From: https://www.theguardian.

com/film/2023/apr/27/king-charles-coronation-
cinema

Cinemas will show King Charles’s coronation. Is this their crowning

glory, or a servile sop?
A shopping centre screening, with Monarch Mojitos for sale and a lookalike, has the
potential to be cinema’s joyous saviour – or its dull, undignified death

Stuart Heritage
Thu 27 Apr 2023 16.13 BST

For some, the cinema will be a sanctuary from the onslaught of the coronation. It
will be a dark, warm, safe space to visit for anyone who wants to seal themselves
away from the flag-waving inanity of the rest of the country next Saturday lunchtime.
It sounds incredibly inviting. I haven’t ruled out doing it myself.

That said, anyone who plans to use their local cinema as a coronation escape hatch
might want to check ahead a little bit first. If, for example, their plan was to visit the
Showcase Cinema de Lux in the Bluewater shopping centre, then I am afraid they are
doomed to be thwarted. This is because, according to a press release, the cinema will
be showing the coronation free of charge.

More than that, in fact. The cinema has chosen to rename its bar area The King’s
Gallery. The drinks it serves have been renamed things like Corgi Cosmo and
Monarch Mojito. A new portrait of King Charles will be hung there, painted by the
cinema’s vice president of global marketing. Showcase even hired a King Charles
lookalike to sort of wander around for a photoshoot. “King Charles seemed
extremely impressed with the refurbishment”, said the press release of a man they
hired specifically to look extremely impressed with the refurbishment.

Now, the big question is whether this is a good idea or not. Should cinemas be
showing the coronation? I have to admit, I’m a little on the fence about it. My first
instinct was that it instantly devalues the concept of cinema. To go and see a film is
to witness a vast, expensive vision of imagination that has been specifically designed
to be seen in that precise environment. The image will have been calibrated for
maximum spectacle. The sound will burst forth overwhelmingly. Cinemas are
engineered to be full-body – sometimes even out-of-body – experiences.
It isn’t something you necessarily equate with live BBC television footage of a
carriage slowly trundling past a branch of Pret. Indeed, had the film pioneers of a
century ago realised that one day their defining contribution to global culture would
be used to show Huw Edwards listlessly filling for time while thousands of elderly
dignitaries edge their way into Westminster Abbey, there’s a good chance they might
not have bothered with it.

That said, this is far too precious an attitude to take. Cinemas, as we all know, are in
trouble. People are only too happy to avoid seeing new releases theatrically now,
because they know that they’ll just turn up for free on Disney+ in a few weeks. When
a film does even reasonably well these days, it’s an anomaly. The death of the
theatrical experience is real, and cinemas need to change or die.

Viewed through this lens, showing the coronation seems like a no-brainer. People will
turn up. Seats will be filled. They might cry, like you did during Titanic. They might
laugh, like they did during Home Alone. They might drunkenly vomit, like one guy did
at the end of The Dark Knight when I went to see it 15 years ago. The actual content
of the coronation might be dull and staid, but the feeling it will engender inside the
cinema has the potential to be absolutely joyous.

And who knows, simply being in a cinema might remind the coronation-watchers
why they used to love cinemas. They might become flooded with nostalgia. They
might clutch each other’s hands over the armrests like they did when they were
teenagers. They might see a poster for a new release, and decide to take a chance on
it, and fall in love and start going to the cinema regularly again. There is a chance – a
small one, but a chance – that putting the coronation on in cinemas will save cinema
as we know it.

So, on reflection, I think I am all for this turn of events. The coronation should be
shown in cinemas. In fact it should only be shown in cinemas, because that way all
the people who actually like that rubbish will all be in one place and I’ll be able to go
about my day unimpeded.