Let the movie do the talking
Sit back, relax and shut up
KERRI WOLOSZYN STAFF
In grade seven, after being assigned a creative writing story, I wrote a piece called “My First Love.” It was an attempt to explain my love of movies and included an account of one of my earliest movie memories: going to see Benji: The Hunted with my dad. In retrospect, the essay was less about movies themselves than about the movie-going experience.
The title itself was a lie. Movies were not my first love. As a child, movies were something I enjoyed but never something I was passionate about. In fact, it took me until after I wrote the essay to realize I loved them at all. Looking back on the paper, I seem to be missing something else too. I make no mention of anyone chewing their popcorn too loudly or kicking the back of my seat or talking during the film. I’m sure that I have experienced a combination of the each of those things at every movie-going experience since.
Sometimes people have a hard time chewing with their mouths closed, I understand. It is really a skill one must learn when they are a child. After about 10, if you can’t do it, you are doomed to a life of lip-smacking and loud-chewing. I also understand that sometimes people have abnormally long legs. The lack of leg room in modern movie theatres makes it near impossible for the long-legged among us to find a comfortable position. Therefore, I choose to blindly ignore the first two problems that I have outlined and go right in for the kill.
For some reason I always choose to sit right in front of the one person in the theatre who feels it is their duty to provide those around them with a “spectator’s commentary.” Now, sometimes, I admit, the words of the chatterbox behind me are more entertaining than those coming from the film. However, these moments are few and far between. It strikes me that in general there are three kinds of movie motor-mouths, each more aggravating than the last.
The Explainer: This person feels the need to inform her cohorts of the action-taking place on screen at all times. Often, the explainer will read any and all explanatory text that pops up on screen aloud so as to make things easier on the rest of us. The explainer will often say things like, “oh, I see” to make sure that the rest of the audience knows that they understand the film. The explainer’s role is to showcase their own genius and, by doing so, make complicated films less complicated.
The Questioner: This person never, ever understands the movie in front of them. Even if the movie is mindless, the questioner will ask something completely inane and obvious during the quietest part of the film. The questioner understands neither narrative, nor (it seems) simple words and phrases. This person cannot remember names, locations, and sometimes, not even the title of the film.
The Wiseacre: This person is easily the most annoying of the three. The wiseacre feels it is their job to be more entertaining than the film by supplying the audience with their own one-liners. The wiseacre is the worst offender because, unlike the previous two, she is completely aware of her actions. Given to showboating with her friends, the wiseacre has likely received compliments on her wit in the past, thus giving her free reign in all social settings.
What can the victims of such offences do? I often employ the slow head-turn-and-glare when someone is talking behind me. Such a technique does not always work but it is certainly therapeutic. A well planned “shhh!” is a classic, but is often more of an aural nuisance than the talker themselves. My current preference is a simple phrase that is used by some of the preshow screen fillers: “let the movie do the talking.”
