Cinema Memories
Hello and welcome back to Popped, a journey through cinema history and culture. Thank you for joining me!
They say you should try and build a community with your newsletter. Get people involved, they say.
The world would surely swallow me whole for being so brash as asking someone to “get involved”. Around two weeks ago, despite myself, I posted a question here on Substack:
A few days went by and no responses, phew. No-one even saw it, I’ll get on with my life then, nothing to see here.
Logging on the following week I was greeted to answers from what can only be described as ten people. Ten people! I think I’m an influencer now?
The question itself is something I’ve asked a few times before. It harks back to my first post, which is nearly a year old (!). In that newsletter I talked about a trip to the Commodore cinema in Aberystwyth as a child. Those memories are what the heart of this newsletter is all about, connecting the cinema to our personal and cultural past.
I’ve collated some of the cinema stories that were shared, as it really blew my mind that people were happy to respond, and their stories were little pockets of joy.
The first one I really loved was from
What an exciting way to watch one of your first movies, outside on a lawn, in Pearl Harbour. An outdoor cinema in Aberystwyth would have resulted in chairs sunken into the mud and a bout of hypothermia.
A rollercoaster of a story here from
. I love the detail of the movie experience. You can’t replicate that rattle at home.I was alone; I’m Catholic now, but I was raised in a particular denomination that didn’t believe in going to movie theatres. Long story short I contrived during my undergrad years to go away and see Spider-Man 3 on the quiet.
Aside from the occasional IMAX documentary, it was my first ever real movie in a theatre. I loved the Sandman’s music, Spider-Man, the fight, the way the place rattled just a bit when the train rattled Peter’s apartment onscreen… Good times.
(And then I got lost driving back and ended up driving the wrong way down a one-way street in Cincinnati, so. Y’know.)
These are just some of the responses I got, and I love every one of them. They represent the minutia of life that we don’t often sit and reminisce about. They are the small things we pick up on as a kid, the smells that greet us when we walk into the theatre, the friends or family that chose to spend that afternoon with you.
Today is a chance to ask the people around you this same question.
What was your first memory of going to the cinema?
Who were you with?
What did you watch?
What did you eat and drink?
What stood out? Paint the picture!
Obviously I would love you to comment yours below, or reply to the email, which will come directly to me. I would really like to highlight these memories throughout my newsletters as a way to connect us all together.
Thanks for reading.
Gareth
So happy that you helped me remember that early cinematic experience. There would be many more outdoor movies in my life, but I still remember the first. Bravo!
I remember well my first cinematic experience. At the age of 4, I was sitting in the cinema with my parents, engrossed in the 1986 film King Kong Lives. Among the scenes, I vaguely remember King Kong getting a heart transplant, and that image left an indelible mark on my young mind. Strangely, I don't remember being offered any snacks, but considering it was a provincial cinema in the USSR, perhaps that was the norm. Interestingly, years later, the cinema closed its doors, giving way to the church that now stands in its place.