A virus in the cinema

By Roberto Gervitz
Profile picture: Bob Wolfenson

The Covid-19 epidemic was a brutal trauma, the greatest in our history, which we barely have the courage to look at; we want to forget it all the more. Thanks to a criminal government that encouraged contagion, brandishing an absurd theory (herd immunity) and promoting demonstrably ineffective remedies. Its consequences will be felt for a long time. The fear of death spread throughout our society, in which each individual found themselves alone, with their body, facing a terrible disease. But just as I never believed the prophecies that the pandemic would transform the world, because we were forced to stop (only the most privileged classes, it's worth saying) to rethink our paths, I believe that seeking only in the pandemic the reasons for the transformations in cultural habits is to not look beyond the surface of processes that have been developing for many years. 

1) The data released by the Datafolha survey, according to which cinemas lost 62% of their audience compared to pre-pandemic numbers, is impressive, but not surprising. And for several reasons: 

1. Movies have been visibly losing audiences; firstly, due to profound transformations that have occurred in the market and in technology over the last 40 years: 
2. The advent of streaming platforms followed the emergence of various media for watching movies at home, such as VHS, then DVDs, and later Blu-rays. 
3. There is also the emergence of high-quality home projection equipment, including for large screens. Today, there are few technical reasons to justify someone leaving home to go to the cinema, which sometimes has worse projection quality than home cinema. 

The most prominent trend is for cinemas to become venues for so-called event films, full of special effects and action, returning to their origins as one of the main attractions in an amusement park. Pure and spectacular entertainment. 

1. There are also questions of economic order as ticket prices, added to the cost of travel and still The consumption of foods such as popcorn and soft drinks.The program is expensive. Lower-middle-class consumers calculate this cost and go to the cinema less and less, except for event films. 
2. There are also issues related to urban problems, such as the hours that working people spend in traffic and on public transport, which, added to working hours, are exhausting, even more so in large cities where cultural life has always been more intense. 
3. However, there are a series of cultural and social transformations, which for me are the most important, that could be summarized in our Zeitgeist, the spirit of our time.
4. I grew up amidst the military dictatorship, in a closed and claustrophobic world for young people. Cinema at that time was a privileged window to the world, the necessary oxygen for the soul, an appeal to inventiveness, a source of understanding our most intimate conflicts, a privileged space where we confronted answers and questions within the free world of the imagination. But all of this, even in a dark world, was driven by hope and the humanist belief in a better world. There was hope, and the affirmation of the necessity of art was the promise that humankind could be better. And art fed back into our utopias. I believe it is very difficult for art to exist without a profound hope in humanity. The need for art is related to hope, even if unconscious. 

I don't know when visitors to museums, cinemas, theaters, concerts - the citizens,  They became consumers of theater, film, music, and museums. Today, more than ever, we are things that consume things, in a frayed social fabric and a sense of belonging that no longer exists. Today, we are isolated individuals in a desperate war to win. Watching a film, a play, a concert, are collective acts, but today the feeling is that the other hinders and threatens. Art has become consumption; it is only valuable when it "adds value." What is the function of art in our times? Is it only to maintain our "mental health"? What exactly is mental health, what do we understand by it?

The films that shaped us and allowed us to immerse ourselves in other worlds, to live them and enrich our lives, are now rare occurrences, box office failures. Today, perhaps they help us forget what it's like to be alive in this harsh historical moment. 

Time has become something that torments us because we never catch up with it; we live "chasing after it." We are no longer able to surrender ourselves to a film for two hours. Perhaps that's why young people today watch movies at double speed on their cell phones. There's no more patience to see and hear; we seem to be exhausted. Of what?