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A comment I make a lot — I did, as recently as two days ago, while interviewing the filmmakers behind the upcoming “ParaNorman” — is that theaters are a safe place to explore scary subjects.
It’s something that really hit home for me when I used to work at The Children’s Theater Company, where parents were sometimes bothered by, for instance, the Little Match Girl dying at the end of the play. Our response was to point out that dark elements have always been a part of storytelling for adults and children (hello, Brothers Grimm) and that theaters are a way to explore those themes in a secure environment, one where parents and kids can see something together and talk about it afterwards.
But I’m not sure if I’ll ever think of theaters as a safe place again.
I suspect — or maybe hope — it will be revealed that the Aurora gunman had no specific agenda with regards to “The Dark Knight Rises” and that a few parallels between the film and his rampage (in “Rises,” Bane and his henchmen shoot up both a stock exchange and a football stadium) are coincidental. Either way, the parallels are there because violence is an integral part of the movies (Warner Bros has reportedly pulled a trailer for the September release, “The Gangster Squad,” because of a scene in which gangsters shoot up a movie theater — a coincidence that is likely to affect the film’s release date, if not the film itself. And, although the trailer was everywhere on the Internet yesterday, it has been yanked from every site I can find).
Movie theaters are a place where lots of people congregate, so it’s not a huge surprise that violence sometimes ensues — there were also incidents at the openings of both “New Jack City” and “Boyz N the Hood,” two decades ago, as well as at the most recent “X-Men” — but the “Dark Knight Rises” tragedy does suggest a more devious pattern. Reports have indicated that the shooter seemingly deliberately timed his attack to a scene of shooting violence in the film, perhaps so it would take longer for confused patrons to react. To be affected by the manipulation of movies, we need to let down our guards and he, unfortunately, used that information.
It reminds me of a comment Susan Sarandon makes in the documentary, “The Celluloid Closet” about the danger and importance of movies: “You go into a little dark room and become incredibly vulnerable – on one hand all your perspectives can be challenged, you could feel something you couldn’t feel normally.”
That’s a big part of what I love about movies and I suspect I’m not alone. Sarandon was talking about emotional vulnerability but — and I type this knowing the vast majority of screenings yesterday went off without a hitch — now it feels like there may be other ways in which we make ourselves vulnerable. As my heart goes out to the people of Aurora and their loved ones, I also hope this event hasn’t taken away the ability to feel safe, in every meaning of the word, at the movies.
I don’t know if it has but I do know the tragedy makes me feel like I need going to the movies — to make sense, to forget, to laugh — even more.
