Solo moviego­ing isn’t an option – it’s a necessity

We were deeply sad­dened to read about the plight of Hol­ly­wood film direc­tor James Gunn, and the slings and arrows he suf­fered for com­mit­ting that most heinous of social trans­gres­sions: glean­ing sat­is­fac­tion and enjoy­ment from going to the cin­e­ma on his own. Pic­ture the scene, lit­tle James attend­ing the mid-week mat­inée of Out­break while wear­ing shades and a fedo­ra, hav­ing to wait until every­one had vacat­ed the screen before could skulk out unno­ticed. A glance to the left, a glance to the right, the coast is clear. Dump the shades and hat into a bin and start strut­ting down the street like he’s just been for a wet shave.

Record scratch! Some Biff Tan­nen-like jagoff grab him by the lapels while a coterie of bray­ing, leather-clad min­ions cack­le. ​“Looks like Gunn’s been going to the movies… on his own!” ​“Let’s beat his ass!” Maybe it was like that, maybe it wasn’t. The rea­son we bring this to your atten­tion is that we’d like to send Mr Gunn a mes­sage of sup­port and say that his inten­tions are noble, and if he was indeed receiv­ing has­sle for being anti­so­cial, then those who chid­ed him are the low­est form of human pond life imaginable.

We hearti­ly endorse solo movie going. In fact, it’s the only real way to expe­ri­ence a movie. Head­ing to the cin­e­ma is not a group activ­i­ty – there’s noth­ing about it that requires inter­ac­tion in the moment. To have a friend or acquain­tance sat next to you is to be sad­dled with the temp­ta­tion of talk­ing to them, or get­ting agi­tat­ed how they’re shuf­fling in their seat, or annoy­ing fel­low patrons by ask­ing for the damn popcorn.

Cin­e­ma is the only art­form where solo con­sump­tion is con­sid­ered to be height of inde­cen­cy. When you go to a gallery, you split away from the per­son you’re with and enter into a pri­vate dia­logue with the works on show. If you want to prop­er­ly lis­ten to a record, you do so from the com­fort of a vel­vet throw pil­low and the use of some high-end cans/​drugs. From an indus­try view­point, it’s good busi­ness to mar­ket the movies as a group activ­i­ty, and often the roman­tic aspects of the sil­ver screen are talked about in terms of ​“shar­ing” movies with those you ​“love”.

The argu­ment for going to the cin­e­ma with oth­er peo­ple is that it unlocks that hal­lowed social flash­point of the post-film dis­cus­sion. This is where you high­tail it from the mul­ti­plex and to the local wine bar and pick through the intri­ca­cies of Bergman’s rad­i­cal block­ing tech­niques with your near­est a dear­est over a cheeky Mer­lot. Maybe this is per­son­al pref­er­ence creep­ing in, but frankly you can keep all that. The last thing I want to do when emerg­ing from a screen­ing room is to descend into deep con­ver­sa­tion. Or, as is more often the case, being sub­ject­ed to the hasti­ly formed opin­ions of oth­ers who are often fish­ing for accord rather than dissension.

At a recent screen­ing of the film Tomb Raider, I was asked by a fel­low sit­ting next to me, ​“What did you think of that, then? I quite liked it.” This was posed to me as first clos­ing cred­it was being pro­ject­ed on to the screen, and not a sin­gle mem­ber of the audi­ence had realised that the film was, in fact, over. I awk­ward­ly demurred, as I tend to do when any­one asks me that ques­tion at any time of the day. I offered my stock response, ​“I’m still pro­cess­ing it,” which, under the cir­cum­stances, didn’t quite work for Tomb Raider (spoil­er: I liked the film).

Sure, con­sum­ing films as a crit­ic is a dif­fer­ent sport to watch­ing as a pay­ing cus­tomer (or, as they’re often referred to now, ​“the fans”). You often want to devel­op a strat­e­gy to con­ceal your per­son­al take on a movie, lest your even­tu­al cri­tique be taint­ed by the enlight­ened ram­blings a col­league. But going to the cin­e­ma should be con­sid­ered an activ­i­ty that is close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with monas­tic con­tem­pla­tion. At film fes­ti­vals, when jour­nal­ists are apply­ing a more news-dri­ven / on-the-ground report­ing impulse to their cov­er­age, that sense of pri­vate con­tem­pla­tion may need to be fast-tracked, but if you’re strict about it, it’s pos­si­ble to keep shtum between the clos­ing cred­its and flip­ping open the laptop.

The ide­al cin­e­ma, for me, would not only have a ban on all food and drinks, but it would also have a ban on talk­ing that begins the moment that you enter the door at the back of the audi­to­ri­um, and ends the moment you leave. And I realise this might lay out­side the juris­dic­tion of the cin­e­ma, but the ban on talk­ing about the film should extend across the next 12 hours at least. So, James, let’s us meet up and start a lit­tle wreckin’ crew where we go around both­er­ing those who watch movies en masse. Scum. All of them.