Movies — What is the “experience”?
Christopher McCandless: Happiness is only real once shared
Christopher McCandless: Happiness is only real when shared. — Into the wild
“Brilliant movie,” “Director has done an excellent job,” “actor’s performance was one of his best, surely he will win Oscars this time,”
“Never go for this movie,” “Give me my money back,” “This movie is a copy from the other one,”
Disclaimer: 80s/90s born can relate this story better :)
In the bus, cafe, while having lunch, at the office, during a trip… we never miss touching upon the topic on movie experience with anyone around us. “Hey! what’s the plan for this weekend? Shall we go for a movie?”
The 80s VHS and LDs
“Is there any stunt action in the movie?”
“How are the action sequences?” “Did all our neighbours come?”
… We shared our experience…
It was the 80s, and I had never been to any cinema theatre to watch movies and my parents also never taken me. It was VCR/VCP time. VHS rental guys used to deliver at our home every week 2 movies and the rent was Rs 10. Whenever we received the rental VHS, the entire apartment and neighbours came to our home to watch movies together. Mom used to prepare snacks for everyone. I normally waited for the title cards to show up, to find out if there was any stunt choreography in it or not. If yes, I would watch otherwise, I would run out to play with friends. There are also scenarios where even after seeing the stunt choreography in the title card, in the entire movie there would not be any action sequence, but at the end, the policemen would come to arrest the corrupt person. “We waited for the entire 2 whole hours to see this scene of the arrest?” and we would be disappointed completely, and would leave the place. Later we would criticize and complain to our friends or share the movie review as,
“Ayyo kuppai padam athu our sandai koodai illai (Movie was crap, not even a single fight sequence in it)”
It was the time, interest spiked towards Hollywood movies. My favourite movie used to be “Comando”.
“Wow! what an action. How he carries the launcher and destroys the entire place.”
It stayed for a long time until “Predator” got released. It was a small town. The knowledge we had was very limited. The technical part of the movie, no one cared or had a clue about. “Mercury man” — cool, how entertaining it was (Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The entire experience about the movie was “action,” with our need for more and more action, which defined it as a wonderful movie for us. At school, during break time, our conversations, most of the time-shifted towards movies and about action sequences. “Before he jumped, they insured him for $$$, and he took a significant risk.” One of my friends exaggerated the jump scene of Arnold inPredator(1987),
The 90s Cinema hall and Multiplexes
“How cool the actor?”
“first day first show maapilai,”
“I was the last person who successfully got the ticket from the counter and then it closed”
… We shared our experience…
Time flies, and in the early 90s, the audio cassette was so much popular. We shared our cassettes with friends and they made copies, (of course, Piracy is illegal) because sharing is caring :). I grew up in a small town from South India — Madurai. We used to have only one theatre in Madurai where Hollywood movies would be released. Watching a Hollywood movie at the cinema hall was always the best experience. Sometimes we would not be able to follow the dialogues, but somehow everyone interpreted these in their own way. The best part used to be during the interval time,
“ padam semma aana antha villain than enna panna poraannu therilla(the movie is impressive, right? But not sure what the villain going to do now)”
People at the cinema hall could not even figure out the dialogues. Still, they used to discuss/criticize the movie, that’s the power of the visual medium. When I didn’t get an opportunity to visit the cinema hall during my childhood days, but as a teenager, I went with my friends. Even bunked the school to watch the first day first shows, which used to be a heroic thing to do as a teenager. Standing in the queue for long hours to get a ticket, sometimes just reach right at the ticket counter.
Time flies into the late 90s — teenager. I went to movies with friends. Bunking college, “Madhavan acting was excellent,” “semma romantic movie maappilai,” “How soothing the songs are and the lyrics are romantic,” from an action movie to now we are criticizing/reviewing songs and the lyrics, commenting about romance. We share our headphone/Walkman with friends. One buys batteries, another brings the cassette and I get my Walkman. Our rides towards college on the bus were unforgettable memories. With one headphone set and two of us listening at the same time — sharing the experience of each other.
Slowly started nightouts and night stays (night study) with friends, playing Ilayaraja’s song in WINAMP in a loop (normally starts with AR and shifting towards Illayaraja). In one hand holding a Whiskey glass, another hand holding Playing cards, and conversing about Fazil’s direction.
Inspired by Maddy’s character, we tried to impress the girls. Bought the book “Love & Love Only” inspired by Fazil’s Kaadhalukku mariyathai. Ultimately, we never read that book, ever.
Our inspirations, motivations, perceptions, everything we tried to imbibe from movies. Dancing on the top of the seats, whistling for the favourites hero introductions, Movies become a part of life. Our dressing sense, style, baggy pants, bell-bottom trousers, …
“Wow! how romantic?”
