Digressions at the Cinema, 2008
Barbara Klinger has an excellent essay about listening to people’s comments in the cinema, and all the intertextual links that get introduced this way, and all that we can learn from them: “Digressions at the Cinema.” I was thinking of that today when watching Cloverfield, which I enjoyed (though I need time to work out how much). Behind me in the theater were 3 friends who formed the movie’s peanut gallery, piping in comments at volume throughout. Rather than being annoying it was really funny. And very grounding, since it became impossible to take the movie too seriously when they weren’t.
A few selections:
- as J. J. Abrams’s Bad Robot logo came on before the film, one said, “oh shit, man. I know I didn’t pay this money to see a fuckin’ robot. This better not be no robot movie”
- as some characters walk down a dark subway tunnel, one announced that “me spidey sense is tingling, motherfucker”
- they would also frequently comment on the camerawork, such as “that is a good picture. Right there, see that? That’s good!”
I usually prefer silence when watching films. I’m a shusher. But there was something special here, since the whole film places you in the middle of this attack, with comments coming from all directions. To add these three audience members exclamations of surprise, fear, relief, humor, horror, or disbelief simply gave the film another layer, a third dimension in the crowd reacting to the film’s events in real time, especially when they often voiced comments appropriate to the film (“what is that thing? I can’t fuckin’ see it, hold the damn camera straight, asshole”), adding to the sense of frustration and confusion that the film creates with skill.
I like this idea of another layer of intertext and I immediately started connecting it to the way I talk about how the fantext affects our reading of a show (yes, I’m a one trick pony–why are you asking? : ): in a way, I don’t think we watch/read much purely. I mean, how often have already discussed spoilers before we ever see the first screenshot; how often have we read early reviews; how often do our conversations about a character arc affect the way we watch a new episode.
Just like the other paratextual effects you and I have talked about (commercials, clicking between channels, etc) whom we watch with (whether literally in the theatre or in front of the TV screen or virtually as we’re checking our flist during the ep or have already seen the squeey LJ cuts), what you’re describing here is an aspect I think is way understudied–mostly because it’s so idiosyncratic.
In a way, then, i think we could look at fandom and interpretive communities that create certain shared paratextual expectations as a way to look at this phenomenon in larger numbers and with actual textual manifestations (episode responses and post ep fic etc)??? Wait, aren’t we already arguing that??? *bg*