Murphy - A year at the movies: one mans film going odyssey

For Julie and Bill, my mom and dad.
And for the audience.

Im sitting on a patio at Hacienda Eden, Troncones, Guerrero, Mexico, overlooking the massive rolling surf of the Pacific coast. Its 11 A.M. and Im having a beer. About a decade ago, I screened the gruff Broderick Crawford noir film The Mob right here in the courtyard of this very hotel, with my portable 16mm projector on a screen made of a bed-sheet strung from the manzanillo trees for a crowd of about thirty Mexican locals and American expats. Margaritas and Indio beer were served (See Week 10).

Damn, that was fun. I could do the same thing today with a smartphone and a tiny digital projector, but I wont. Itd be easier, but it wouldnt be the same. And that sums up whats happened with cinema over the decade since I first reported on one single year in its clutches. Its gotten easier, but it sure isnt the same.

Im not here to mourn the past. Besides, the cinema aint dead, not even close. Its just going through this zombie phase where we dont really recognize what it was, and were wondering what it will become. Some of us are excited, others cling to the old ways like Luddites. But this much wont change: digital or mechanical, the cinema, the public exhibition of a motion picture, seeing a great story along with a great audience, remains one of the most fun things you can do in the dark with your pants on.

So heres some of whats happened in the decade since I traveled the planet seeing a movie every day for an entire frickin year:

As I hoped and prayed, IMAX is finally being used to make real dramatic movies, not just docs about bears and whales. Well, almost. Two of the Dark Knight films had chunks of IMAX, as did a (yecch) Transformers film. Most of the feature films you see in an IMAX theater have been remastered for the formats giant screen and the deafening sound. The results are mixed, from stunning (Life of PI) to mostly enervating (everything else). Im still waiting for the formats Lawrence of Arabia (See Week 14).

3D movies have reared their ugly pop-up heads for a new generation, offering everybody that chance to put on stupid glasses and cultivate migraines in the name of entertainment. I sure as hell didnt see it coming back in 01, and now I simply want it to go away again. Oh, and did the world really need a 3D Justin Bieber concert film? Im waiting here.

The digitization of Hollywood proceeds apace. Digital filmmaking gets better and better, and its almost, almost, caught up to good old emulsified film stock. Eastman Kodak has cut way back on manufacturing the old stuff, and movie camera makers Arri and Panavision have stopped making film cameras. Theres good and bad in all of this, and I strongly urge you to see the documentary Side By Side and discuss.

At home in the Twin Cities, Im delighted that three of my favorite single-screen venues, the Parkway, the Riverview and the Uptown, not only are surviving but thriving, with an eclectic mix of Hollywood classics, foreign gems, compelling docs, obligatory blockbusters and the ever-dwindling, endangered species that once was indie film. Plus, at the Uptown, you can now bring a glass of wine into the theater. This, this is evolution.

In 2001, I saw my first high-definition digital screening, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, at the splendiferous Ziegfeld in Manhattan (see week 23). Here in the now, such a declaration is received with a yawn, when movies are being made and shown digitally from soup to nuts as a matter of course. At the time I thought Id witnessed a true paradigm shift and I had.

And now Ive witnessed what may be another paradigm shift, by seeing The Hobbit in 3D and 48fps. Its odd enough to see a films frame rate printed on your movie ticket, but its even more jarring to sit in the theater and watch the audiences heads explode. The general consensus at my screening was "What the Hell did I just see?" The 48fps frame rate delivers an image so sharp and crisp, it makes a lot of the movie look, well, fakey. At times it looked like an episode of Doctor Who, Tom Baker era. It isnt film in the way our brains have been conditioned to experience film, but then weve always been able to adapt to changes in our cinema, whether we like it or not. Will 48fps stick around, or will it fizzle slowly and expensively like Cinerama did? Come back in another decade and well talk.

And now the lightning round: theater ticket sales have dropped like crazy in the last ten years, outdoor theaters are coming back into vogue, true low-budget indie film continues its exile to video streaming and the internet, while the means for making these films are cheaper and more accessible than ever. And much to my delight, this book has caught up with the eBook universe, of which Im a fan, to the point that Ive actually worn out my first-generation Kindle.

This book is a journey into the century-old worldwide love affair with Going To the Movies. Its my chronicle of living with that love every day. At times it was merely annoying, sometimes vexing, infuriating, but overwhelmingly it was thrilling, inspiring, joyful, sharing that love with audiences all over the planet. That much hasnt changed.

The technology of filmmaking and film-showing has changed though, as it has, profoundly, many times since the Lumiere Brothers scared the hell out of people in Paris simply by showing a train arrive in a station. Silent movies passed, black-and-white movies passed, and now actual physical locations and sets are considered quaint, and the very medium of film is becoming a relic.

But the delight, the beauty, the inspiration of being out there in the dark remains, and my proof is one of my favorite films of the past few years, a real movie-movie, The Artist. A silent film, shot in black and white, albeit with modern techniques, it won nearly every Best Picture Award there is, perhaps because it reminds us that our delight in a good story well told is as strong as ever. And if I were to show a movie here on the beach in Mexico today, with a smartphone and a tiny digital projector, that one would still be perfect.

Thank you for your time. And now lights down, curtain up, enjoy the book.

Kevin Murphy

Troncones, Mexico, December 2012

B eginning tomorrow, January 1, 2001, I, Kevin Murphy, promise to go to a theater and watch a movie every single day, for an entire year. In fifty-two chapters, one for each week of the year, Ill explore the world of moviegoing from the point of view of you and me, the regular crowd, the great demographic ocean. I will endeavor to experience every conceivable type of moviegoing venue, from the mundane to the unique to the ridiculous, no matter where it takes me.

I will track down and visit the smallest movie theater in the world.

Ill work at a multiplex for a short, painful stint.

Theres a theater in an igloo in Quebec. I have to go.

Ill venture to Sundance and Cannes with no credentials and stand in line with the rest of the noncelebrity schmucks just trying to get a ticket.

Ill live on nothing but movie theater food for a week.

Ive found a tiny ninety-year-old silent theater in the Australian bush. Im there.

Im not planning to see a different movie in a different theater every day. I dont see the point, unless what Im doing is a stunt, which it isnt. Okay, maybe a little. But I want to be able to crawl around my local multiplexes and see what makes them tick. I want to be known by name at my favorite venues. I want to explore the same film under different conditions; for instance, I want to know if date movies still exist, so I plan to take seven women out on a date to the same movie, much to the consternation of my spouse, Jane.