I Love Audiences.
Monday, February 8th, 2010So on Friday I was in an actual cinema with an actual audience of other people. It was the late afternoon and we were an odd bunch but never the less an interesting cross section of the ticket buying public and this trailer was one of the many to crash off the screen at us…
And with perfect timing, just as it comes to the quiet bit at the end, the unnervingly loud voices of two middle-aged women broke through the theatrical gloom:
“Oh that’s that book isn’t it? Have you read it?”
“No. I started it but in the end I couldn’t be bothered.”
Coming so balloon burstingly soon after the bombast of the trailer with its heaviest of heavy bread voice overs, this brief conversation gave me an oddly giddy sensation of pure joy. Though actually I think I was just reacting against the increasingly naggy pre-movie sequence of commercials and trailers.
Preparing to watch a film in the cinema used to be a relatively painless process of being sold at, something that generally acted as a helpful way of tuning out reality in preparation for the movie. Like milling around in the departure lounge before a flight, the ads and trailers were at worst bland but at best felt like the start of a holiday, the commonplace commercialism made strangely exotic.
However, rather like trying to get onboard an aeroplane, the lead up to a film is now bogged down with dire warnings and security checks. I was ordered three times to turn off my mobile – once by Nanny McPhee and once by yet another iteration of the Orange advert, plumbing new depths of tedium in what seems to have strayed even from their grim determination to kill a once funny joke and now seems to be a one brand campaign to make me pull out my own teeth in bitter irritation.
I was then given a brief, uplifting lecture on how watching a film anywhere other than a cinema was a rubbish thing that only an idiot would do. It was then further pointed out to me that this particular cinema chain was probably the best and that, in case I hadn’t noticed, going to the cinema was, by the way, the best thing I could ever do and much better than watching stinky old tv.
I was warned that if I was found to filming this movie I’d be fined or jailed or both (and please would I turn off my damn phone so I don’t use it for this purpose) and then to cap it all, someone actually came on and begged for the lives and jobs of the entire British Film Industry, like we’re all inmates in asylum and these are the baskets we’ve spent the past month weaving. As I left I half expected to stumble over Tim Bevan slumped in the doorway rattling coins in a cup.
As you can imagine I’m a fan of the cinema. I like going. I like watching films with other people. Hell – I was even in this movie on my own because I enjoy the experience so much I have no shame or dignity. But rather than celebrating Cinema, these ads feel like they’re all telling me off. As if Cinema were a grumpy wife furious with me because I’d spent all my time down the pub with my mates the laptop and iTunes. “Where the hell have you been?” She shouts, angrily slamming the door much louder and in 3D. “And the least you could do is turn your bloody phone off now you’re here!”
Firstly what is the point of advertising the concept of cinema to people who have already paid to come and sit in a cinema? It’s like buying a pint and having the barman shout in your ear as your drink it “Wow – a pint of beer, have you forgotten how good a pint of beer tastes? I hope you’re not one of those idiots who sit at home drinking tea and then having to urinate in a normal household toilet. Why are you doing that when you could be sat here on this stool like you are doing drinking beer exactly like you are doing and then you can go and piss next to a whole load of other people who understand the great taste of actual beer in a pub! Wow, I bet you wish you were drinking beer in this pub right now just like you are.”
But actually what annoys me is the idea that we have to “thank everyone who helps make this possible” (other than by paying them a wage) tacitly creates the idea that cinema is basically already dying and needs to be protected. Worse these adverts perpetuate the myth that cinema is merely “a great experience”, as if all it offers is spectacle and 3D specs. Sure a cinema can deliver the kinds of bangs and crashes that only a lunatic would wish to have access to in their own home but that’s a pretty hollow trick. If that really is all the reason for watching a film in a theatre then they might as well turn the lot of them into bingo halls right away.
After all the begging and lecturing was over I watched “Up In The Air” a well crafted and compassionate film that is absolutely at its best when dealing with the minutiae of American corporate life. I can’t believe I’m even bothering to write this down but the obvious fact is that on the big screen the tiny takes on a power and importance that it lacks when watched on your phone. George Clooney – and even more so Vera Farmiga – build their performances around tiny delicious details and half glances that help to raise this above some pretty obvious stuff about the importance of family life.
You don’t need 3D glasses to see it and you probably don’t need to see it in a cinema – but if you do you will appreciate it more and find it easier to enjoy it. You don’t need to beg for cinema – cinema rocks. And you shouldn’t beg for it either because it just makes people question why you’re bothering. Like selling a film by saying the book it’s based on is “an international publishing phenomenon” when everyone can see it’s just another airport novel…
