Cinema and the Roaring 2020s – @DAaronovitch

Will we crawl, blinking, from lockdown like terrified, impoverished runners in Logan’s Run or Mountain Men from The 100? Or, will we burst into a creative, hedonistic new era of freedom echoing the Roaring 20s of the post Great War, post Spanish Flu twentieth century?

David Aaronivitch, in today’s Times, looks to the the 1920s and argues for the latter. On cinema he says:

In 1918, American cinemas and theatres were closed in flu-hit cities and towns, and mass events were banned. … Yet not only did the closest form of mass entertainment — cinema — survive, it thrived. Within a matter of months huge picture palaces seating 1,200 people were being constructed. By 1930, in a US population of 123 million, weekly movie attendance was 90 million.

My clients and friends at Centtrip – which serves the film, music and superyacht sectors – would seem to agree. Director of Music, Film and Entertainment Simon Liddell told me:

There’s a growing sense that we need to be prepared for coming out the other side. I think people are seeing the lockdown as being a re-set button … not a stop button.

… Most of the industry people I speak to are seeing a hunger for new content.

Some sectors have slowed more than others but, after the initial shock, there now seems to be growing eagerness to adapt and to look forward, to be ready for the “Great Release”.

David Aaronivtich’s column is, here

There’s more from Centtrip, here.

Photo by Luz Mendoza on Unsplash

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