The Cinephile & the Megalopolis

For many years I have chalked up my decreasing interest in cinema to my decreasing interest in my movie industry job. I am watching fewer movies per year than at any other time in my life. I’m getting older, of course, and when one gets older he has less time to fritter away watching movies and reading novels. It isn’t totatly fair to compare the cinephile I was in college with the busy curmudgeon I have become. Look at all the free time I use to have… We all used to have.… Sheesh.

But something strange has been happening over past couple of days. I’ve been in the Northwest visiting the folks and I looked in the paper to see what was playing at the local art house theater. I hadn’t heard of any of the films, actually, but I was curious about what they were and actually expressed an interest in finding out. Strange behavior for someone who never watches movies anymore.

Some easy explanations:

 1. Of course I’m interested in filmgoing again while up in the NW. I have a ton of free time and no perpetual work-related stress. Let’s go to the movies! Why not?

 2. I am experiencing some kind of flashback behavior here. My mind associates the NW with the pleasure of heavy filmgoing, so it, of course, assumes that that is what happens when I’m up here. It rains, the Seahawks lose, Eric goes to the movies.

 3. I don’t have to battle murderous crosstown traffic for 45 minutes in order to see the film in question. Here in Tacoma the lines are short and the commute even shorter. I was telling Middlebrow how much I envied his life in the SLC. The SLC is tiny compared to Los Angeles or Chicago or NY, but it is large enough while still remaining small. Everything culturally relevant comes through the SLC… You may not have any Puppetry of the Penis or fringe stand-up acts or roller derby, but you get everything else and everything else is way more accessible! Do the Flaming Lips come to Salt Lake? Okay!

But I actually think something else is going on. Sometimes I like to fantasize about moving from LA and starting over in a small town somewhere… I like to think that I would get involved in the Film Society of this fictional town. That I would get involved in the community and help to program films from all of the world. That I would get directors and writers and other guest speakers to come and program live Theramin accompaniment to old silent films, etc…And then I would recapture my passion for the cinema.

Up here I feel people are way more committed to film and literature and music. They consume more and discuss it more – their love of it is pure. They consume it for its own sake. They love the cinema because they love the cinema – not because they are filmmakers and they are watching a film because they have to or because they are looking to steal ideas from this film.

Perhaps I’m just being contrarian. I don’t watch movies in LA because that is all everybody ever talks about. Movies and the movie business. It really drives me away. I don’t want to compete with these people – I don’t want to have another discussion about Quentin Tarantino or Ron Howard. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t even want to think about movies. I want to do things nobody is interested in, even me.

Living in the Northwest makes me want to study cinema again. Living in Los Angeles makes me want to write novels.