Filmmaker and writer Alex R. Johnson’s debut novel, Brooklyn Motto, will be released March 11. His feature film Two Step premiered to critical acclaim at SXSW in 2014 and went on to become a New York Times Critic’s Pick, as well as remaining 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Prior to writing and directing, Johnson was a seasoned NYC-based commercial and documentary producer. He started his career at the legendary Maysles Films and then branched off to work with other directors. In 2010, he produced the feature documentary I Am Secretly an Important Man for filmmaker Pete Sillen. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. (Photo by FJ Parsa.)
“I know I told her I go to the movies alone, but that’s not exactly true. Sometimes there’s the guy with the Zabar’s bag filled with newspapers. Then there’s the crossword lady with the mechanical pencil. Sometimes there’s the Greek-fisherman’s-hat guy and his giant bag of sunflower seeds. He’s there a lot.”
Cities can make you lonely. New York City, exceedingly so.
But that’s not what it’s trying to do. The city doesn’t want you to feel lonely – it wants you to be OK with being alone. It’s the only way you’re going to survive it. You need to push through the negative side of solitude and find that sweet spot – that buoyancy that comes from being alone, but also together.
If you can’t satisfy your needs for community through eating solo at a diner counter, reading alone at a bar or, most gloriously, sitting alone in the dark with a group of strangers at the movies, you’re not long for this place.
There’s a reason so many here become cinephiles. A reason why in a city of loners, the common language tends to be film. The cinema is a place to gather in the flickering and escape, preferably with an empty seat or two between you and next person over.
I’ve been living in the past, lately. Specifically 1998. The days of unreserved seating and buying your tickets in person at the box office. My novel Brooklyn Motto is set then (the quote above is from it) and between the writing and now promotion of it, I keep sliding back into that time. I’m not going to say things were better then (mostly because nobody likes that), but I do miss the spontaneity of box office purchases and days wandering from film to film, theater to theater.
In 1998, I was a freelancer in film production, and as any freelancer knows, you’re either working or you’re looking for work. But sometimes you need a break. A reset. And on those days, I would drown myself in film.
The earliest weekday screening times tended to be at Angelika on Houston, so I’d start there. I had rules for days like these – creating rules is a great way to elevate pleasure-based non-employment activities to the structured and important. Angelika always had a 10 or 10:30 a.m. screening, so I’d make sure I was there in time to make it; but I couldn’t look up what was playing in advance, that would be too planned. Just get there, see what my choices are and buy a ticket.
After that, the planning could begin.
I’d head inside and grab a Village Voice or a New York Press and wait for my movie to be called. Flip, flip, flip; analyze screening times and theater distances and then plot out the rest of the day. A screening at 1 p.m. at Film Forum would give me time to walk there and grab a bite on the way. Then back to Angelika or maybe up to Cinema East or the Quad? Soy burger dinner at Dojos? Then over to Anthology to end the night?
If you did this enough, you’d start seeing familiar characters – the Greek fisherman hat guy, the mechanical pencil crossword lady, the cute barista from Porto Rico Importing that you will never, ever actually speak with. The first time I thought about retirement was when I was pondering one of these regulars. I was in my 20s, seated at Film Forum waiting for the film to start, when I noticed that one of these extras had made the same journey as I. We both had been at the Quad an hour ago, flipping through film listings as the credits rolled, plotting our next escape. He was more than a few decades older than me, probably 65 plus.
At Film Forum, I watched as he made a nest of his herringbone overcoat and a many-times-refolded New York Times. He unwrapped a piece of banana bread and blew on a too-hot cup of coffee and I thought, That looks pretty good, as I did exactly the same thing from my seat with my own coffee and my own banana bread. Bopping around from theater to theater with some sort of a senior discount? Sounds like as a good a way as any to slide towards the infinite.
To be clear, I’m not against going to the movies with others. I’m not an absolute curmudgeon. I have enjoyed the company of friends, enemies and loved ones at the cinema, I promise. One of my favorite film memories was the insanity of Independence Day at the Ziegfeld – they started screenings at midnight, the night it premiered. My friend and I were only able to get tickets for the 4 a.m. showing. By then, everyone was drunk, high and/or delirious. At the start, there was a technical delay and while we waited, someone got the entire sold-out Ziegfeld (all 1500-plus of them) to start chanting, “LET’S GO, METS!” for a few moments (a miracle considering their record that year). Of course, Independence Day was what it was. But the cinematic experience was glorious, communal chaos.
But even going to movies by yourself can backfire, as well. You never want to be in a sold-out theater alone, sandwiched between couples and groups with their elbows, opinions and own lives. Daytime is generally the sweet spot. I still deeply regret going by myself to see The Thin Red Line at the Loew’s on Broadway and 19th (now an AMC), the first Friday night after it was released. Bad decision. A worse decision was sneaking a deli paper-wrapped turkey sandwich in there. Even the tiniest attempt at unwrapping the thick, white paper resulted in cacophonous crackles that echoed throughout the theater. This is a war movie. They’ve got to stop whispering eventually … right?
When a film hits me, when it really devastates me, when it turns me into dust in the dark and the credits are rolling, I want to be one with that feeling. I want to be one with that nothing. I want to steep in it. I don’t want someone next to me turning to me and saying, “Intense, huh?”
Sometimes that scenario is best for rewatches. When you know you’re going to be gutted, make sure to go alone, so the sad hits just right. It’s always best to chase that dragon of devastation in solitude. My most obvious dip into that was Midnight Cowboy. I developed a bit of a Midnight Cowboy habit when they re-released it at the Baronet in February 1994. I had just recently moved to New York City and the loneliness had become crushing … and then I went to see Midnight Cowboy by myself one very unemployed day. The intimacy of that post-screening devastation was intoxicating. I think I saw it 13 times during that run… Nothing to do? Might as well go see Midnight Cowboy, again.
But there were also the practical solo ventures. The bare-bones days of severe unemployment, partially spent dodging phone calls from your parents, who would much rather you come home and get a job with the government than whatever it is you think you’re doing in New York; and partially spent panicking over how your last freelance gig keeps getting further and further away and how your next (figurative) paycheck will most likely arrive so late it could only be of use to your next of kin. Those were the days of single ticket purchases and theater hopping, seeing as many films as you could muster, escalator up, escalator down, bouncing between dark theaters in the glass house that was the Loew’s Village 7 on 3rd Avenue (also now an AMC). These were not selective days, these were push-your-thoughts-out-of-your-head days. Whatever worlds were available to disappear into were what you got, and they were good enough.
I know this is all still possible. There are many wonderful theaters that have unreserved seating and people working the box office: IFC Center, the Quad, BAM, Film Forum … and yes, there’s an element of old-man-yells-at-cloud to all this. But I sometimes forget how heading to the cinema has saved me in the past. And as the present pulls us further down into the bad darkness, a reminder to you (and myself) to head into the good one.
Take a deep breath. Pick a dark theater. Decide what to watch when you get there.
Sit alone, but together. Because that’s what we are.
