Personally, I like a quiet movie-going experience. When I’m sitting in the theater and that asshole’s phone goes off, I usually would like nothing more than to sock him in the eye. Or at least wreck his phone. Or when that chatty pair of women in the corner keep intruding with their whispers and giggles. I enjoy—somewhat alarmingly—the introductions that most theaters take care to play before films: Don’t talk, turn off your cell phones, keep your life to yourself. “That will teach them,” I think, imagining the philistines quaking with confusion at the message. “How could my life be less important than the film?” I hear them cry (in my head).
So, as you already know, I can be somewhat of a somewhat of a snob. I turn my nose up at those who would deign to spoil my silent film atmosphere. The crowds at classical music concerts? I like those people…polite, quiet, respectful. Of course, you have that undercurrent of fear—evinced in those moments when someone accidently claps between movements—causing swift and terrible judgment: hundreds of eyes turning around to glare at you. Ah! How wonderful…
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Given this, you can imagine that my experience at the final Harry Potter film last weekend was less than comfortable. While it was not a midnight showing (I did that last year—capes and wands and magic incantations in the audience were a little too much for me), it was still filled with Potter aficionados—an audience who (pun intended) lived and died with Harry through the final film.
As the film progressed, the ahs and oohs became louder and louder until the climactic battle scene when the skirmishes with rudeness became fully-fledged assaults on the theater’s opening plea for silence and respect. People shouted encouragement to the characters on the screen; applause was called for when villains were killed; loud sobs were wept when favorite characters suffered. And…well…about halfway through I gave into it. I didn’t yell at anything at the screen, but I did clap when Neville sliced the head off Nagini. Maybe not so loud and long as others in the theater, but I made the genuine motion of hand against hand, and not, as you might think, in a conforming or mocking way. I found myself genuinely moved to react to the events on the screen.
This was, contrary to your first thoughts, not something entirely new to me.
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After all, everyone laughs in the theater. Films make people—including me—laugh out loud. I’ve never met someone who has not laughed at least once watching a film. And horror films? Don’t even get me started there. I’ve reacted alone in a room to some horror films, especially the stupid ones where the girl never seems to know where the damned monster is when—DAMN YOU, YOU MORON—IT’S BEHIND YOU!
You know what I mean.
But what is rare is that we take part in a film to the extent that it does not play off our own notions of what is frightening or what is funny, but rather off what we think is beautiful or heroic. The final Potter installment managed to play off that latter emotion and triggered it even in this too-often hard-hearted critic. Whether that’s because Potter et al have had a nearly unparalleled cinematic run (at least to my knowledge, few characters have had full reign over eight continuous films, excluding horror monsters [Jason] and superheroes who…well…change a lot? [Batman, Superman]).
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Not that I was alive during the early years of cinema, but I have this somewhat inexplicable pining for an older generation when people got drunk and went out to see a film and cheered the hero from beginning to end. I can imagine watching Buster Keaton’s The General with some ragtime music for a soundtrack, yelling advice at the screen and hoping for the best for Keaton’s hapless Johnny Gray.
I vividly remember watching the film Cinema Paradiso, which, for those of you who have not had the pleasure, is an Italian film about the youth of a famous director. It begins with a child’s fascination with the local small town theater and the audience that goes there. It looks like rollicking, wild fun to be in that audience.
What I’m saying—in a rather roundabout way, as is my style—is that I wouldn’t mind a little more of that attitude. I wouldn’t mind throwing a cheer or two at the screen—Potter this week, maybe Captain America the next.
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