Can inter­mis­sions ever pos­i­tive­ly impact the cin­e­ma going experience?

You’re an hour or so into a film, there’s just been a killer twist that’s changed the entire com­plex­ion of the sto­ry, and then… cut to black. The lights come up and the screen on which the action was tan­ta­lis­ing­ly unfold­ing is now adver­tis­ing ice cream and soda. Any mount­ing ten­sion has dis­si­pat­ed, all momen­tum lost in an instant. The inter­mis­sion has begun. For many film lovers this is the stuff of night­mares – the ephemer­al illu­sion of cin­e­ma shat­tered in the name of cor­po­rate inter­ests. But could inter­mis­sions ever have a pos­i­tive impact on the cin­e­ma going experience?

Inter­mis­sions were pre­vi­ous­ly neces­si­tat­ed by the need to change reels in the pro­jec­tor. Con­se­quent­ly, they became syn­ony­mous with lengthy Hol­ly­wood epics like Lawrence of Ara­bia and Ben Hur. How­ev­er, inter­mis­sions also served a func­tion for audi­ence mem­bers and the­atre own­ers alike, pro­vid­ing the for­mer with a brief reprieve and the lat­ter with poten­tial for greater rev­enue. Over the years, as the cin­e­ma expe­ri­ence evolved, the inter­mis­sion grad­u­al­ly became obso­lete. This was prin­ci­pal­ly down to tech­no­log­i­cal advances, which made reel switch­es eas­i­er and faster, and with mod­ern dig­i­tal pro­jec­tors, a non-issue. Mean­while, the demands on mul­ti­plex­es to put on an increas­ing num­ber of show­ings sim­ply made the breaks too time consuming.

This phas­ing out did not occur in all ter­ri­to­ries, how­ev­er, and in India the inter­mis­sion remains an inte­gral part of the cin­e­ma going expe­ri­ence. Bol­ly­wood cin­e­ma has a tra­di­tion of pro­duc­ing longer films than West­ern audi­ences are used to see­ing, and indeed it could be argued that retain­ing the inter­mis­sion would have made epic sto­ry­telling more com­mon­place. The cur­rent trend of split­ting fran­chise instal­ments into mul­ti­ple parts arguably rep­re­sents glo­ri­fied year-long inter­mis­sions; these sto­ries could be pre­sent­ed as a sin­gle expe­ri­ence were film­mak­ers able give audi­ences a much-need­ed breather. Indeed, inter­mis­sions could not only inspire sto­ry­telling on a grander scale, but also more faith­ful adap­ta­tions, as longer sto­ries would be made more palat­able to gen­er­al audiences.

The inter­mis­sion also remains in Switzer­land, fea­tur­ing regard­less of a film’s run­time. This fun­da­men­tal­ly changes how films are per­ceived and judged, as they have not been con­struct­ed with an inter­mis­sion in mind. A slow-burn­ing thriller such as this year’s 10 Clover­field Lane may well be hin­dered by an enforced dis­rup­tion; the inevitable dis­cus­sion that accom­pa­nies a sched­uled break turn­ing to poten­tial spoil­ers. Still, inter­mis­sions can aug­ment films, par­tic­u­lar­ly in instances when they are pre­ced­ed by a twist or fol­lowed by a shift in tone. In such cas­es, the inter­mis­sion can serve a vital func­tion to the film­mak­er, and help to facil­i­tate dis­cus­sion that ener­gis­es the audi­ence and renews antic­i­pa­tion at a point when atten­tion spans might oth­er­wise be flagging.

Inter­mis­sions are arguably most impor­tant for the cin­e­mas them­selves, as they can pro­vide a valu­able rev­enue stream for the­atres, help­ing to ensure their long-term sur­vival. But they poss­es an artis­tic mer­it, too. Whether occur­ring in Stan­ley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey or Quentin Tarantino’s The Hate­ful Eight, an inter­mis­sion lends a film, and the expe­ri­ence of watch­ing it, a sense of occa­sion. An ode to a bygone era of cin­e­ma, Tarantino’s road­show ver­sion of The Hate­ful Eight was more evoca­tive of a the­atre per­for­mance for mod­ern audiences.

In the past promi­nent direc­tors like George Lucas and Steven Spiel­berg have gone as far as sug­gest­ing that in order for to sur­vive cin­e­ma it will even­tu­al­ly need to repli­cate the Broad­way mod­el, with few­er releas­es run­ning over longer time­frames. This pre­dic­tion was borne out of a belief that such an arrange­ment would be prefer­able for stu­dios, as a result of too much com­pe­ti­tion among tent pole releas­es. Whether a result of, or a fore­run­ner to such a par­a­digm shift, restor­ing the inter­mis­sion could help main­tain the cin­e­ma as a dis­tinct and attrac­tive alter­na­tive to home viewing.

While tech­nol­o­gy and strate­gic stu­dio release sched­ules means that inter­mis­sions are unlike­ly to return en masse, the finan­cial incen­tives for hav­ing them remains in the case of most inde­pen­dent cin­e­mas. And with atten­tion spans short­er than ever, not to men­tion the fact that the aver­age length of Hol­ly­wood block­busters is on the rise, it may be wise to rein­tro­duce this dis­card­ed cin­e­mat­ic tradition.