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For Binx Bolling, movies symbolize the search to understand one’s place in the universe. Binx frequently goes to the movies not to escape from everyday life, but to try to understand life better. He feels that filmmakers always fall short of portraying “the search” adequately—movie characters always end up settling for mundane resolutions to their problems—but he keeps going to movies, just as he continues searching in the rest of his life. That’s because moviegoing involves more than simply watching a film; it’s about having a specific experience in a specific place. Binx prefers to get acquainted with the theater owners and ticket sellers in order to create this experience of being “Somewhere” specific instead of being anonymously “Anywhere.” So while movies are an aspect of American culture that can promote conformity, Binx’s approach to moviegoing—prioritizing the search for individual meaning—subverts that culture.
Movies Quotes in The Moviegoer
The The Moviegoer quotes below all refer to the symbol of Movies. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1, Section 1
Quotes
The fact is I am quite happy in a movie, even a bad movie. Other people, so I have read, treasure memorable moments in their lives: the time one climbed the Parthenon at sunrise, the summer night one met a lonely girl in Central Park and achieved with her a sweet and natural relationship, as they say in books. I too once met a girl in Central Park, but it is not much to remember. What I remember is the time John Wayne killed three men with a carbine as he was falling to the dusty street in Stagecoach, and the time the kitten found Orson Welles in the doorway in The Third Man.
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Chapter 2, Section 2
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If I did not talk to the theater owner or the ticket seller, I should be lost, cut loose metaphysically speaking. I should be seeing one copy of a film which might be shown anywhere and at any time. There is a danger of slipping clean out of space and time. It is possible to become a ghost and not know whether one is in downtown Loews in Denver or suburban Bijou in Jacksonville. So it was with me.
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Chapter 3, Section 2
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A good night: Lonnie happy (he looks around at me with the liveliest sense of the secret between us; the secret is that Sharon is not and never will be onto the little touches we see in the movie and, in the seeing, know that the other sees […]), this ghost of a theater, a warm Southern night, the Western Desert and this fine big sweet piece Sharon.
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Movies Symbol Timeline in The Moviegoer
The timeline below shows where the symbol Movies appears in The Moviegoer. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1, Section 1
This memory reminds Binx of going to see a movie with Linda last month at Lake Pontchartrain. The suburb where the theater is located has...
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After the movie, Binx had enjoyed chatting with the theater manager in the dark night, with the lake’s...
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One of Binx’s favorite evening activities is going to the movies. While other people treasure the memories of special events in their lives, Binx remembers key...
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...who appears to be smiling flirtatiously at him. Binx imagines that if this were a movie, it would be so easy for them to meet. But then he gets distracted again...
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The movies are aware of the search, but they never get it right—they always end with despair....
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Chapter 1, Section 7
...wants to see Walter, and she says no, so they leave. They head to the movies.
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They watch a movie called Panic in the Streets, which was filmed in New Orleans. In her own way,...
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Chapter 2, Section 1
...an Anyone living Anywhere, occasionally distracting himself from his reading by taking walks or seeing movies. He called this his “vertical search.” One night, after finishing a chemistry book, Binx felt...
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Chapter 2, Section 2
...taillights trail in the direction of the Gulf Coast. Binx decides to stop by the movie theater, but the movie that’s playing looks depressing, so he declines. He also chats with...
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...in New Orleans. Occasionally Binx watches TV with her or brings her along to the movies. Mrs. Schexnaydre is fearful of Black people, even though few of Gentilly’s residents are Black,...
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Chapter 2, Section 3
...day, 14 years ago, Binx watched a Western called The Oxbow Incident at a campus movie house. He remembers the smell of privet shrubs outside. (Binx always notices the smell of...
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...that had happened during the intervening 20 years never happened; only time itself remained. The movie theater repetition is not as satisfying. However, Binx thinks about the movie theater seats which...
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Chapter 3, Section 2
...and beer for him and Sharon. Since Lonnie is disappointed about a trip to the movies that fell through, Binx offers to take him. Later, he asks his mother why Lonnie...
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