“Leaving the Movie Theatre” goes into how the theatre acts as an atmospheric BlackBox for films and exists as a space that glues viewers to the films and a hypnotic lure that captivates the audience, that allows the audience to truly enjoy films through relating one’s self to the film in a perverse manner, something the television could never provide.
I agree with what was described in the article, the process of entering a theatre prepares oneself for the film, allowing you to be ready to be enveloped by the darkness and atmosphere; while the process of leaving gives you time to remain absorbed and slowly process what you have just seen and felt.
Perhaps what excites me most is when Barthes mentioned a “narcissistic body” and “a perverse body” that enjoys the film. It is a relief to know that I’m not alone in narcissistically putting myself into the world of the film: how would I act if I were the main character, or a whole new entity on its own that twists and changes how the story unfolds, or to childishly build upon the world of the film with my imagination and to fill plotholes and branch new storylines of my own.
After more than 40 years since the publication of this text, what I question is the magic of the theatre and films still relevant in the modern age? Now much more commercialised, films and movies moved far from the identity of an experimental, brand new medium of art it once had. Horror movies as an example, where the tension and eeriness are meticulously built upon in the past, they are now littered with quick cuts and cheap jumpscares that can quickly stimulate the audience’s senses. Furthermore, instead of an experience, films to me feel mere like a kind of entertainment we consume to briefly occupy our minds, with pauses and speed up buttons that facilitate that consumption. That being said, movies made with passion, while harder to find, are still being made and shown to the world, and modern technology isn’t here to ruin our experience, but to simply allows us to enjoy them the way we are comfortable with. Perhaps, in contrast to Barthes’ opinion on how television couldn’t recreate the atmosphere a theatre delivers, we can create our own theatres with our tiny screens, with loading screens as our walk to the theatre, the frame of our devices as the theatre, and the switching off of films as our exit.
— Sherman Lo Shui Fung, U3035582966
Excellent response! Appreciate that you tried to relate today’s diverse viewing experiences with reference to the text. The filming technique to engage audience in a movie has certainly changed. In Barthes’ text, “It is the urban dark that the body’s freedom is generated” (1986, 346); you mentioned that the liberty of controlling how films are consumed via technology allowed for another form of an immersive experience – it would be great if you could draw more in-depth parallels / comparisons between now and then to strengthen your arguments. For example, what is the equivalent of “darkness” in the case of today? How is the awakening, the feeling of waking up to the real world, from leaving the movie emulated through switching off our tiny screens?