Meshes of the Afternoon #4

That passion is made by the dark, the brightness, the very large screen, the company of strangers, and the knowledge that you cannot stop the process, or even get out. That is being at the movies, and it is becoming a museum experience. How can one tell one's student's or one's children what it was like seeing Vertigo (in empty theatres—for no one liked it once) or The Red Shoes from the dark. We watch television with the lights on! Out of some bizarre superstition that it protects our eyes. How so tender for one part of us, and so indifferent to the rest?

David Thomson, em The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Sixth Edition.