TOW #12 Movie Theater Article

This New York Times article reports on movie theaters using more extreme presentation methods, for example artificial rain or moving seats, in order to attract a waning younger audience that was once a dependable demographic. Brooks Barnes, the author of this article, seems embittered by the shift, as he attempts to convince his readers that this is a cheapening of the movie experience through clever use of lists and a supposedly detached tone.

            Barnes is very fond of lists in this article. Far more than the expected amount is present. For example, Barnes describes the lives of teenagers, “Or they are at least busying themselves with video games, living room wide-screen televisions and devices that can pull up thousands of movies with a couple of clicks.” In any situation that could conceivably be described with a list without disrupting the flow, you can expect a list. The purpose seems to be to drive home the over-complication and excess of modern movie theater presentation and the modern world in general. It’s a clever tactic and is effective to a point, until it becomes distracting.

Perhaps a more subtle strategy is Barnes’s carefully constructed tone. Refusing to actually make any comment or direct judgment, Barnes instead presents the opinions of others that agree with him. For example, Barnes reports, “For many cinephiles, this is sacrilege. Even some Hollywood executives joke about bringing motion-sickness bags and raincoats.” It’s a way of speaking that gives the impression of an impartial reporter summarizing a general public’s opinions, but still allows the author to direct the takeaway of the text.

            Barnes’s careful tone and arrangement of the text is highly effective and not immediately obvious. While reading the article, one should keep in mind that the New York Times was once merely a newspaper and has been forced to modernize and pander to a younger internet-savvy generation. If Barnes is an older writer for the Times, this may explain his attitude towards similar shifts in the cinema. Whatever the reason, his heart or his shoes, he seems well prepared to state his case on modernization.