Barthes’ expressed his irrepressible fascination with cinema in his article. To him, movie theatre serves not only an instrumental function but also a healing, erotic, relaxing “opaque cube” underlying the immersive darkness. It is the darkness that makes cinema unique from watching television at home. Indulging in this ‘twilight reverie’, the visual and audio effect of the film can be represented more vividly and lifelike, and no more distractions can severe us from the full experience of a movie. Then, we get our ‘image-repertoire’ from the movie, a unity of opposites: one totally immerses in the movie and one preserves a critical vigilance. Such experience could only be generated by cinema and can never be replicated by television or streaming media.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has caused a great depression in the film industry, on par with the emergence of streaming media like Disney+ and Netflix. Thus, just as Nolan says, we should do more to revive the cinema industry, ‘it felt like coming home in a way’.
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Great summary! I would argue that any attempt to recreate the cinematic experience at home is not impossible, though! Although, yes, it won’t be 100% success, we can always dim the lights, add some pillows to our seats, max out the volume. What Barthes referred to as “the cinematographic hypnosis” (p.347), on the other hand, might be more difficult to reproduce. The cinema definitely has a hypnotic and healing effect on Barthes. What is the cinema to you?