Over the last fifteen years, there has been a steadily rising tide of complete and utter twits who come to pre-1980 movies just to mock, laugh at, and otherwise deride them. This is the equivalent of paying to see something to bully it, and bullying it is--low, juvenile, and ass-backwards behavior from alleged human beings.
Why do these people pay to see old movies at all? If you don't respect or like them, why see them? If you don't like ballet, do you go see one and holler out "Your arabesques suck!" with a bunch of your spoiled, emaciated, bearded pals and guffaw like a complete yahoo? If you hate football, do you go to the Super Bowl and shriek "That pass was so-o-o-o shitty!" during the odd quiet moment? The difference is that movies have always been considered "entertainment" and not art by Americans and therefore unworthy of serious consideration. Francois Truffaut pointed that everyone has two jobs: their regular job and movie critic. This has never been truer than now, and never have people had less right to consider themselves worthy of the title.Going to old movies just to ridicule them is like booing your own team.
What specifically got me riled about this horrible trend was two recent screenings in Hollywood: Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE and the Film Noir TENSION. These are not MY FRIENDS NEED KILLING or AMERICAN NINJA movies--these are real movies, well worth the appreciation and polite attention of adults. This isn't MST3K territory. It goes without saying that CAT PEOPLE is phenomenal--a masterful example of how far a low budget and enormous amounts of talent and imagination can go. TENSION was a decent Film Noir--not a masterpiece, but a solid film. Yet the audiences laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And then laughed some more. This is the kind of behavior that makes Easterners look down their nose at L.A.--these audiences reflect badly on their town, behaving like a bunch of hick philistines.What made this all the more disturbing and insulting was that it was obviously a REVIVAL screening, and therefore any audience member with a grain of sense would have realized that the fashions, speech, social mores, etc. of the periods in which the films took place would be different than those of their own benighted time. But, no: they couldn't stifle their horrible, selfish desire to be undeservedly seen and noticed at all times or their flagrant stupidity for the 80- or 90-minutes that the films each ran. Instead, they make going to the movies feel like riding the subway.
What astounded me even more was hearing an audience laugh at the Boris Karloff version of THE MUMMY at a recent screening. One particular moment was astonishing--a bunch of drips in the audience cracked up when Karloff's Ardath Bey entreats a character not to touch him, explaining that it's "An Eastern prejudice." It's a fact that certain very, very strict Muslims and Jews at the time the film was made felt that being touched by someone outside of their faith makes them unclean, forcing them go through a complex purification ritual. (In the film, it's a cover for the fact that Karloff's character is partially disintegrating.) In a town that prides itself on multiculturalism, this sort of audience response seems acutely embarrassing.
What utter lack of comprehension makes the rubes who behave like this think it's OK--that that's how you should comport yourself in public? And what makes them superior to these films? What have they actually accomplished that can BEGIN to equal those movies? What works of art have they brought into the world that could come close to even Jacques Tourneur's least film (which CAT PEOPLE sure as hell isn't) or the lowliest film noir? And these aren't isolated incidents. These jabbering trolls are everywhere. They are just another symptom of America's lack of interest in its own history--and its lack of effort at understanding or contextualizing our history--and, worse still, the breakdown of any kind of common courtesy or consideration for other people.
Speaking for the moviegoers of the world to the people who laugh incessantly through old movies in public, WE HATE YOU, you boorish morons. You are incapable of an adult thought. You are a pack of inbreds. You spoil what should be a joyous experience and a treat. Your affected jadedness conceals a deep insecurity--if you had any self-respect, you would gladly show enthusiasm for something publicly that didn't involve having a mob of cretins like yourself behind you. I can't heap enough contempt on you. How hard is it to laugh WITH a movie and not AT it?
Go home. Stay there. Play in traffic. Do ANYTHING but come to great old movies.You don't deserve them.
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