24 December 2014
“The Towering
Inferno”---Farewell, Shinjuku Milano-za
(***This is not a review.)
Release Year: 1974
Country: USA
Director: John Guillermin
Cast: Steve McQueen, Paul Newman
Location I watched: Shinjuku Milano-za
I heard the Shinjuku Milano-za cinema was
closing down at the end of 2014. By chance I was in Tokyo at that period, so I
visited it to watch one of its final screenings. The cinema was showing the
all-time box office hits from their 58 years history. The program of the day I
went was “The Towering Inferno”, the
disaster film masterpiece released in Japan in 1975.
Shinjuku Milano-za was the main cinema in the
Tokyu Milano leisure complex building in Kabuki-cho, Shinjuku. The closure of
Shinjuku Milano-za means that the last remaining large cinema hall with more than
1,000 seats in Japan closes down. For that, its closure was covered in the
press. The reasons of its closure were that the building itself was old and
deteriorating and that the cinema audience affected by the cinema complex’
flourish was decreasing. When I was living in Tokyo, I used to go to the Cinema
Square Tokyu, a small art-house cinema located in the same building, Tokyu
Milano building. It was closing, too, so a few former hit films shown
previously in Cinema Square Tokyu was programmed as part of the Milano-za final
screenings.
Cinema halls have been closing all around
Japan. The recent closing of the Kichijoji Baus Theater was rather shocking to
me than the closing of the Milano-za because I was never a fan of the
Milano-za. But its closure still made me sad. For me, the Tokyu Milano building
and the Milano-za was a main “face” of Kabuki-cho. The huge bowling pin replica
on the front of the building signaled the doorway of Kabuki-cho, a great
amusement area. I remember coming here accidentally in spring, on the day of So-Kei Sen (a traditional university
baseball match between Waseda University and Keio University). There were
filled with many drunken university students making noise, shouting whoopee. I wondered
if this merrymaking tradition is still happening to this day.
Back then, in the cinema, you could buy a
single cinema ticket and settle down there to watch film screening all day.
Ushers did not try to chase you away every screening’s end. You could sit anywhere.
If it was a very popular film and all the seats were full, you could watch it
standing up from the aisle. You could bring in your own food and drinks (the
cinema would still make a profit). When I went to the Milano-za to watch their program
called “From Shinjuku Milano-za with Love—-the
Last Show---“, I felt a little bit of nostalgia.
The view inside the cinema hall with 1,000
seats was spectacular. In such a big space, I didn’t know where I should seat
(it is free seating). The day I went was on Christmas Eve for the 7pm
screening. In Japan, Christmas is not a public holiday, so it was a normal
weekday evening. Yet, hundreds of people came there. There were many “salarymen”, ranging from young “bro” to middle-aged
“uncle”. They had heard of the Milano-za closing, and on that day, they
probably rushed straight from the office, skipping dinner to make it in time
for the screening. I saw them carrying a bottle of ocha (green tea) and snacking on chocolate to keep off their hunger.
This small but sincere tribute to the Milano-za made me “weep” (“Weep” is a
joking, but it was sure to be a heart-warming scene). In response to the
expectation from the bros and uncles (Of course, from many ladies in the
cinema), “The Towering Inferno”---a
film about two tough guys, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman fighting a large fire
in a high-rise building--started.
By the way, before the screening, we had an
introduction by the manager of Milano-za. According to him, “The Towering Inferno” is the second best
box-office hit ever recorded in the Milano-za with a total audience of 320,000.
The number one hit, by the way, is Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.”. Later, from a film magazine, I found that in 1975, the
Milano-za had screened “The Towering
Inferno” continuously from the end of June to the middle of November. A
1,000 seat cinema had been screening 1 single film for 5 months. New films will
be produced, new big hit films will emerge, but those old days will never come
back, I feel.
It is sometimes said that the days were when
film was the centre of popular entertainment, and when film was an important
window to discover the world (for example, when watching foreign imported
films). And, maybe the days were when you could experience loneliness by
watching a film.
When you go to the cinema alone, you sit
down with strangers in the dark space and laugh or cry together. While you are
watching a film, the darkness is rather comfortable for you. You do not have to
be concerned about the public eye, but you are still in public and not lonely
there. You can forget everything which makes you depressed. However, once the
film is over, you find yourself left alone in the dusty and closed space. Total
strangers around you, looking as if they do not notice your existence
completely, leave there together in twos and threes.
I recall, for example, when I watched an odd
Czech film or something alone in the Kichijoji Baus Theater. Stepping out of
the theatre, on a winter night, besides the north wind was whistling. Then I
was thinking, “What was I doing all day today?” I felt like dying for such a void
in my life. (Of course, that was not that Czech film’ fault at all.)
Staying with others transitorily reveals
more an undeniable fact that I have been alone from the first. Savouring such gloom
is difficult now. In the old cinemas, at the moment you step out from the
darkness of the cinema hall, leaving the cinema lobby, you are exposed in the
outside world, maybe on a town street with the north wind blowing or under the
sunset in a hot summer. Most modern cinema complexes are located within a
shopping centre. The moment you leave the cinema, you find yourself in another
unreal place where they are trying to make visitors happy and cheerful. Even after
watching a depressing film, you feel like eating doughnuts, or having fun in
the shopping centre on the way home.
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