By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

A shaman was looking for answers.

In an attempt to better treat his newer patients, the Native American healer sought an inroad into “the white collective subconscious.” He wanted to know where our healing stories lay; the tales we used to analyze ourselves and our situations, to provide us with answers or catharsis.

Initial interviews brought little more than urban myths. No one quite understood what it was he sought. He began to wonder if such things existed in modern American culture.

Disappointed, he sat in the flickering darkness of a movie theater watching classic cinema and experienced an epiphany. The answer was in front of him.

The hopes, fears and dreams, the stories that unite all our cultural members exist within our movies.

This fictional quest from a long-past television series touched on a vital component of a medium that America made into its trunk of memories. Since bursting onto the scene around a century ago, motion pictures have occupied a central point in our world.

Hence the reason all movie theaters in New York City waived entrance fees for three days following the attacks on Sept. 11.

Sad, then, cinema seems to have lost a lot of luster over the last few years. Amidst industry concerns over lagging box office revenues, moguls and insiders are scrambling to find the quickest bandage to lure back a reluctant public.

A lot of the problems they seek to answer seem pretty apparent from my vantage point, partially because I’m old enough to remember a variety of movie-going experiences.

I can remember going to drive-ins with my parents to catch Disney flicks.

I recall heading into old style movie palaces — like the Alabama Theatre in downtown Birmingham — venues designed as much for the stage as the screen. They were fancy places with velvet chairs and aisles and a capacity of a few hundred. When you went to a show there, you just knew you were doing something special.

I remember when the architectural style of theaters began to change, when things became more utilitarian, more modern.

I remember when having two screens under one roof was a novelty.

And then I look at today. After forking over the price of a decent lunch at the ticket window, and the cost of a decent dinner at the concession stand, the moviegoer is forced to lace through a generic labyrinth of stadium-styled cubicles in hopes that just this time it’ll all be worth it. Maybe this once the room won’t be filled with cell phones and conversation and crying babies.

The movie-going experience has certainly diminished. I stand by the observation that people are ruder now, that a few generations’ worth of television has robbed us of some of our conscientiousness.

It’s little wonder home theater technology has taken a chunk out of the box office.

And with the general garbage coming out of Hollywood, who wants to drop the major bucks required for a night at the local mega-plex? I’m not complaining exclusively about violence or sex, though both are used as cheap crutches far too often. No, I’m speaking just of general quality. Either poorly rendered or predictably written or pitifully conceived, so much cinema seems like a waste of resources.

It also feels as if every other premiere is a rehash of previously-released mediocre movies or, worse yet, a television series. Do we really need to see a large screen version of a series written to do little more than sell color televisions or coffee percolators? And storylines that, well, just weren’t that good the first time around, do they really merit another shot?

Tragically, there lies a rich bounty of plays, centuries’ worth in fact, that hold all the inspiration one could need for compelling stories but no one seems eager to tap into them.

Of course, we all know how the industry’s emphasis on the immediately contemporary can sometimes hold sway. Perhaps it’s felt that Eugene O’ Neill, Arthur Miller or Harold Pinter and the like might be too dated.

Ridiculous. Time and place are mere trappings whereas the best qualities of true human drama and dynamics are eternal. Betrayal stings the same in Ptolemaic Egypt as it does in ‘90s-era Compton.

A theater can be a magical place, a spot where minds are lifted above the mundane or where hearts find their solace inside, but it seems as if the wizardry is in mighty short order these days.

And Mobile’s particular relationship with cinema? Next time…

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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