A Night at the Movies

[Athrabeth]

I went to see “The Queen” with Helen Mirren at our local cinema this week, but it’s not the movie, wonderful as it was, that moved me to write this. It was the venue itself.

Housed in an old community hall that dates back to the late 1890’s, our little island movie theatre has remained pretty much the same on the outside over the decades; comparing it to archival photographs, few differences can be discerned, and even those can be categorized as very minor cosmetic surgeries. It sits at a junction that has been known as “Central” since pioneer days, although it is not at all the centre of the island. It was, rather, the centre of the more densely settled northern region of the island, where four old trails linking small farming and fishing settlements converged to create something of a “hub”, with a general store and post office, one-room schoolhouse, church, graveyard, inn, the only jail on the island, and of course, the all-important community hall.

Since we moved here in 1980, the movie theatre has had three sets of proprietors, who in turn, have called it by three names: Salt Spring Cinema, Cinema Central, and, just recently, The Fritz. The last name is in honour of its resident cat, a locally famous and much-loved feline who has his own little house on the front porch of the old building, as well as his very own epic and legendary tale (but that is another story).

Twenty-five years ago, the cinema was run by three sisters. In those days, we rarely got a first run movie, and by the time films arrived on our little island, they were often a bit worse for wear. Putting up with scratches and breakages were just part of the movie-going experience, as was sitting on those awful, cheap, wood and metal chairs that are still inflicted upon those attending school Christmas concerts and town hall meetings. Going to the movies meant bringing pillows and your own picnic supplies. It also meant listening to melodies played on an old upright piano by an ancient little woman, who would walk to the cinema every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening (the only times the hall was rented out as a movie theatre), clutching her sheet music and a round, dusty pink cushion for the piano stool. While she played, the audience was treated to a slideshow depicting local events, from Little League games to the island’s annual Fall Fair. The photographs were all taken by one of the managing sisters, who was something like a maiden aunt to hundreds of island children, because it was the joy and energy of their play and the wonderful genuineness of their smiles that she captured most often with her camera. Sometimes I think the adults enjoyed the pre-movie slide show just as much as the “main event”, and the kids, perhaps even more, shouting out with excitement and pride as they saw themselves and their siblings and friends appear, larger than life, on the “big screen”.

When the sisters sold the business, big changes came to our little movie house, but most were welcome ones, long overdue. Sadly, the ancient little lady became too ancient to play the piano, and a few years later, passed away. No one took her place to provide live music for the opening slideshow, but it remained a firmly entrenched tradition. There was an unfortunate period a few years back, when photographs of colourful local events were replaced by seemingly endless slides of three fat and fluffy cats as well as innumerable sunrise/sunset shots of blissfully balanced poses (often in artful silhouette), courtesy of a small band of yoga practitioners. Rude, and often very funny, comments rippled through the audience like wind through wheat, and thankfully brought a message of change to the new photographer’s ear, who turned instead to photos highlighting the natural beauty of our island, peppered liberally with the smiling faces of children. To this day, there are absolutely no previews, commercials, or other methods of cinematic foreplay before our movies – just lovely pictures of places and people we all know and love.

One of the most welcome changes that came about was the establishment of a real concession stand in the old front foyer of the building, where you could (and still can) buy a small bag of popcorn, a drink and a candy bar for about five bucks for adults and three for kids. If there’s anything that staggers me most when I visit a “big city” theatre, it’s the cost of concession items…….what is up with that? We began to get first run movies, and so a bigger and better movie screen was added, along with a pretty fair sound system, but the change that had the entire island abuzz about twelve years ago, was the procurement of REAL theatre seats, in all their springy-bottomed and cushy-backed glory. Because the building remains a community hall, at least for two days of the week, these seats have been mounted to skids of two-by-fours, which in turn have been attached to strips of carpet so they can be easily moved in and out of place. The seats are joined together in groups of two, which line either side of the hall, and groups of four, allowing for eight seats across in the middle section. The absolutely best thing about this arrangement is that audience members can actually maneuver their groupings to provide optimum viewing, something that’s pretty important when there’s no slant to the floor. During the past fifteen years, I have never seen anything but cooperation from movie goers in this regard, as groups of seats glide effortlessly a bit to the right or a bit to the left to open a kind of staggered series of portals throughout the hall.

And so, there I was, sitting with Mr. Ath in our favourite two-seater on the left-hand side of the theatre on Tuesday night. All tickets are just five dollars on Tuesdays, so the place was absolutely packed. But no worries; we had worked out a mutually beneficial placement of said seats with the people directly behind us, and so had a fine view of the bigger and better screen. Because it was an early show, we had foregone dinner, deciding instead to bring a pre-cut baguette onto which we could pile my homemade antipasto and an herbed cream cheese. Alas, no wine is allowed, but our bottles of San Pellegrino were cold, and their contents refreshingly bubbly. We watched the slideshow, this time heavily loaded with pics of snow-capped trees and icy ponds and kids on sleds. Fritz the cat brushed past us, pausing for a quick massage behind the ears before heading to the back of the house, to curl up in his own permanently reserved seat. Before the lights dimmed for the movie, I had one of those delightfully aware moments where I appreciated, fully and consciously, how lucky I was to be in that little cinema, where you can scoot your seat around for a better view and bring your own provender, where kids can be dropped off for a weekend matinee by parents who know they’ll be safe, where I can recall the joy at seeing my own children’s faces smiling back at me – my daughter’s first ride on a ferris wheel, my son holding a trophy won at the Fall Fair. A slide of two little kids standing proudly beside a lopsided snowman flashed on the screen and there was a quiet, yet delighted cry of recognition from someone in the audience. Surely, I thought, this has to be the best little movie theatre there ever was.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Beautiful, Ath. You're very lucky.

Of course, one generally makes one's own luck.