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Rude crowd behavior in cinema ruins a thoughtful film
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I spent 120 yuan to watch the epic science fiction film “Interstellar” on the city’s widest screen during the weekend. With a strong desire for a sense of immersion like what the theater advertised to “step into the film and be part of it,” I sat quietly not only with my eyes and ears to see and listen but also my heart to feel, and I tried to forget where I was.
Later I gave it up because Murphy’s Law — a clue and metaphor for the whole plot — reared its head for me that day. Anything that could go wrong went wrong. From the very beginning when I paid attention to survivors in the film talking about hard times on Earth, viewers with poor timing kept turning up in twos or threes. When the last comers appeared in front of me and blocked my line of sight, it was fully half an hour after the movie started.
Disturbance
Because of their disturbance, I missed some key shots detailing the adventure of pilot Cooper, biologist Amelia, geographer Doyle, and artificially intelligent robot CASE on Miller’s planet, which was covered by a shallow ocean roiled by enormous tidal waves.
Fortunately, there were no more intruders but when Cooper and Amelia slingshot their spacecraft Endurance around the black hole Gargantua on a course to Edmunds’ planet, several flashlights appeared in my field of vision. At first I thought they were part of the film like some supernovas but I was wrong. They were screens of some viewers’ mobile phones.
They were on and off halfway into the movie. My train of thought was abruptly stopped repeatedly so that I couldn’t keep a clear mind on the obscure story based on established physical rules, from the theory of relativity and classical mechanics to scenes described by “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes.”
Finally, all the phone screens were switched off but some viewers began leaving. A couple three seats away stood up and crossed over me and some others to move to the staircase when Cooper used gravitational waves to transmit robot TARS’ data on the singularity to her daughter Murphy through Morse code, allowing her to complete NASA scientist Brand’s equation and evacuate Earth.
Viewers’ fault?
I’ve been accustomed to what happens in a local cinema, and I could even predict what would happen during viewership like time behaves in an extra-dimensional world in the film. A colleague of mine, a British gentleman, told me he had been to a local cinema once and wouldn’t try again. What is the problem? Is it our viewers’ fault or some others need to be blamed also?
Only days before at the Chamber Hall of Shanghai Symphony Hall, pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei thanked her audience after performing Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” because they were quiet during her performance. If we can keep quiet in a chamber hall, why can’t we be quiet in a cinema?
Audiences in the city were not so elegant years ago. But they were taught to be disciplined by concert hall staff, by organizers, musicians and media. At least during Zhu’s performance they were tamed. Now we have top-tier cinemas, opera halls, museums and libraries. Our behavior should be adapted to this cultural development.
Cinema staff may learn from their peers working at concert halls to make our viewers understand proper etiquette. We are socialized. That’s why we have to be good-mannered and to follow some appropriate rules for certain occasions.
A well-developed society — a better city, better life — is not only built on high-tech facilities but also cultivated minds.
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