(Picture courtesy of CinemaTreasures.org)
This was written for the university subject, BCM241.
As part of my studying of media ethnography, I decided to do a "memory interview" with my parents about their experiences at the cinema, particularly when they were younger. I already knew long beforehand that my Dad had seen Star Wars when it first came out in 1977, when he was about thirteen or fourteen years old and yes, it was just called Star Wars - not Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, just...Star Wars. After all, my Dad, among many others, saw Star Wars before it became the franchise juggernaut it is today, spanning a million, billion episodes, spin-offs and such. At the time, it was just a fun film filled with science-fiction action that he, and many other cinema-going patrons, saw for the first time - specifically, at the Ingleburn Army Camp Theatre in Sydney.
With a cursory glance through search engine results, my information on the place was...limited, but luckily, Dad filled in some of the gaps. He surmised that perhaps his Dad (and my Grandfather (obviously)) had taken him to the Ingleburn Theatre because it was cheaper (sounds about right). In addition, the seats weren't 'banked' and not the slanted, cascading arrangement that you see in most theatres. It had flat nondescript walls and wasn't, in his words, 'very cozily built'. But I guess that doesn't matter much if you're going to see an event film like Star Wars. Besides, it was apparently more often used by the Campbelltown Theatre Company for play productions, so it wasn't exactly purpose-built for the cinema.
He also told me he had seen Jaws when it first came out too, a few years previously in 1975, seeing it with his sister and her friend. I still find it startling that my Dad has seen two remarkable "blockbusters" at their first release in the span of a couple of years, but that's not awfully impressive on closer inspection considering how 'big' those movies were. He saw Jaws at either the Hoyts or Village Twin Cinema on George Street, but couldn't recall much detail about the "foyer experience" or anything of the like.
It was at this point that the conversation drifted over to the drive-in theatre and it's also where my Mum got really involved in the conversation. They both recalled how you had to clamp on a mono speaker on the driver side of the car through the window and if it was cold, you had to stick it inside the car and wind the window up to jam the cord between the roof and the window pane to try and retain warmth. My Mum also thought that "drive-ins" were like a transitory space, being both an inside space and an outside space. It reminds me of Foucault's third principle of Heterotopology, where "a single real space [is juxtaposed] by several other spaces..." (Foucault, 1984) where the car acts as a smaller space within the larger space, that being the car park, and without the cars, the space is no longer really a drive-in theatre...it's just an empty parking lot.
There were also swings behind the kiosk for the younger kids who couldn't bear sitting still any longer and didn't have the attention span necessary to enjoy the film at hand. My parents both remarked out this has essentially evolved into the arcade claw games in the foyer. But the swings were free and the arcade games were most certainly not, quite the opposite in fact - they're there to make money for the cinema.
Here's another picture of the Southline Drive-In cinema my Mum went to in Fairy Meadow, again, courtesy of CinemaTreasures.org:
It may seem a bit odd now but, all in all, it's not that strange to think of how much cinema has changed in just a handful of decades especially taking into account just how much technology has evolved in that time too. Progress and all that good stuff. Although, I would like to go to a drive-in theatre. It sounds like fun.
Too bad that there are probably not a lot still operating today.
References:
Cinema Treasures 2019, Southline Drive-In in Fairy Meadow, AU, Cinema Treasures, viewed 10th August 2019, <cinematreasures.org/theaters/53125/>.
Foucault, M 1984, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, viewed 10th August 2019, <web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/foucault1.pdf>.
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