END OF AN ERA
SAVOY SCREEN 1 is no more
ne of my deep abiding memories of going to the cinema over the years is
going in cold to watch The Raid at the 2012 Dublin International Film Festival. Nobody really knew what to expect, but by the end of it we knew that we had experienced something special. The 700 strong audience cheered and clapped its way through that screening, filling every person in the audience with the power of collective elation. It was probably the closest that I've come to a religious experience.
That's what we lose, and what all future generations are losing, with the diggers currently remodelling Savoy Screen 1 and splitting the theatre. Watching the diggers move in there over the last week or so has brought great pang sof regret of the films not seen.
The big struggle with Screen 1 is head versus heart or art versus commerce. Splitting Screen 1 is nothing new. It's been done before in that same cinema. Financially it may make sense to split the screen as its not full to capacity for each screening. Digital projection is relatively automated so staff costs remain static with more screens. Therefore revenue increases as you can show more to more people.
What you gain in economic terms is lost in artistic and cultural terms. What you lose is too high a cost to pay. Screen 1 is the iconic screen in Ireland. It's where some of our lasting cinematic memories have been made. It's hosted galas, premieres, countless stars. It's the grand old lady.
Watching a film unfurl in Savoy Screen 1 for the first time with a packed and enraptured audience is an experience unlike any other.
It's the definition of a movie theatre. The lights go down, the curtains go back, and magic happens. Turning this one remarkable screen into multiple smaller screens is a cultural mistake.
Multiplexes are meant to offer more, but they all become imitations of one another. Increased screens has not led to increased variety.
Increased competition from home cinema requires innovative response, not simply more screens. The recently refurbished and reopened Stella is a case in point. It offers a wholly different way of immersing yourself in a film. Hopefully it shows that art and commerce need not be mutually exclusive.
Screen 1 is the last bastion of the cinema experience that defined childhoods. That magic that comes from a curtain pulling back and the silver screen leaping to life. To lose this is devastating. But progress almost always destroys to build again.
Niall Murphy
Managing Editor
O
CinÉireann / January 2018 3
EDITORIAL