Burning The Reel

On Monday, Professor Sexson mentioned a moment of awakening like when the film in a theater gets caught and starts to melt. In the allegory of the cave, this would be the moment in which a prisoner (or all of them) realize that the film is just a veil for "true reality." This would be an epiphanic moment causing the gain of another rung on the ladder. A step in the direction of finding that there actually is no ladder.



We went down to the movie theater at the bottom of the hill on a Wednesday night and bought two tickets to Lucky Number Sleven. The theater at the bottom of the hill was poorly lit and smelled musty. Our shoes stuck slightly to the linoleum of the bathrooms and to the concrete under the seats. I tried not to think about it.

I don't recall most of the film. It is somewhat intricate if I remember correctly, and we were waiting patiently and attentively for the end and the resolution of the different narrative tracks. We were close to the end, immersed, engrossed in the climax which took place in a room that was on fire. The two rivals were tied to chairs that were placed back to back. Everything was becoming clear, the story was coming together. The suspense built rapidly and I didn't blink.

We sat in the middle of a row five eighths of the way back. A dozen other people sat at random around us. The flame on the screen escaped out into the theater and I could see an orange glow on my girlfriend's face. The fire extended and reached out further. It was about to engulf the characters, I couldn't believe that they were about to die like this, were we going to be next?

Suddenly the fire changed from orange and brown to small white spots that spread rapidly across the screen. No! I thought. They can't die like this! I gripped her hand tighter and sat forward. We were blinded by a full white screen and a noise of fluttering quickly became a din of 24 frames per second lost, flapping around somewhere in the magician's machine.

We sat stunned. I was confused. Did they die? My re-entry into "reality" was a harsh one. I have seen a lot of movies and I have been trained to know when to make the switch, but this was different. I sat motionless, staring at the blinding wall in anticipation, not giving up the illusion that had just been before me.

It was minutes before someone left to find an attendant. I just sat there, dumb. I wanted the magician to come and put the moving people back up on the screen. I wanted to know what happened to the guys that were tied to the chairs in the burning room!

We were filed out of the room and taken to the front of the theater lobby. It was late and the theater was deserted except for a young female employee who wore too much makeup, and a lanky kid half heartedly sweeping stray kernels of neon popcorn into a dust pan. They gave us vouchers for another movie and we left into the cold spring night.