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PaulSutton |
Emotional work of cinema...
Apr 5 2009, 3:17 AM EDT
There is an interesting editorial in the May 09 issue of Sight and Sound which picks up on this question of private cinema but in the context of the micro-screen of the ipod, etc. I had been struck by the increasing ubiquity of various kinds of digital devices, all of which enable commuters to watch film and television as they journey to and from work. What I find especially interesting is not only the way that this repositions cinema but how it also represents a private mode of viewing but in a public space. Nick James, in Yes, I first saw The Exorcist at a midnight screening in central London. The audience consisted of hardcore fans who were able to cite the dialogue in the film word for word and those who had simply turned up after the pubs had closed… What was interesting was that a kind of carnivalesque atmosphere prevailed, with the audience’s performance of the film undercutting any of its tension and horror. For me, a viewer who had avoided seeing it precisely because of its reputation as a truly frightening film, this turned out to be a wonderfully liberating encounter precisely because it demonstrated that the horror film and pleasure were not mutually exclusive. That said, my first encounter with The Exorcist is pertinent here, I suspect. It was non-cinematic and consisted of peers at my boarding school recounting scenes from the film at night in our dormitory after lights out – a collective experience that left far too much to my imagination…
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film; horror
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