The Illusion of Depth

August 24, 2021

Movie Nights at the

Victoria Park Baptist Church

And so life goes on.

Some of you may remember that our film series in early 2020 was rudely interrupted by a Global Pandemic. The subsequent year and a half has been, well... You know things are pretty bad when you find yourself wondering if there is a plural for "Apocalypse".

But at any rate, here we are (Apocalypses? Apocali? That's going to bother you now, isn't it?) facing the prospect of attempting to pick up the pieces of Civilisation - assuming of course we don't go into another Lockdown first. (Apocalyae? Apocalim?)

Movie-going, like so many communal activities, has taken a severe hit during the Pandemic, and I'm willing to hazard a guess that most of the films you have watched over the last eighteen months have been from the comfort of home, with, at most, a family member or two.

But watching a film like this:

....isn't really the same as watching a film like this:

Sadly we don't quite have a venue to compete with the image above, but on Thursday, the 16th of September at 7.30pm, we hope to begin showing films at the Victoria Park Baptist Church once again.

In the past, our film series have been based around specific themes (Racism, Sexism, Censorship; you know - all the fun stuff) but for this return to Reality, I intend for these film nights to be nothing more than a simple celebration of movie-going itself.

There is absolutely a conversation to be had about whether the definition of Cinema should include the manner in which we experience it - but I don't intend to get into that right now.

Of course the earliest moving pictures were experienced in private, without an audience to share the experience (I lied; I do intend to get into that right now) but the overwhelming majority of films produced over the last one hundred and twenty-odd years were released with the assumption that they would be seen communally, by an audience sitting together and sharing the experience.

It is this "shared experience" that we have been missing over the last year or so of Lockdown Living (Apocaleeps? No, that would be silly) and while Netflix and Amazon Prime and Talking Pictures TV are all invaluable ways of seeing films that would otherwise be unavailable to us, I can't help thinking that we are missing something in the process.

For this reason, I intend to resume our film nights with a collection of "Old Favourites". Many of these films will be ones that you have probably seen before (and if not, now is your chance to catch some of the all-time great moments in film history!) but this is what Cinema is all about: experiencing the very best films with a group of people who will be right there with you, sharing the moments - creating a bond. Trust me; it really isn't the same on a Smartphone.