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3.
Cinema is the theater of the little man! We have heard this said quite a bit lately, but it
has never looked less true than it does now. The impressive advances in cinematography
result not only from the technical improvement of the invention itself but also from the
artistic improvement of the films’ subjects. At the same time, the cinemagoers’ tastes and
sensibilities have matured as well. Gone are the days when people would watch a
1,000-meter-long program of practically anything as long as it was flickering onscreen in
front of them. Nowadays, people have become more critical. They have learned how to
see.
We hear of new movie theaters being opened every single week. And each new establishment
aims to be more elegant than anything the public has seen before.
In the old days, you just rented a space, bought a screen, some old chairs, and the necessary
device. Once the screen was hanging, you were open for business.
Today the first question when opening a new movie theater is what stylistic effect you
hope to achieve and which architect should lead the renovation project.
It used to be that the bricklayer would come to tear down some plaster walls, the
painter would touch up the lower half, and the paperhanger would take care of the top.
Now craftsmen need to be brought in. This is not a job for a simple painter anymore,
but for an artist. The wallpaper is gone, and the orchestrion has also played its last note.
Everything has become classier and more modern, elegant, comfortable, stylish, and
artistic.
There is also a greater tendency today, wherever space permits, to provide a cloakroom
so that visitors are no longer forced to accommodate their heavy outer garments in
their seats as they enjoy the program. Without even really noticing, we are moving ever
closer to the way things are done in the theater.
This transformation should be welcomed. We all gain from the cinema’s metamorphosis
from caterpillar to magnificent butterfly, from its newfound ability to truly assert
the value of the motion-picture theater.
This metamorphosis of the movie theater has been so profound that it has begun to
affect the public too. The cloakroom in one large Berlin movie theater that opened some
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time ago was initially met with a good deal of skepticism by the public. It took time for
people to get used to the idea that they should hand over their coats at the movie theater
as well. Now the idea is so ingrained that the obligation to check coats is accepted in better
movie theaters without a second thought.
The more elegant, genteel, and modern a movie theater is today, the more the public
begins to hold itself to the same standards. Several days ago the Berliner Tageblatt, for
example, published a column well worth reading, under the title “The Cinematograph in
Evening Dress.” The movie theater has not just become a veritable theater, it has become
feudal and aristocratic, more papal than even the pope. The refined nature of today’s
public and the accompanying expectations have grown so exponentially that we can
scarcely keep up! Just like the movie theater, the public has metamorphosed as well.
It is time to replace those brutal and eccentric films that are meant to be funny with
sensitive, atmospheric paintings. Artistic drama is pushing aside maudlin family trash.
Tinted films must abandon their loud and garish tones and be composed in gentler hues.
There is demand now for regular pauses during the program to give viewers a chance to
collect themselves; an actual overture and music between acts are also desirable. Movie
theaters ought to have a foyer where the public can saunter, chat, and flirt. People want
to see and be seen, and they certainly take care to look the part.
We wanted the moviegoing public to wear clean clothes, not to turn up in their work
clothes—and they arrived wearing tails. People got used to it and began to adhere to this
new expectation when it comes to the theater. Some people started turning up at the
movies in tuxedos, and there are even establishments where evening dress predominates.
What more could we ask for?
Some bold pioneers installed armchairs in the movie theater, hoping this would draw
in the crème de la crème. And come they did, but they demanded box seats! There are
now even theaters where simple box seats are no longer enough; people desperately want
something loftier, and so we have the gentlemen’s box and the prince’s box. If things continue
in this way, we will soon reach a state where even the president of the Chamber of
Commerce will only be able to afford a plebeian seat on the parquet, and the cinema will
be completely in the hands of the blue-blooded aristocracy. Yes, the cinema—that invention
which until very recently was considered a form of popular entertainment for the
masses, for the little man.
Surveying the scene, many might proclaim: “Spirits that I’ve cited, / My commands
ignore!”1
We wanted a better class of clientele, and we have gotten the best circles. Our
ambitions climbed ever higher, and we immediately reached the summit. The upper crust
flocks to us, and soon we will be so used to it that it will no longer be remarkable at all.
Above all else, this invention of ours is distinctive, modern, and novel. Whereas most
innovations aim to win approval from the top, assuming it will then trickle down the
social scale to those below, we in this branch of theater have gone the other way around.
From its origins in the cinematic expo and the traveling show with limelight, we had the
cinema, then the theater, and now the meeting place for the top 10 percent.
My, how times have changed.
We movie-theater owners may take credit for the tactical and refined manner in
which we drew in a better class of audience over the years, an effort that has met
with resounding success. And this success of ours has been as brilliant as we hoped it
would be.
We have not only taught the public where to look and how to enjoy looking, we have
simultaneously rekindled the pleasure in visiting the theater as an educational establishment.
We have raised people into theatergoers, and this is more important from an ethical
and social point of view than one is generally prepared to accept.
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There are thousands of options for a public that is hungry for distraction. When you
consider all the kinds of entertainment, amusement, and pleasure that are available to the
average city dweller, you are forced to admit, objectively speaking, that motion pictures
surely belong to the noblest among them. And that is why the ethical and educational
value of cinematography cannot be overemphasized. Seen from this angle, we may rightfully
be proud of our involvement in this noble art that is so much more than a branch of
industry. It might even imply the solution to the social question.
Note
1. The quote is from Goethe’s poem “Der Zauberlehrling” (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, 1797). The
translation here is from Goethe, the Lyrist, ed. and trans. Edwin H. Zeydel (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1955), 109.