On the Moment the Lights Fully Dim and the Nature of Watching Film

by Evan A. Salazar

My friends hate seeing movies with me. They get frustrated, annoyed, and roll their eyes at my ridiculous idiosyncrasies and my overblown neuroticisms. I like (re. need) to get to movies at least thirty minutes before they start. At least. I like to be the first in the theater, because I need to make sure to get the seat I like, which is usually somewhere a bit below the middle of the theatre (so the screen is all encompassing), and my seat in the exact middle of the row. Exact. Middle. Being a bit off-center irks me and annoys me, which in many cases I have begged friends to switch spots if they are even the least bit closer to the middle than I. People fussing with bags of popcorn or candy annoy me. Whispering, even slight grunting is unacceptable. The list, well, it goes on.

For as much as I seem to need to control my theatre going experience, I really do relish in and love watching movies on screens that could never fit into my house. I love ticket stubs and I love to hate when the overhead on a projector is cropping just a bit too much off. I love trailers, and I love looking at the movie posters lining the halls of theatres. I love seeing movies at their first showing in the late morning, or at their last showings in the late night. It feels otherworldly, serene, melancholy. It makes me feel at peace.

The peak of the theatre going experience, though, trumps all these. It’s a moment so simple and so fleeting that most people probably don’t think twice about it. But for me? For me it’s the portal from my boring life to the wonderful world I am about to enter. For me, it’s a moment that always gives me goosebumps and raises the hair on the back of my neck.

It’s the moment when the last trailer ends and the studio logo materializes on the screen, and the lights fully dim.

No matter the quality of the movie I’m about to witness, that moment is always there, and always affecting. It makes it all feel worth it, even if what you’re seeing is the latest Jerry Bruckheimer produced, Michael Bay “directed” film. It’s the Universal globe, the New Line Cinema film strips intersecting, the blue background and underlined text of Sony Pictures Classic, or the Dreamworks boy fishing from the moon. It’s these short moments that take you by the hand and bring you into the world of the film.

And when those lights fully dim… well, you know there’s no turning back. It could be the sunniest day of the year outside, but in the black box that is the theatre, you would never know. Time stands still, and the movie plays in a frozen time: whatever is going on in the outside world really doesn’t matter. And it shouldn’t. It doesn’t occur to you and it doesn’t nag at you. You’re about to watch a movie. That’s the important part.

Watching film is an active thing, you have to understand. I have never been one of those people who could just have a movie on in the background, or put something on before I go to sleep. Movies are meant to be watched, taken in and understood and dissected and thought about. Being in a theatre forces you to focus on the movie. There is nothing else around you to distract your attention (besides your pesky friends or fellow filmgoers, who I fully support telling to shut up if they start to talk) and that’s the way it should be. Now, I fully understand how some movies are so bad that laughing and talking out loud is not only encouraged but expected… but these are different circumstances.

The nature of film is to be visually and aurally experienced, so I encourage you, please, watch these movies. Watch them and celebrate them and become invested in them. Don’t let yourself be distracted. Let yourself get wrapped up in the world the director has crafted for you. Become a part of the experience. Be an active member of the film. Do yourself a favor and get swept away in the set pieces, the dialogue, the cinematography, the sound… this is all about the best way to enjoy a movie, and that’s to be fully invested in it from start to finish. Leave your wandering minds at the door as the lights dim, and once the credits are over, pick that mind back up and you’ll find that he won’t want to wander as much as he wants to think about what you just experienced.