The Curates Egg

Cinema-Going as Religion

Prologue

I'm writing this in mid December and so far not only has our Advent Film Group seen a different film each week, but has done so in a different cinema. The first week was The Guildhall (Gloucester), last week we went to The Electric Picture House (Wotton under Edge) and this week we are going to The Apollo (Stroud). This is partly because of the films showing, but mainly because if you are seeing a film in a cinema the setting plays an important part in the whole experience - and I thought it would be interesting to compare these three very different cinemas. Discussing last week's cinema (as well as the film) in the pub afterwards we talked about the similarities between going to the cinema and going to church and I was reminded of film director Martin Scorsese's comments that; "I can see great similarities between a church and a movie house. Both are places for people to come together and share a common experience". 

The Multiplex Cathedral

In his book 'Cinema and Sentiment' Clive Marsh suggests that cinema-going functions as an alternative to, or a replacement for, traditional religious activity.  Cinema-going can be regular in practice (weekly attendance) and can involve going with friends to a large and ornate building where you sit with many other people and share in a potentially emotional experience. You can perhaps take the analogy too far - popcorn as communion, posters as icons, and multiplexes as cathedrals – but I think the point is well made.

Of course there are other activities which compete with church in terms of simple use of time (watching television) or even mass participation (sport) but Marsh argues that cinema going is a special case because it does something which the others don't, but church does – it moves and provokes those taking part in such a way that they are encouraged to think about their own lives and big issues like death, forgiveness and, occasionally, God. And research has shown that this is more likely to happen at the cinema than when a film is watched at home on a DVD.

So there is more to cinema-going than entertainment (though of course that plays a big part), but is there an element of entertainment to church going? To a degree the answer must be yes; the performance of the choir, the quality of the sermon, other non participatory elements of the service all have the ability to entertain as well as inform and inspire, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. And I doubt if many of today's churchgoers are specifically coming to be entertained – but that may not always have been the case. In the past worship may well have functioned as entertainment to many churchgoers and evidence of this is seen in the direct link between the advent of television and the fall of church attendance.

Epilogue

 Does this mean we can only draw these people back into church by making our services more entertaining or by trying to compete directly with cinemas? Some churches have gone down this route but I do not think it is the answer – there are perhaps things we can learn from it however.

Firstly, there are semi-religious elements of cinema going which are similar to church going and which people find a positive experience. Therefore we need not be afraid of continuing to do them ourselves.

Secondly, there are significant differences between church going and cinema going which we need to emphasise – in particular the participative nature of worship and the communal nature of church.

Thirdly, worship needs to be connected to the rest of life. This doesn't have to mean modern or 'trendy' but it does mean it can't be incomprehensible, escapist or irrelevant.

Fourthly, there is a case for making worship more 'entertaining', but in the sense of a moving mutisensory experience which stirs and stimulates and can therefore include not just oratory but the rhythm and poetry of liturgy, music, silence, colour, visual imagery - and perhaps even occasionally smells!

Finally I do think there is a place for using film itself within worship – but perhaps that's a topic for another month.       

Tim