‘This is not a cinema’, proclaims the screen in my local Vue cinema in 2017, just before the main feature is shown. This declaration is followed by footage of sports, opera and music festivals, and the claim of a new, plural identity, ‘This is big screen entertainment’, which is spelled out in words and images as ‘Big screen theatre’, ‘Big screen sports’, ‘Big screen opera’ and ‘Big screen festival’. This campaign is a branding ident with a difference for Vue cinemas, the smallest of the three major British chains.1 For what is being negotiated is the identity of the medium, and the drive of the promotion is to diminish the association of cinema buildings and feature films, and replace it with an image of more diverse big screen ‘content delivery’. This is not a cinema – which, as a dedicated building, might seem a bit twentieth century – but something rather more modern, like a portal. A portal – or a computer screen. However, as most of the audience will have very powerful, very small personal computers in their pockets, this association is disavowed through the repetition of ‘BIG’. This is not a cinema; it is somewhere that other events can be experienced both large and loud at premium prices. This policy of the redesignation of cinema, however, is shot through with ambivalence. The short promotional film advocating the spatial and temporal transcendence now available in this not-cinema building is immediately followed by an advertisement for the benefits of Sony 4K, with an instructional edge, informing viewers that now is the time to settle down, turn everything off and enjoy the dark. To behave as if it is a cinema
