Some people, on the other hand, seem to have a big problem with going to the movies by themselves. It is like a personal admission of social failure or something but what exactly happens when you go to the movies? You sit quietly in a dark room for two hours. What's so social about that?
I've always thought that movies were great for first dates because you only have to sweat through dinner then it's two hours of quiet time to gather your thoughts and you automatically have something to talk about, the movie, on the ride home. But it's the two hours in the dark that count.
I'll admit that I try to avoid going to the movies by myself at multiplexes and malls during prime date night hours which is when it seems the most obvious that no matter what I tell myself going to a movie alone is to flout vast networks of entrenched social convention and practice.
I wrote about this a while back on a solo blog of mine:
A movie is what unfolds on screen but the movies includes everything going on around the space of the theater and within it. Perfumed skin, hard plastic, harder stares, the smell of butter and salt -- territories mapped and remapped a hundred times in the concession line.
The movies teem with social, cultural and technological currents that stay in flux right up to when the lights dim and beyond. In the dark they transform, cease to seethe and go all slippery and silvery. Merging themselves with our fantasies and change course, again, forever. A movie is what we go see, the movies are what we live ...I [wonder]: Why do reviews only ever talk about what happens on screen?
16 comments:
Lori is out of town, so I went to see Black Snake Moan myself last night at the Los Feliz Three. It appeared to be quite the date movie, more so than Breach or Pan's Labyrinth the other offerings. I didn't feel that odd, though; irritated, yes, as what appeared to be a double date arrived after the film began, decided to sit in my row, and kicked me and my drink in the process. Fuckers.
More on BSM later.
I know this post is about going to movies alone, but Deron's comment raises an issue for me: why I so rarely go the movies at all anymore.
Part of the reason is time, but also going to the theater creates an incredible amount of anxiety for me.
Let me say, I love going to the movies. I love Raisinettes and overpriced sodas. I love the blatantly obvious anagrams and trivia that they play on slides before the movie starts. I fucking love previews. But most of all, I love the way a big screen and the overwhelming audio allow you to completely escape into the movie. This is why for a long time I felt that going to a bad movie was preferable to not going to a movie at all (at least that is my excuse for going to see Congo). But now it will take something special for me to make the effort to go to the movies.
This is because other people, with their incessant prattle about nothing, steal me away from being completely immersed in the movie. When I sit down in the theater, I know this is going to happen -- I am on edge over it. I scan the audience trying to figure out who is going to make the constant inane comments (e.g., "It's Gandalf" -- and, btw, it wasn't even fucking Gandalf), who is going to take a phone call, and who is going to laugh at completely inappropriate times (like when a group of people thought it was hilarious when Halle Barry was verbally abusing her son in Monster's Ball).
All of this leads me to get what I call "film rage." Mookie has seen my film rage in action. Someone talks in a movie, even the previews, which I know is a somewhat theater-etiquette gray area, and I lose my mind. I'm usually a pretty laid back kind of guy, but something about the movie theater drives me to act like the most autocratic of German ("NEIN!! NEIN!!").
So I ask, am I being a bit of a control freak here or an I a trail-blazing hero encouraging the silent-suffers out there to speak up?
I love to see movies alone and have never understood the stigma (if you can call it that) associated with it. But maybe I actually perpetuate the stigma by also (like Paul) avoiding solo screenings during the prime date time hours. During the day, I feel like it is work/research...a place/time for serious cinephiles. At night, I feel much more self-conscious, like I am at a party that I haven't been invited to.
Or perhaps I avoid them a result of a traumatic experience that I had in college when I attended a packed evening screening of A Few Good Men (in NYC) alone and a creepy man (also alone) sat right next to me and asked me where my boyfriend was. Not having a boyfriend at the time, I struggled for an answer (probably something stupid along the lines of..."um, working?") and then sat silently during the film, bolting at the first sign of the credits. A far cry from the blissful $6 twilight screenings that I used to frequent at the Century City AMC 14 during my westside days. I almost cried when they got rid of them.
BTW, Eric I also suffer from film rage. There is no shame in the evil-eye stare down-"shush" combo (which, being of German heritage, I tend to prefer over the "nein").
I can attest to Eric's anti-talking rage. We went to see Return of the King in Indianapolis, and behind us sat two people: one of them apparently had missed the first two films, and the other was obligingly filling him on all the details. Eric suffered for this for maybe, I don't know, 45 seconds before turning and tersely explaining that he had not paid $9 (like I said, we were in Indianapolis) to listen to a running commentary. The two guys behind us took umbrage, and for a moment, I thought we'd come to blows (Pook, I had ya back). But for some reason, they quieted down, and we were able to enjoy 3 hours of climax after climax and hot Hobbit homoeroticism.
The rise of television and home video are frequently cited as the reasons for the collapse in theater decorum. But what if those of use who agitate for a nice, quiet moviegoing experience are denying others an important part of their enjoyment? At least once a semester at LACC, I've had to ask students to stop talking during movies, and on a couple of occasions, students have protested that being quiet during a movie is unnatural to them. Should those people stay home? Or should w all learn to grit our teeth and bear it?
Those people should definitely stay home. And it isn't just the multiplex and those YouTubed youngsters.
