AMC Theaters is dividing moviegoers between haves and have-nots.

Again within the Nice Despair of the Thirties, folks discovered escape from the dangerous information of the day by going to the flicks. In truth, I can’t rely what number of motion pictures — Sullivan’s Travels, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Matinee, Cinema Paradiso, simply to call a couple of — are about folks going to the flicks for leisure and escape. Folks stood in line and rushed to get their favourite seats; first come, first served. You’re a part of a pair who’re each comfortably making six figures? You’re paying off a university mortgage or making an attempt to make it in your Social Safety advantages? Doesn’t matter. You’re entitled to the most effective seat you’ll be able to wrangle.

Even when theaters started promoting advance reservations, it was nonetheless first come, first served — in the event you wished to see a well-liked film and also you had been choosy about your seats, you went on-line and tried to order your most well-liked place earlier than anyone else obtained it.

However now, at sure AMC theaters (and maybe, within the close to future, at increasingly more different film theaters), it is not going to be how shortly you declare your seat that can decide the place you sit, however relatively, how a lot you’ll be able to afford. As of as we speak, based on AMC, a brand new technique known as Sightline will, based on its weirdly promotional web site, “proceed to make motion pictures higher.” How? By charging extra for the Most popular Sightline Part (the mid-center rows), much less for the Commonplace Sightline Part (the seats within the again or on the facet), and significantly much less for the Worth Sightline Part (entrance rows).

I can perceive why AMC feels the necessity to do that. Theaters are nonetheless affected by the results of the pandemic, and during the last three years, folks have turn out to be used to watching motion pictures on fairly massive screens within the consolation of their houses.

However the result’s that one of many final really democratic public establishments the place everybody paid the identical and had the identical probability to get an excellent seat, will be part of airplanes, reside theaters, music venues, and different establishments, the place how a lot you’ll be able to afford determines how nicely you take pleasure in your expertise.

Maybe I’m being too nostalgic right here. It isn’t as if standing in line on a cold, wet night with a purpose to attempt to get an honest seat in a theater was such an uplifting expertise. (Though I keep in mind the primary time I noticed Star Wars in a theater — I obtained there about two hours early, was in regards to the tenth individual in line, and handed the time having an awesome dialog about outdated sci-fi movies with the folks round me.) And since theaters have been charging further charges for reserving seats forward of time, it may very well be mentioned that they’ve already been on this path for some time — in the event you didn’t wish to pay the additional charge, you needed to take what was left.

Years in the past, I used to be visiting London and went to a theater to see a musical. I had seats within the balcony, and through intermission, I tried to go downstairs simply to see what the sight line was like from the orchestra. However after I tried to search out the orchestra part, I spotted that there was no method I may achieve entry — the theater had been constructed at a time when the folks within the low-cost seats had been rigorously evaded the sight of those that may afford higher seats. Once I requested one of many ushers how I may get to the costlier part simply to have a look, she stared at me as if I had immediately sprouted an additional head. It simply wasn’t finished.

Maybe that’s the place we’re headed: film theaters the place individuals who can afford higher seats gained’t must cope with lesser mortals who can’t spend that a lot — not essentially as a result of that’s one thing that we, as viewers members, are asking for however as a result of theaters will strive something to make up the slack, together with creating a brand new class system for the flicks.