“Songs are soothing,”
“Story was touching and emotional,”
“Maappilai lets do a night study this week and listen to Illayaraja for the whole night”
“brilliant lyrics,”
… We shared our experience…
DVDs and World cinema
“Bhai puthusa enna CD vandhurukku? (Bhai, what is the recent CD you got?)” — Pondy Bazaar, Madurai
Madurai, Pondy Bazaar is the place where our interest in world cinema started. It was CD era and no more VHS. Bazaar used to be filled with electronic and CD shops. “our Bhai,” only movie expert who provides a review for the movies and recommend us to watch, Since then started watching many international movies. Every weekend we (friends) used to get a DVD and watch it on our computer in the study room, (the only way we had to play the DVD was DVD ROM). The room was filled with friends and my mom would think that we were all studying computer-related stuff. We used to get snacks, tea at a regular interval of time, with my mom thinking her son is doing great innovative work with his friends. Our knowledge and experience in world cinema increased with age and the maturity level of “experience” too in our reviews as,
“Wow! great cinematography?”
“This movie copied from Akira Kurosawa’s,”
“Nayagan movie, don’t talk about that. It is an ultimate copy of God Father series,”… We shared our experience…
Intellectuals and Critiques
Chennai: outside the office having a tea at our favourite snack bar with a cigarette in the hand (imitates like Travolta) and the conversation starts,
“did you notice that shot there was no cut, continuous shot without an edit,” sipping the tea and next person (colleague) responds,
“Yeah, that’s correct. Also loved the camera angle. We should watch again with commentary audio track turned on to listen to the director’s point of view,” taps the ash from the cigarette…
Worked with professional and creative heads of entertainment industries. They bring unique perspectives, a different analogy of the movie scenes. We spent an entire day to share everyone’s point of view on this scene from Enemy at the Gates. Why this scene made? What the director tried to convey? Going into the unpredicted war. For a moment, they both felt an emotional connection. Could be infatuation? psychological? a natural human tendency? Without looking, a girl can sense someone is watching?…
Remembered this: One day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the fatal precipice. As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine. Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was delicious! — “The man knew that he was about to die and that there was nothing he could do about it. The strawberry was his last chance to enjoy life so instead of wasting his last moments in fear and frustration he took what little pleasure he could and made the best of it.”… a lot of things discussed and debated with the scene which comes in the movie for 20–30 seconds.
We used to get rental DVDs and purchased lifetime members with more than one shop. We used to only Rent/Buy DVDs that had DTS audio format as Dolby is not a good audio format. We really needed to experience the movie, and for that quality video and sound was definitely a must.
We believed that good experience is only by viewing through the gigantic screen and also it was not only the movie but the experiences right from the start of the planning until returning back home. This included the drive time, snack time, interval, conversations with the stranger sitting next to our seat… right until when we met our friends the next day,
“ILM killed it,”
“Fantastic VFX,”
“Weta Digital is good, but all their projects are similar”… We shared our experience…
“I subscribed to Netflix,” “I am using Amazon Prime.” — Binge-watching. Continuously without a break, we started watching different, random movies and series sitting at home. There are no specific time or limitation on the number of movies. Anytime any series. Often when I woke up in the morning, I would not even be able to recollect what I watched last night.
Often unable to express or pause and chew over the movie, as there would be no actual interval for the movie and no one around the place to converse with. No popcorn time. No more travelling during the weekend. No DVD rental and conversations with our “BHAI”. Where is my DTS audio (All OTT comes with mostly Dolby audio)? Where is my DTS ES, 11.1, 7.1? Why should I compromise with the audio experience?… Who is there to debate and share? Who is there to share our critique?
When a person starts to watch a movie, they immediately post it on Facebook as “watching..”, people comment and like the post, and then the focus moves to replying to them, and they are distracted by tracking who liked the post rather than experiencing the movie. If no reply or no comment, they just stop watching and move on to something else (ever felt this?). Why we did not complete the movie? How many of us did this and are still doing this? I’m not even able to remember what I watched during the weekend, then how would I review it? What movie to speak about during my coffee break? Am I watching it for the experience or to increase my social count?
Marking it in the watched list to avoid social pressure. “Have you seen GOT (short form for Game of Thrones)?” a big criminal offence if we respond as no…
“I finished 2 complete seasons of this series last night”
Who did the VFX? Who is the director? What is the lead actor’s name? — have we skipped the credits? Where is the standing ovation when the movie finishes?
“I got VR to experience the movie”. “I got Bluray the best picture quality experience we can have”. Where are the intellectual conversations now and with whom to do? When did we last listen to a song completely? We don’t buy/have audio cassette/CDs to look at the label to see the artist, lyricist anymore. When is the last time you created your own playlist?
When is the last time we started a conversation with a stranger? Things change. Technology changes. Language too, change is inevitable, one thing never changes, and that is — the emotion.
One question remains at present — Is this what is an experience? Hope we might be experiencing this. Are we happy?
Christopher McCandless: Happiness is only real once shared
Christopher McCandless: Happiness is only real when shared. — Into the wild
… We shared our experience… are we?