I remember during LACMAs Hou Hsiao-hsien retrospective wanting to throttle a senior citizen who brought a bagged lunch or something to the screening. Every two second she was reaching into a crinkly PLASTIC BAG to get another bite of whatever it she was eating. I couldn't believe no else around me, least of all the people sitting at her sides, seemed to notice it or was willing to do anything about it. To me it was deafening.
It is a fact that cinephilia and plastic bag collecting are part of the same psychopathology. I firmly believe this to be true.
ROFL
The proof is as follows: the more out-of-the-mainstream the movie, the more plastic bags. Paul's example of Hou Hsiao-hsien is a case in point.
My two examples:
* The New Beverly: more plastic bags per capita than any other theater in Los Angeles. The question: is this because of a larger audience of homeless people than is the norm or because the NB shows old movies?
* Silent movie audiences: generally these display an unusual proclivity toward plastic bags. The question: is this because most silent movie fans live with their mothers (who pack their sandwiches in cling film) or because silent movies are REALLY old?
On film rage, or: is there shame in the evil-eye stare-down?
Yes and no. For instance, I'm not going to go to a screening in Tarantino's Grindhouse series at the NB and shoot deathstares at participating audiences (even if, inside, I was seething). But I would act if this happened while I was watching an Ozu film.
Two points: 1) The question of participation being so inseparable from issues of cultural and social hierarchy, I think it's important to be aware of the social implications of your "shush." 2) When we become a "deathstare" we are, in effect, becoming the instruments of the social panopticon, deputized tools of the system. To which the response is "Who made you the movie policeman, arsehole?"
So it's either become a tool of the cultural police state or suck it up while some asshole yacks his way through a movie?
Not really a tough choice for me.
I understand what you are saying Rob and I know that what I am about to say ignores the socio-economic-cultural distinctions that make audiences dynamic and interesting/fun to be a part of, but as far as I am concerned, once we have doled out $7-15 to partake of an experience, we are all starting from scratch together. Every filmgoing experience is like a shared journey in which every member of the audience plays a part. We, as a group, are only as strong as our weakest link.
Regardless of what we are viewing (movie or film, Ozu or Bay), there is (or should be) an implicit agreement, shared by everyone entering the theatre, that, unless the majority dissents, we should be respectful of the "performance" in the same way that we would be if there were actual, live people in front of us.
If audiences are so aware of the distinction between live theatre and film then why were people (I, among them) applauding in the midst of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" in Dreamgirls? Obviously, the perfomers on the screen can't hear the applause but we do it together as an audience to signal our collective appreciation of the performance.
We can't have it both ways. Either respect the experience or don't go...why would you pay money to talk to your friends when you can do it for free (and not have people give you the stare-down "shush")?
There is a rather easier solution here that has only been touched upon. As Michelle pointed out, at a particularly emotional point in Dreamgirls, everyone applauded. How you act in a movie theater depends on the movie/film being seen and the theater (place AND time) it is being seen in.
If I go to a theater on a Saturday afternoon to see an anmimated Disney film, I am going to have to deal with small children talking, and possibly crying.
If I go to an action film or a horror film, I am going to have to expect gasps and perhaps screams.
If I go to a comedy (particularly a comedy about African Americans and particularly if it is in the Magic Johnson Theater) I will have to expect laughs, comments, perhaps some noisy teenagers.
If I am going to the Westside Pavilion on a Sunday afternoon, I will expect to hear comments and bag crumbling from senior citizens.
If it is a serious movie or drama at a mainstream theater, then I would expect the audience to mostly shut their mouths.
What I do not think anyone should deal with in a theater are cell phones, constant talking or commenting, or babies crying. These things are standard theater etiquette.
That all said, Michelle is right when she says that "Every filmgoing experience is like a shared journey in which every member of the audience plays a part."
If you tend to be a theater Nazi, I say pick your theaters and showing times carefully and consider getting a big-screen TV.
That's my sweetie.
I agree, Lori. A movie theater is, of course, a culturally defined space where the definitions are variable (Westside Pav. is not the Cineramadome) and pre-given (it's a certain kind of movie theater before you walk in). Consequently: no film screening "starts from scratch."
But I think it's important to stress here that the norm of the silent, passive spectator (non-interactive, non-vocal) representats a middle-class ideal of cultural consumption, with origins in the mid-nineteenth century (as historians like the late Lawrence Levine and Richard Butsch have observed).
As such: it's no surprise that the more "middle-class" the theater (let's say, the more expensive) the greater the insistence on silence. The Cineramadome - far and away the most expensive theater I attend, with some weekend prices at $14 - is also the most eager to reassure patrons not only that the audience is under constant surveillance from ushers but that it is the audience's responsibility to partake in the surveillance. (You're basically told to inform on vocal audiences by bringing your complaint to an usher's attention.) (Incidentally, I remember reading an news article claiming that theater planners are considering installing buttons in chairs for audience members to press if they are disturbed.)
So, yes: theater Nazis should stay at home.
Yes, Rob, I do believe there are class and racial overtones in this issue. I see this also in my teaching. Often times, the poorer, or the African American students are very vocal in class. As a middle-class white teacher (as most teachers are) I expect my students to be fairly quiet and raise their hands to speak. While many of my students find it culturally burdensome to do so. Many times I will let certain behaviors by my African America students slide by as I do not want to seem culturally insensitive. However, this can create a disruptive environment for those who have values like I do. It is a dilemma.
Post a Comment