Watching movies at home, on a screen however large and a sound system however noisy, is simply not the same thing as seeing them in a theater. My dad used to say that watching movies on TV was like getting kissed over the telephone. Whatโs missing in seeing a film on television is a central component of what it means to be humanโthe assembly. Whether itโs at a church, at a play, or at the movies, the idea of losing your identity at a gathering of othersโknown or unknown to youโwhile sharing a common experience, a journey, an event, is uniquely human, and in my opinion we abandon such practices at our peril. Gatherings are important, and certainly better than going through life with ear buds. Never mind the theology or medium in question, concentrate on the part where you rub shoulders with strangers. Cities are places you walk or ride the subway, places where you look at people, they look at you; you donโt pass them on the freeway at seventy miles an hour. At the end of a performance of Beethovenโs Third, you and the audience have shared an adventure, at once individual and collective. The experience makes you a better person. Donโt ask me how or why, but it does. There isnโt any movie shown on television that wouldnโt be better in a movie theater. Art is fragileโit can be interrupted by crying kids, the telephone, the neighbors, what have you. Gatherings, whether for music, church, plays, films, or ballets, are experiences to which you must make a commitment and in making that commitment, in leaving your home to devote yourself to that communal experience, you reaffirm your humanity.
