{"id":7781,"date":"2013-04-30T07:54:01","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T11:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=7781"},"modified":"2013-04-30T07:54:02","modified_gmt":"2013-04-30T11:54:02","slug":"saving-the-movie-theaters-that-illuminate-north-country-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/04\/30\/saving-the-movie-theaters-that-illuminate-north-country-towns\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving the movie theaters that illuminate North Country towns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave by Jan Saenredam (Source: Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the most powerful moments in Plato’s dialogues comes when Socrates lays out his allegory of the cave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Plato’s recounting, the great philosopher posits the notion that men are like captives forced to watch shadows flickering on the wall of a cave.<\/p>\n

In time, he supposes, they might come to think the shadows are the reality.<\/p>\n

“To them,” Scorates imagines, “the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.”<\/p>\n

This effort to grapple with the way that humans perceive reality is provocative, thorny and also a surprisingly compelling read, at least when compared with much of the philosophical hieroglyphics that came after.<\/p>\n

But I think Plato had it kind of wrong.<\/p>\n

It turns out, in my experience, that people are fairly skillful at distinguishing stories from reality.\u00a0 They can hold a “make-believe” in their heads at the same time that they perceive “the truth” of the world around them, more or less accurately.<\/p>\n

The two things — story and world — coexist in fruitful ways.\u00a0 We watch the shadows on the wall, and use those figments to illuminate our understanding of life.<\/p>\n

I came to this meditation on light flickering on a cave wall after listening to Chris Morris’s story this morning about movie theaters in small North Country towns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At least ten of our cinemas might go dark if they don’t make the conversion soon to expensive, new digital technology.<\/p>\n

Listening to his report (itself a kind of shadow on a wall, right?) I started thinking about my own experience growing up in a tiny rural town, going to movie theaters to catch glimpses of flickering images of a wider world.<\/p>\n

I can still remember the visceral, wondrous transport of seeing London for the first time, or New York City, or the moons of Jupiter, or the inside of a person’s mind — all cast in images of light and color on a silver screen.<\/p>\n

I experienced those journeys with other people, sitting in the dark, sharing a sense of awe, a sense of being taken to other places, other times, and into the visionary worlds of great actors, writers and directors.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s old fashioned in this age of smart phones and Ipads, but I worry about that lost moment of shared imagination, of shared story.\u00a0 These days, we’re all mostly in our own little caves, looking at our own flickering images.<\/p>\n

I think the effort to save these movie theaters — the passion shown by activists who want these cinemas to survive — reflects a yearning for that experience.<\/p>\n

It’s a healthy instinct, I think.\u00a0 Yes, of course, we know that those flickering images aren’t real.<\/p>\n

But powerful stories, especially when shared, expand our understanding of the real.\u00a0 Especially for small town kids like me, they push back the horizon, giving a sense of other possibilities, other realities.<\/p>\n

Check out the North Country’s Go Digital campaign here<\/a> and chime in below with your cinematic memories.<\/p>\n

What was the first movie that rocked your world?\u00a0 Do you still go to the movie theater, or are you catching films these days on your digital device?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most powerful moments in Plato’s dialogues comes when Socrates lays out his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7783,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7781\/revisions\/7783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}