A curious thing about watching films on one's laptop is that one tends to look down at it. My eyes are more used to looking up at a cinema screen, or straight ahead at a television, looking down at a film seems to imply a whole different perspective. Television relies on its directness, its straight-aheadness, the eye-level shot and maximum potential for narcissistic identification. Cinema, on the other hand, has never quite lost a certain sense of awe and glamour. We look up to our cinema stars just as we tend to look up at rock concerts, gazing up at our idols in rapt supplication. In former times things were different. At the opera we still look down, as most of the great opera theatres were built not to the glory of their actors and singers, in those days somewhat lowly, disreputable professions, but to those nobles and royals in their boxes in the upper echelons of the audience. In some theatres, of course, the stalls were reserved for the lower classes. Now, we all look down. Flicking between online casinos, porn sites, opera extracts on YouTube, and the latest Hollywood blockbusters, with the same mixture of pity and contempt for everything before us. Artists and entertainers are our poor cousins and embarrassing uncles once more.
