Movie Theater in My Head

Waiter: Yes, Baron. What should we start with, Baron? Hmm?
Gaston Monescu: Oh yes. That's not so easy. Beginnings are always difficult.
Waiter: Yes, Baron.
Gaston Monescu: If Casanova suddenly turned out to be Romeo having supper with Juliet, who might become Cleopatra, how would you start?
Waiter: I would start with cocktails. 
--Trouble in Paradise (1932, dir. Ernst Lubitsch)

Oh, my life
Is changing every day
In every possible way

And oh, my dreams
It's never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems
--"Dreams" The Cranberries

     It was daytime and I stood outside of the squat, efficient-looking brick building.  There were a minimum of shadows so it felt like noontime.  Was it a restaurant?  A doctor's office?  A bank?  Whatever it was, I felt drawn to it and entered through the front glass door.  As my eyes re-adjusted to the dimmer interior, I observed that the place was evenly-lit, with a sort of institutional-like fluorescent buzz bouncing off of the white walls, wood paneling, tile floors, and bland carpeting.  The room was wide and spread-out and there were counters and windows and desks but the people seemed almost invisible, like they had dissolved into the recesses of the internal space.  It definitely felt like a bank.  In addition, it was quiet... except for the audible sounds of... weeping?  As I looked around, I realized every single person inside the place was crying and, by crying, what I really mean is bawling convulsively!  In their own world of grief, no one paid the slightest attention to me as I walked hesitantly up to the nearest teller - a woman.  Her head was down on her folded arms on the counter and her shoulders rose and fell rhythmically with each gut-wrenching sob.  What was I waiting for?  What could I possibly be expecting?  At last, she seemed to sense that someone was standing at her window.  Slowly, gathering and collecting herself, she drew herself up, sniffling, and peered at me quizzically through reddened, teary eyes.  (In my mind, now, she resembles Edie McClurg in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but... who knows?)  She stared at me expectantly for a few seconds and her jaw quivered, tears dangling precipitously from the point of her chin.  Finally, with exasperation she yelled out, "Why aren't you crying?!"

     This was a dream that I had about three years ago.  Why did it come into my head?  What does it mean?  Does it mean anything?  Why wasn't I crying?  I have no idea.

     I have been thinking a lot about dreams in recent weeks because: (1) with the coronavirus shutdown now running for over a month, I have had a lot of time to think; (2) I've also been sleeping more than usual and, therefore, remembering my dreams more frequently; and, (3) with the subtraction of the competing distractions of my "normal" routine, dreams have been gravitating to the forefront of my attention (perhaps their natural place?).
     The shutdown has affected all of us in different and unexpected ways and, in spite of our best efforts and bravest faces, I am certain that we all feel at least a little down.  To my eyes, the world looks unstable, insecure, and, perhaps strangest of all (I'm 41, after all), unfamiliar.  Among the casualties of the response to the pandemic are many traditional face-to-face transactions, from school to church to business to gatherings of all types including sports, music, and... yes, public movie screenings (unless you count the few remaining drive-ins).  Even when we come into contact with family, friends, and acquaintances, we often have to maintain a distance or our very faces - those markers of our individuality and identity - must be obscured.  Modern life - we have learned or been reminded - is quite fragile.
     To survive hard times, the world must look familiar to us... even when it does not.  How do we negotiate that divide and discover the familiar in seeming disarray?
     To be specific, what do we do in a world without movies?  At one time, this question would have been purely hypothetical, something to muse over with about the same seriousness as a fer-real zombie invasion.  After all, movie theaters and film screenings have been under siege since the popularization of television but... have they ever really been in danger of just going away... until now?
     I love movies more than just about anything.  Films, of course, can be experienced in different ways.  For example, they can be viewed on various types of screens (a tv, computer, phone, etc.), individually or in small groups, but in these cases the screen is doing the projecting (i.e. emitting the light) and not being projected upon (as with a movie screen).  In the former, the screen functions as a literal "screen" - a screen between us and reality, emitting light and sound and distraction - while in the latter, the screen is receptive to what is cast upon it... it is a doorway and an entrance.  I prefer the latter and it is primarily this that I am referring to here as cinema, film, and movies.  
     I sometimes believe that movies are more important than, or at least as important as, life itself... but that's not true.  Not quite, anyway!
     Let's start with the basics: what is cinema?  Film is a two-dimensional visual sequence which is reproduced in such a way as to create the illusion of movement - in other words, to trick the eyes into seeing cohesive action.  Additionally, a movie is a ritualized/conventionalized event during which individuals and groups of people gather together to experience these reproductions of motion in unison as an audience, usually in darkened rooms specialized for the purpose which are known as cinemas or movie theaters.  (Of course, sound usually comes into play, as well, but that's another subject.)
     Given these definitions, cinema has only been around for, at most, a little over 140 years, and, therefore, we don't really need it, right?  Human life existed long before the arrival of film in the late-nineteenth century and, therefore, can survive without it.  Movies, in other words, are a technological development that modern culture has embraced in an extraordinarily intimate way... but far from necessary.
     Yet, film doesn't just appear, does it?  Cinema is no cosmic accident: it may be a concrete "thing" but, as a collection of ideas, concepts, and schemes, it has been mulled and dreamed over since the dawn of time.  In fact, for something so heavily prefigured (like photography, for example), it might be more appropriate to say that film was discovered or given birth to rather than "invented".  If we find the definitions above too restricting, we need to release our scientific inclinations and seek an "imaginative" definition of cinema, instead.  We might argue, for example, that cinema is a mode of storytelling that is immersive, primarily visually, and, perhaps, secondarily for other senses, as well.  This definition identifies cinema as a tendency more than a "thing" and, with it, we can single out different types of proto-cinema: cave paintings, tapestries, theater, ballet, opera, Asian folding screens, Chinese opera, Noh, Kabuki, Javanese shadow puppets, illuminated manuscripts, cycloramas, mystery plays, passion plays, magic lantern shows, and campfire storytelling, to name just a few.  What this wide range of activities reveals is that the instincts toward film, the sense of movies, the spirit in the direction of cinema is quite old, indeed!  In other words, the cinema may disappear - there is no reason why it needs to remain with us - but the cinematic is with us... always.
     So, to go back to the question, "what do we do in a world without movies?," the answer becomes obvious.  If you reach the end, or some kind of an end for movies, temporary or permanent, you go back to the beginning... in this case to the basic ingredients of narrative... to the spring from which it all flows.  
     What predates cinema itself?  Dreams.