Could film intermissions help loneliness?

Posted On February 8, 2025February 8, 2025

“You could literally meet the love of your life during The Brutalist intermission,” a user on X wrote. A funny little comment, yes. Inspiration for the perfect cinephile meet-cute, also yes. But there is something about that 15-minute-long interval cut into the middle of Brady Corbet’s 215-minute-long epic that feels revelatory, not just as an experiment in cinema but a break packed with possibility.

Obviously, the break feels somewhat like a requirement. “I personally have a hard time sitting still for three-and-a-half hours, so I needed it. And it was a public-facing decision,” Corbet said, making the decision simply for the comfort and enjoyment of his audiences. Without it, there would be a constant stream of movements and interruptions, and, as he himself would admit, very few people would be happily sitting and concentrating for that long of a film.

But Corbert has also been interested in people’s intrigue in the break, telling IndieWire, “It’s funny, it’s gotten more attention in a way than we expected it to.” This isn’t a new phenomenon as other long films like Once Upon a Time in America, Gone with the Wind and initial screenings of The Godfather Part II all involved an intermission. But it is a nuanced part of the cinema experience that has dramatically fallen out of fashion.

What feels interesting, though, is the correlation between films abandoning the intermission and the changing culture of the cinema. When Gone With The Wind was released in 1939, cinemas were luxurious venues treated exactly like the theatre. It was an event and an occasion to attend one, and for everyone there, there was a buzz about the place as the specialness of the experience hung in the air.

By 1974, with the Godfather II, it was the era of independent picture houses where not only new releases would be shown but old films too, often chosen by and always chosen for the community of regulars that would be attending. Cinema was still an exciting privilege in the way all arts events are. Still, it was also a deeply social and community-driven thing as local screens became beloved cornerstones of cities and areas. The countercultural boom birthed an era of new, young cinephiles keen to gather.

As the economy has worsened, the arts are always impacted. The rise in more clinical chain cinemas that undeniably foster less community spirit in favour of a commercial air has changed how we approach moviegoing. The cinema, for a long time now, hasn’t felt like a social or community activity. It’s been solitary. Even if you go with a friend, you’re sat in the dark in silence for the bulk of time, and then you leave. In, no chatting and out, maybe to go talk about the film elsewhere but, often, to go home alone, log it on Letterboxd and move on.

But as The Brutalist’s intermission screen shines out into the cinema with the lights turned back on, illuminating the room of people who are all sharing in this experience together, it’s not just a break for comfort, but one for the community too. Friends wander off together, given time to discuss the film so far in the queue for more snacks or even a break to discuss something else: their lives, their feelings. In my screening, I noticed strangers sat alone, leaning over the empty chair between them to share thoughts. As the timer counted down to the film restarting, the screen was buzzing with conversation as people were not only granted this break but used it to connect.

The cinema is strange because even though you’re alone in your head in the dark, you’re still part of a collective experience, sharing something with a bunch of other people in a room, sharing a view, a gasp or even a laugh. However, the typical setup and our cultural shift to the cinema being forgotten or underappreciated as a community hub has made us forget that.

There are places working on it, though. The Prince Charles Cinema in London’s all-night or all-day marathons is a great example, with the ‘survivor’s photo’ taken at the end of the event capturing this gaggle of strangers or separate friendship groups now interwoven, having had the chance to chat and connect in the gaps. Local independent cinemas do it, too, as their programming will often host special movie events for mothers and babies or screenings for specific groups or old people, creating community spaces for categories that are most susceptible to social loneliness.

But what Corbet did with The Brutalist, as a major movie shown worldwide, was physically carve out space in his film that is given to audiences as a social opportunity. Fostering community is as simple as a 15-minute chat, and Corbet grants the chance for that.

While not new, its reintroduction to the cinema experience feels like it could be expanded beautifully into radical concepts to tackle loneliness. What if certain screenings came along with a scheduled debrief in the bar or lobby? If those 15 minutes were tagged at the end, the audience was encouraged to linger behind and chat about it. What if, similar to book clubs, cinemas started hosting film clubs in their communities, adding a social element back onto the collective experience we’ve sanitised over time?

“You could literally meet the love of your life during The Brutalist intermission.” It’s a joke, but you could. The simple act of turning to the person on your left and striking up a conversation, with the spark and subject right there on the screen in front of you, is how community is made and how loneliness is tackled.

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