cohesion, and to give people a sense that leaving their homes for a public forum, at least occasionally, adds value to the whole community.