The Baby Boom generation suffers from a contradiction.
We were both the heralds of change — or, at least that is how it seemed, growing up Catholic and blue collar in the labor union-dominated Michigan — as well as the protectors of (some) traditions. Perhaps, we were just paddlers in the stream, as poetry, prose, music and movies changed during our collective lifetime.
When we entered our teens, movies were still seen as a threat to morality. For Catholics, protecting morality was the bailiwick of the Legion of Decency, founded in the 1930s. Catholics were expected to stand, once a year, to pledge to only see movies judged acceptable by the Legion, which also had power over Hollywood because it knew if Catholics avoided a picture, it would not make money.
While domestic films struggled with decency, European offerings were entering the American market. A college freshman who wanted to be considered an intellectual preferred films with subtitles, shown at “art house” cinemas.
Detroit’s first art house, the Studio Theatre, was in the same block as the venerable jazz venue, Baker’s Keyboard Lounge. If that sounds like a neighborhood for black turtleneck-wearing beatniks, well, it was.
For would-be Catholic intellectuals, the answer to the movie dilemma wasn’t simply to ignore the Legion, it was to strike a new path. Looking for Christ figures in movies became a movement in the mid-’60s through lectures on films like “Darling” and “Alfie,” which must have terrified the Legion’s standard-setters. Those lectures convinced me that the theme was the most important element of a film.
Art houses don’t exist in today’s suburbs dominated by multiplexes set in acres of asphalt, but there are places in western Massachusetts that are close to the art house ideal: the Amherst Cinema, the Triplex in Great Barrington and Images in Williamstown. They’re where my friends and I go.
A small theater, located in the center of a town, is likely to be within walking distance of food, coffee or a glass of wine where you and the friend(s) you’re with can talk about what you’ve just seen.
If you go alone, something about an intimate theater will allow strangers to strike up a conversation. A movie should generate talk. If all you can say as you walk out is, “That was fun,” or “That was a bit too violent,” or “The costumes were gorgeous,” perhaps you would have been better off waiting for the show to have appeared on Netflix and watched it from your sofa.
As a small-theater fan, I was surprised that I saw all but one of Academy Award nominees for best picture. However, when the next day a Ledger-conscious critic wrote those movies made little money, I was alarmed. Sequels and superheroes fill theaters all summer long, with adult films seldom appearing before Labor Day.
If movies must make money, then the Boomers, who are no longer seen as an economic force, will not be the target audience. We will have fewer choices.
There is something of the girl who saw “Morgan!” at the Studio Theatre in 1966 still in me. I love serious films but I also like to laugh. Asked what my favorite films are, I include “Orlando,” “Antonia’s Line” and “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion.”
But I also loved the French farce, “Eight Women,” when I first saw it and loved it just as much when I watched it again a decade later. I like “UHF” and “Three Amigos” for the same reason I like “Eight Women.” All are supremely silly.
But the setting in which a movie is seen is as important as why you choose to see it. One rainy weekend, my then-teenaged daughter and I saw both, “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” and “Impromptu,” because the mother of my daughter’s best friend recommended them. They remain favorites.
I chuckled when a friend, a retired English teacher, told me how, despite not being a Marvel fan, she loved “Black Panther.” “There were so many themes,” she said. I nodded and added it was an anti-capitalism film. She also liked that it was “a love story, not a sex story.” I loved that the relationship was explained in the writing and that the gradual reconciliation was shown by the acting. Two old Boomers found both theme and morality.
Coda: I agree that “The Shape of Water” was the best picture of the year. Certainly, Gary Oldman’s performance as Winston Churchill was the most remarkable performance by an actor. He inhabited Churchill and he was the picture. But, I would have preferred that Sally Hawkins was named best actress, with the two supporting awards going to Mary J. Blige and Woody Harrelson.
Susan Wozniak, of Easthampton, is a retired journalist and writing professor who writes a monthly column. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.