I got my first casual job immediately after graduating from high school. I’d just finished watching La La Land at my hometown’s small, local cinema that has been around since the 1970s. Resume in hand, no previous experience in customer service, I had completely lucked out in the hiring process because someone else was just on their way out during the Christmas to New Year’s period. They were in need of a new usher, and I happily offered myself up.
I thought to myself that this was absolutely perfect, because I was a young creative type, and the cinema is where young, creative types go for their ambitions to blossom. They look up at the giant screen with starry eyes and picture themselves in the director’s chair, or as one of the actors. Everyone remembers those childhood trips to the cinema, their first taste of the butteriest cinema popcorn, the overwhelming scale of everything, the surround sound that would blow out your eardrums as THX would appear on the picture.
My daydreams were further enabled by my dad, who had been a projectionist for a rather large movie theater in Sydney back in the 80s. He’d tell me stories about the premieres he’d worked at, and it was a way the two of us would bond. I came into this job with such wide eyes, Rhianna the usher, Rhianna the magic maker, the cinema would be my new home.
How the Movies Depict Cinemas
Because that’s what it’s like in the movies, the cinema is holy ground, formative memories are made there. It’s how The Fabelmans opens, the family goes to a cinema and the protagonist is so blown away by the spectacle that he begins his journey to become Steven Spielberg. The movies set in, or heavily revolving around, these picture palaces are deeply romantic and nostalgic, with rose-tinted lenses turned up to a hundred.
Cinema Paradiso is a classic, all about the coming-of-age of a boy working as a projectionist in a classic Italian cinema, how he becomes close with his mentor, finds love, with a heartrending conclusion about time and memory. Joe Dante‘s Matinée, with its William Castle-inspired cinematic spectacles being used as an escape from the harsh realities of the world. Empire of Light is a more recent example, a romantic drama with gorgeous shots of the Empire Cinema, once again showing the movie theater as a place that connects others and allows you to have a brief reprieve from your troubles.
Escapism and nostalgia are the themes that radiate through any film set in a movie theater, that no matter how badly your life is going you can take a seat in front of the silver screen and dive into another world for a couple of hours. You come out refreshed, or inspired, or arm-in-arm with your date to go and talk about the movie on the way home. I wanted to be part of that, to live it a few days a week for roughly three to nine hours, depending on the roster.
The Reality of Working at a Movie Theater
It wasn’t until I experienced my first truly busy and chaotic day, where things couldn’t help but go wrong that I realized: Oh no, I’m working in hospitality. I believe it was when Lion came out. The reality is that being an usher is like any other minimum-wage, customer service job. Screaming children, dropped choc-tops, entitled patrons who don’t understand there’s precious little I can do when the movie stops working, or there was a problem with the seating. It was a small cinema, so I was spinning a lot of plates, and all two or three of the other ushers were as well. Looking back, I really couldn’t hack it all as well as I’d like, I don’t have the attention span, the working memory, or the tolerance for people to handle a customer service job, I was certainly enthusiastic, though. But if I was struggling in a tiny establishment with only four screens and no popcorn machine, I couldn’t imagine how I’d do in a megaplex.
However, the more I worked there the more I came to the conclusion that I actually disliked going to the cinema in practice. Nothing had happened while I was at work, I just observed that it was a rather odd thing to do, especially since there have been ways to watch films more comfortably from home for decades with your own food, your comfy couch, and the ability to talk over or pause the video when you need to.
It’s overpriced, for a start, both the food and the tickets will burn a hole through your wallet. You watch the film in headache-inducing conditions, unable to walk out to go to the bathroom or just take five minutes without missing something crucial. You’re a hostage to the movie, stuck in your seat for two, or even three, heaven forbid even four hours, before walking out not entirely sure of where you are anymore. A movie date is something to be endured for me, sitting down and shutting up for two hours with someone you’re supposed to be social with, effectively ignoring each other. My boss, bless him, would always try to encourage me to watch more movies, ones he knew I’d enjoy. I really didn’t have the heart to tell him any of this, so I’m writing it here.
Cinemas Help Us to Connect to Our Past
This experience is not exclusive to me, when anyone gets a close-up experience of something they tend to realize how inaccurate the portrayals are. Whether it be a job, a hobby, or a lifestyle, like working at a fast-food restaurant and never wanting to eat there again. Movie theaters are not like McDonald’s of course, they are incredibly historic establishments with a giant footprint on the film industry. A simple answer to “why are cinemas still romanticized despite their apparent obsolescence” is that people like Spielberg grew up in a time before VHS tapes, DVDs, or streaming services, so if they’re making a nostalgic movie, it’s going to be about the cinema. The same way someone who was born in the 90s would make a movie about renting a DVD, playing it on their Playstation 2, and messing around with the special features.
It’s a reminder of a bygone era, especially as many cinemas, including the one I worked at, didn’t survive COVID. It’s an unfortunate reality of changing times, like losing a friend, so it’s a way of preserving that memory. Movies about the cinema project our love of the idea of it, rather than the practice,with the cinema being a symbol for something bigger. Less about how the building, or the popcorn, or the ushers make us feel, and more about how the movies make us feel, and how they impact our lives.
There Were Some Moments of Magic
Despite my petty complaints, I worked at that cinema for over two years. I look back on that dingy building with leaks in the roof and a broken air conditioner with warmth. It had the charm of a small business, the feeling of being part of a community, I liked my boss who was something of a beloved local figure, and I certainly learned a lot. I remember the satisfaction of an empty foyer after a busy period, shooting the breeze with the projectionist, and yes, if there was a film I absolutely needed to see, I would use my free ticket privileges. I got dressed up to watch National Theatre’s Angels in America and was so moved by Loving Vincent that I had to stare out into the horizon for several minutes.
I cried at the end of Cinema Paradiso, or more specifically, the scene when the eponymous place gets demolished after the projectionist dies. It was a moment of enlightenment that, despite my gripes with the whole thing, the cinema was a deeply formative experience for me. I understood the romance, the magic of it from both sides now. The times when I would help the customers, talk with them, and bond with them to the point where some would still recognize me, made me see that some insignificant, mediocre usher at an ancient movie theater, added some of that magic into the world after all.
