Screen memories?

Is the age of cinema-going really a thing of the past?

For the past few years, we’ve heard dire predictions about the end of movie-going. Studio execs worry that your high-end plasma television and the easy availability of movies on DVD and (increasingly) over the Internet are killing the film business, or at least moving the model away from public screenings and toward private home viewing. So far, 2008 has shown a dip in box-office revenues of nearly 2 percent, which has studios scrambling to figure out what’s next. That includes Warner Bros.’ decision to shut down Warner Independent and Picturehouse, its “arthouse” brands, leaving it free to throw more money at blockbusters in hopes of drawing people back to the theaters.

Does that mean the communal cinema experience is dead? The signs are mixed, to say the least. While movie theaters turn toward alternative programming, film is also moving out of the theaters and into unexpected venues.

Despite reports of the death of cinema, the Chicago area has actually been experiencing a theater-building mini boom, with more new screens slated to open later this year and in 2009. The Block 37 project on State Street includes a cinema, and in the suburbs, South Barrington will get a Village Roadshow Gold Class “luxury” theater in October, with gourmet food, valet parking, plush recliner seating and “personal call buttons.”

And just what’s playing at the multiplex? A live simulcast of an opera, a special one-time only projection of This American Life, a kids’ event called Bratz: Girlz Really Rock, an exclusive revival of Rambo: First Blood, a screening of Japanese anime and a Celine Dion concert video. Even if you don’t know Tristan and Isolde from Romeo and Juliet, don’t have rug rats obsessed with Bratz and roll your eyes sarcastically at the mention of Celine Dion, you’re probably aware of these events thanks to preshow commercials from NCM Fathom, the company behind most of the nonfilm things happening in movie theaters these days. “We saw that fans were clearly excited about coming to movie theaters and having unique community experiences,” says Fathom spokesman Dan Diamond.

Fathom has been using movie theaters for nonmovie events since 2002. In the beginning, the initiative was an outgrowth of parent company National CineMedia’s core business, which puts on corporate meetings in theaters using digital projection and satellite technology. Fathom, which offers all sorts of programming using that expensive equipment, was a natural outgrowth.

The key to Fathom’s success is pretty simple: Whether it’s an “event” movie like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, or a performance of La Bohème by the Met, there’s a deep appeal to the communal experience. And when the audience is drawn from a more limited fan base, like opera buffs or anime fans, you’re less likely to have to deal with the usual annoyances—cell-phone gabbers, serial chatterers, crying kids at grown-up events.

That same craving for communal experience may explain the recent surge in alternative screenings at all sorts of locations around Chicago. Within the last year, we’ve seen the emergence of the Chicago Cinema Forum and White Light Cinema, both dedicated to screening films that are decidedly non-multiplex fare.

Gabe Klinger, the driving force behind Chicago Cinema Forum, has shown everything from a rarely seen Roberto Rossellini film about India (India: Matri Bhumi) to a program of early silent shorts that utilized the then-novel tracking shot, projected with live accompaniment by local musicians.

White Light Cinema, the brainchild of former Chicago Filmmakers programmer Patrick Friel, showcases experimental film, including a program of work by Stan Brakhage and a recent screening of the controversial Tearoom, a repurposing of police-surveillance video of sex in a men’s room.

The two series eschew traditional movie theaters in favor of places like Sonotheque, the Chopin Theatre and the new Nightingale, a Wicker Park venue that’s as basic as it gets—four walls, some seats and a projector. What all these venues and the two screening series share with Fathom’s simulcasts of operas is the feeling of sharing an experience with like-minded people. The cinema is dead. Long live the cinema

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