Today's New York Times has a front-page story about the survival of movie theaters in small North Dakota towns. The photo at left shows the Roxy Theater, in Langdon. Rural population loss is a major concern in North Dakota, and the idea is that keeping these theaters as going concerns is a way of providing de facto community centers for these towns.
Even today, when the popularity of flat-panel TVs at home and ubiquity of DVD drives on laptops and netbooks have made the multiplex seem like a dinosaur, the idea of vintage single-screen theaters remains very much a part of the romance of moviegoing. It's not the sturdiest part, to be sure. ("The Last Picture Show," which takes its title from the closing of the only theater in a Texas town, is set in 1952.) Movie theaters have been shutting down almost as long as there have been movies. But so long as teenagers want to get out of the house on a Friday night, and people want to share an emotional response in a darkened auditorium with others similarly inclined, there will be movie theaters.
There's a terrific website, CinemaTour.com, whose self-described mission is "to research and document the locations and histories of cinemas throughout the world." Check it out.
