You'd maybe be surprised to learn that one of my absolute favorite works to study as I ran the gauntlet of higher education was the Old English epic Beowulf. Those unfamiliar with it, just imagine lots and lots of very testosterone-driven Vikings battling trolls and dragons and sea monsters across the frozen forests of ancient Scandinavia, and congratulations, you're pretty much there (and you Middle Earth fans out there saying, "huh, that sounds a bit familiar," know that Beowulf was J.R.R. Tolkien's obsessive passion from which he borrowed generously in the creation of his own fantasy epics). It's set hundreds of years before its already-dubious time of creation in the documentative black hole of the Dark Ages, right as Christianity was first making its way into the region, and is often categorized as an elegy, a sad mourning poem about a world that seems to be losing just a little bit more magic as time passes each and every day.
Beowulf originally existed as an oral work, an out-loud performance that villagers would have huddled around crackling campfires on cold winter nights to listen to, and has what I think is one of the very best openings to a text in the history of literature: the Old English exclamation "Hwaet!" Older translations interpret it as meaning "Harken!", modern presentations generally give it as "Listen!", and wily Irish poet Seamus Heaney (in my own personal favorite translation) gives it as "So!" It's an attention-demanding command, basically telling everybody within earshot to sit down and shut up... it's story time.
Unsurprisingly, I put a lot of stock in "story time." Some of my most formative memories as a child come from being read to, reading out loud has become far and away my favorite activity in my job as a substitute teacher, and I'm enrolled in an MFA graduate program at the moment with the sole intention of one day being able to crank out one or two stories of my very own. Stories are quite possibly one of the most distinctive and important traits we possess as a species: portals into which we can enter, alone or in a group, to escape from the troubles of the outside world, be they rival marauding tribes or terror threats on public transportation. Stories can teach, they can reflect, they can comment...most important of all, they can entertain. To paraphrase from one of the best storytellers of modern literature, stories are the most inexhaustible source of magic still left to us in the world.
Even a sucker for the written word like me appreciates other forms of storytelling; I'd even go so far as to suggest that the definitive medium of storytelling in today's world has become the movies. I'll make no two ways about it, I LOVE the movies. Especially, I love movie theaters. I regard them as the modern equivalent of ye olde village campfires and mead halls, the meeting places where we can all gather to experience a good yarn in a community setting (popcorn's what's on tap now instead of roasting mutton). Hitting "next" on the home Netflix cue just can't cut it for me in comparison to wading through a carpet of half-eaten popcorn whilst I avoid straddling a complete stranger in the pitch blackness on my way to reach an upholstered seat which, were I to see it at a yard sale in the harsh light of day, would cause me to get back in my car and drive away in horror.
But popcorn droppings and frayed upholstery are a small price to pay to experience that magic I was talking about before. It's fleeting, and much of the time has nothing even to do with the movie I've just paid $57 dollars to see. No, it's those few precious moments when the lights suddenly fade out and the theater dims; there's nothing yet even on the screen, just the sound of the rheumatic breather four rows down on my left and the projection flicker cutting through the smoky blackness. If this were a wedding, it'd be the moment where everyone but the groom has seen the bride walk in, and he's turning to catch his first glimpse. For one hushed moment, time stops as everyone in the dark room anticipates the moment when that smoky flicker finally resolves itself into colors and shapes on the screen; it's modern society's very own "Hwaet!"
What breaks my heart, though, is what similarly vexed the anonymous writer of the Beowulf poem all those years ago: slowly but surely, the magic seems to be dying out.
I went with my family over the Thanksgiving holiday break last week to the local movie theater, wanting to see nothing in particular, but just looking for a nice afternoon out. Even though we arrived about a half hour earlier than the next movie showing, the ticket clerk told us all the theater seats had been sold out in advance: pre-selected seating had claimed all but the very front two rows beneath the screen (and really, what's even the point of those seats?). I was angry, surprised, and disappointed all at the same time, even though I guess I should just expect it at this point. There's no such thing as a spontaneous trip to the movies now: you can't just grab a date on a whim anymore -- public service announcement, you shouldn't be grabbing anybody, I'm fairly sure it's an arrestable offense -- and head down to catch a movie like the drive-in glory days of earlier cinema. If you want to see a movie now, it's an event, an occasion that has to be planned out three weeks in advance and run by a subcommittee for approval with all accompanying paperwork delivered in color-coded triplicate.
I desperately want to see the new Star Wars movie coming out in a few weeks, but I had to finally give in to the system tonight and order my tickets in advance, for fear of not seeing the movie for the first several weeks of its release; I could barely scrounge together two accompanying seats that wouldn't have my neck at a forty-five degree angle for the duration of the film -- AT A 9AM SHOWING!!
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| For a showing three weeks out. All spots in grey mean that seat has already been filled ............!!! |
**"Hey there, what'd you do last night?"
"Eh, I tried getting into to see Tormund's story about Beowulf and the Dragon, but all the mead hall seats were already reserved. I had to make a reservation instead to sit near the skewered pig next week when Olaf does his bit on Grendel's Mother." ** translated from authentic Old English (probably)
On a side note, my bone of contention with theatergoers who can't stifle their technology addiction enough to turn their smartphones off or whip open their screens at the merest hint of a text message could take up its own separate blog... but for now, I simply say to those people -- to that maddeningly-increasing demographic who seems so hellbent on jarring the entire theater around them out of an immersive "story time" experience -- I have trouble keeping my own phone from smashing into the floor most days, I guarantee you I'll have even less of a hard time doing it with yours.
Sigh. I don't know what's to be done about these trends. More than likely, they're here to stay, and I'll just have to bite my tongue and learn to roll with it. In the grand scheme of things, admittedly, it's a pretty minor issue; the inconvenience of being turned away from a 2:30 matinee show pales a bit in comparison to, say, the inconvenience of being turned away from a safe-zone country as you and your family try to escape the devastation of Syria.
But don't the movies -- don't stories -- offer an often-necessary respite from those real world issues? If you take away the magic of being there when those theater lights go down, isn't a harsh, disenchanted reality all you're left with, the one the Beowulf writer so lamented? Personally, that question is one I'd rather hwaet and find out the answer to.
In the meantime, pass me the popcorn.
Nice read. Thanks Andrew.
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