1. Movies are meant to be a Community Experience. This concept of hiring movies, owning our own collection, downloading and watching them on our private devices, well, this was never supposed to be the experience of “cinema”. Originally, movies were made for the cinema, that is, they were made to be watched with others. They were not made to be watched alone, but rather, as a community, where people came together into a cinema to become “one Body” and to share this experience with each other. Often people say that they don’t want to go to the movies when meeting a friend or catching up, as “you sit in the dark and don’t talk to each other”, so they do not see it as a social experience. However, they miss the very point of cinema, that it is a social experience, and in a particular way, we do enter into an intimacy with each other, an intimacy that comes from sharing tears and sharing laughter. This intimacy transcends the personal relationship such that it is shared with the whole cinema audience.

Today it seems we have lost this sense. How often do we go to the movies and experience a cinema audience becoming “one body?” People are disconnected, and there is a failure to engage, or to truly enter into what is happening on the screen. How often do we watch without feeling, and observe without entering? People continue to check their phones and send text messages. They lose patience when a shot is held a few seconds longer than they are used to, or when a story does not rush along at a certain speed. They are hardly challenged or moved by what they see, firstly because they have forgotten or never learned how to engage, and secondly, because I believe there is a dearth in cultural quality of what one is presented with in cinemas today – and this has shaped cinema audiences into a shallow, fickle, uninterested crowd.

Only at a film festival, or in a really great movie, do you feel and witness that buzz of an audience becoming “one body”. When a cinema erupts into laughter, and then is moved to silence, and then when people leave the cinema talking to each other, speaking to strangers with a level of comfort because they shared this experience together, this is when an audience truly experiences “cinema”. In recent times this aspect of cinema has seemed to be difficult to find.

To use a Catholic image, at the Mass, people come together as “one Body” to receive the “Sacrament” and then, to become what they have received. At the movies, we come together as “one body” to receive sacramentally what is given, that is, visible images which reveal an invisible meaning in the telling of a story, and we too start to become what we have received. We as a community are formed by what we watch. It works to either heighten our capacity to engage, or works to destroy this capacity. We can be shaped into people with an enriched vision, with a capacity for wonder, with an ability to suspend our disbelief and be taken on a journey, coming to understand ourselves and our world just a little bit more. Or we can be shaped into a shallow, selfish, and stupefied society, lowering our attention span by giving us quick hits of sugar rather than the longer lasting nutrients that are good for us. Today, the resulting culture we live in reflects the culture we receive at the movies. Look at our movies, and see the culture we are to pass to the next generation. I believe this is cause for concern. It is time for us to reclaim and learn from the past, from an older and perhaps wiser generation of filmmakers and films…

2. Movies to offer us an authentically worthy experience and increase our ability to engage. The occasional “silly” movie can be enjoyable, this is not the issue. But when the vast majority of films are an insult to our potential, our culture is adversely affected. When every film needs to follow a certain pacing or formula in order to appeal to a culture that has watered down and lost its appetite for richness, then we continue becoming what we watch. Even the best of the modern films partially continue us on this track rather than challenging us to something new. Films like “The Lord of the Rings,” are hugely popular and great movies, yet even these, with their pacing and effects keep us engaged in a way we have become accustomed to. This is not necessarily a negative thing, except for the fact that we are in danger of forgetting how to engage with anything different from this, with anything that may be in a style we are not used to anymore. The result is not just a lack of appreciation for the past, but an actual inability to engage with the past. A whole history of cinematic brilliance becomes consigned to be museum exhibits rather than having a real presence in the cultural consciousness of this generation. Instead, we breed a spawn of youth who are addicted to everything new, up to date and up to speed. Young people who find it hard to ever let go of their mobile phone or dedicate their attention to something or someone outside their immediate field of interest. These same people need to be “entertained” on a superficial level, without patience for anything greater, and without openness to anything that may require an increased effort.

Overhearing conversations on the train can be a cause for alarm when young people’s movie tastes are limited to either Marvel or the latest gross-out comedy. Can they be blamed if these are the type of movies they are most frequently exposed to?

Perhaps of greater concern was an expedition with a large group of young people to what I believe is a truly standout film, “Gravity.” It was disheartening that even among these young people of goodwill, a cynicism and an inability to engage was present, when it came to entering into the experience. They did not know how to connect with a film that challenged them in ways they were not used to, a film that sought to engage them on a higher level. It can never be expected that everybody is going to love every movie, however, we can hope for all to be able to appreciate and recognise authentic goodness when we see it, and to be able to enter into a world we are invited to enter, and to encounter the story, characters and themes it offers.

Are we turning into a society that has no attention span, and that seeks constant short term amusement without the foresight to invest in something of more lasting value? The effects of this are not simply confined to “leisure” but reach out to all areas of human life.

Many university students now skip their lectures because there is an online version available, which allows them to skim through and capture the parts they consider important, as their attention span and the speed of this world makes it all too difficult to sit and listen for an extended period of time.

For many people of faith, even homilies passionately delivered by good priests, seem to only elicit blank looks on the faces of bored congregations. How often have people today become used to being “switched off” and disengaged? A priest may have so much wisdom to share, but if the people of his parish are unable to engage in order to receive it, then what is the good?

This is the culture we inhabit, where it is almost too difficult to listen to a 50 minute lecture or even a 10 minute homily anymore, because we are unable to connect for that long. Ironically, we are constantly connected to the internet, addicted to phones and facebook, scrolling newsfeed in an endless thirst for something to spark our amusement and interest. It seems most people only want what is new and fast, and the old and traditional has no place anymore.

We are all affected by the culture, nobody is immune. This is why Recordatio seeks to share these movies, so that those who attend can start to break through the hard crust of our culture, and the hard crust the culture has built around us. It is so that we can start to rediscover some of the beauty of the past, and keep alive movies that deserve to be watched as long as the world keeps turning. It is so that we can be challenged, our horizons broadened, and our consciences informed, even in the midst of entertainment. It is so that we can transform a culture that automatically and instinctively backs away from black & white film, or an older acting style, or a lengthy slower paced 3 hour epic. These don’t define a movie’s greatness nor should they be an obstacle to a culture willing to engage with what is slightly unfamiliar to them. But all too often, they are an obstacle, due to this hardened crust that shapes our way of looking at things. We are conditioned by our culture to think like this. However, if we can break through this hard crust, we can also bring others through, and we can start to condition the culture rather than let it condition us.

A culture that can engage with these films is a culture that can take the time to put down the phone, to think deeply, to reflect on the world and the human experience, and to be ready to change the world.

3. Movies as a Form of Cultural Resistance. Lastly, St. John Paul II living in Poland during WWII organised a group of people, who would meet secretly in a room where they would read aloud Polish poetry and perform Polish plays as a form of cultural resistance, to keep alive the culture that the Nazis wanted to destroy. With a similarly sized group of people, a similar space and a similar intention, this cinema club can be a force of cultural resistance, keeping alive these films and in some way, forming the culture with them, assisting all men and women to become people of richness, depth and engagement.

Likewise, all are invited to join us through this blog, to be a part of this cultural resistance and watch these same films, keeping them alive and resisting the culture of shallowness, the culture of instant gratification and the culture of crass that seems so prevalent in our world today. Let us together be entertained by great entertainment and help the world to rediscover the truth, beauty and goodness in its very midst.