Doug Sears, Jr.: Shining a Light on Audience Behavior

A few days before Christmas my wife and I headed to our favorite local movie theater to spend an evening watching Eternity, an A24 film starring Miles Teller, Callum Turner and Elizabeth Olson in a love triangle in the great beyond. Turner and Teller play Olson’s two husbands, one a short lived romance that ends with Turner dying in a war as a young man, and Teller as the second husband, who can claim 60 plus years of marriage, children, grandchildren, and all the memories and regrets of a long life together. 

The conflict of the film emerges, as the two husbands contend for her, she contemplates life, love, and relationships, and the plot unravels around her choice, and whether these two dead men can grow. It’s a good movie, faithful to its concepts, thought provoking, tear jerking, but fairly predictable and typically saccharine. A lot of funny moments to keep things moving and fend off those deepest feelings. Classic A24, in other words.

The conflict of my viewing was the woman in the row in front of us. She checked her phone a handful of times throughout the show in one of the smaller, more intimate 20 seat theaters, sitting in the second row with three rows of viewers behind her. The brightness of her screen was set to what I would describe as “shadow puppets on the moon” setting. It was very distracting and disruptive to an otherwise captivating movie.

My rage was palpable, as movie theater misbehavior is high on my list of modern pet peeves. But I’m trying really hard to stay in the “live and let live” mentality, and I don’t want to compound her distraction by calling it out. I’d hate to initiate a prolonged argument with a stubbornly rude individual and draw everyone in the theater, even those who don’t notice the Beacon of Gondor from their seat, into my distraction.

But a movie theater stands today as a relatively inexpensive third space where we can reach for a little bit of wonder, a little bit of thrills, and fifty bucks in junk food that no one can see us eating because it’s dark. In many bland suburbs like mine, it’s the only public exhibition of art available. And with the advancement of streaming and the seemingly intentional sabotage from movie studios like Netflix, even these cultural staples feel like they may disappear soon. 

So while I’m not nearly as confrontational as I like to pretend, I do feel it’s important to defend these community fixtures for both noble and selfish reasons. I love the big blockbusters and I love sneaking away for an underappreciated independent film on a weekday night when my wife goes to bed early. I love that I’ve already marked my calendar for a screening of Casablanca, a movie that will be 84 years old by the time I see it in theaters, and still resonant. 

I won’t go so far as to say it’s a sacred place, but it is certainly a place I value, a consistent example of American culture and a beacon for our most popular art form. One need only look at one or two of the thousands of tributes to the recently deceased Rob Reiner to see what I’m talking about. 

So, I finally made up my mind. I’m going to tell her, after the film, as calmly as I can, that this was really rude and she should at least turn her brightness down. That this is a place where we are not individuals, but that we are a group. We are the Audience. We are a part of each other’s experience, and that means laughing together, seeing who’s going to scream or shout when the monster suddenly appears, or maybe even cheering together when the movie calls for it, a rare but delightful experience reserved for only the most exhilarating films. But mostly our responsibility is to not disrupt the Audience, not to break the trance the movie puts us in. Don’t call anyone back from their escape. 

Well the movie ends, predictably on a sentimental note on love in all its complications and tribulations, all its functions and foibles. My handkerchief was useful, let’s just say that. 

And as the lights came up on Eternity and the kind of satisfying, appropriate ending we don’t always enjoy in the real world, the woman who drew my ire turns so her face is toward me, picks up her blanket, and uses it to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. And then she has a cute little side hug with her husband, having contemplated her relationship throughout the film like I assume we all did. 

All my conviction disappears as I realize The Lighthouse Keeper is just another person who doesn’t realize how selfish and abrasive they were, and they actually had a nice time, completely ignorant of how irritating they were to the rest of the viewing audience.

So I get it. A lot of us have some level of addiction to our phones. And as our lives become more insular and isolated, social graces are slipping away, self-centered behavior is flourishing, and the concept of community is eroding.

So, a simple plea, one that has come many times before. When you join the Audience at a movie theater can you please leave your phone out of it? Your voice, too, can use the break. Can you please remember that other people are there and it’s only two hours? Duck out to the hallway if you must.

Give yourself and those around you that opportunity to immerse themselves in whatever ethos, pathos or logos the artists have baked into their creation. Blend into the scenery. Look at the handful of people around you, think of how they chose the same experience as you, reached for the same emotions you did, yearned for the same story you yearned for, and allow them to enjoy it unobstructed. Trust them to do the same for you. 

And if you really, really cannot part with the constant stream of mostly useless information our phones thrust upon us, opt to stream at home, or at the barest of minimums, lower your brightness. You’re just checking a few text messages, not trying to singe a hole in the ceiling, right?

Doug Sears, Jr. is a writer, columnist, and podcaster for Watershed Voice. 

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