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Walking Out
Last week I wrote about The Artist. Ah well, it seems that everybody's still talking about this film. Now, apparently, people have been walking out during it, demanding their money back from the cinema, because they'd not been made aware that the film is a black & white silent.
This makes me wonder, about the reasons one can have for walking out of something. I never do it myself - I can only remember once, where boredom brutally started to threaten me - usually I'm too curious and worried about missing something. Over the past years of watching lots of work, good and bad, it's become clear to me that even the most appalling work inspire to something; put shit on stage and good ideas will come to me. I don't know why. So I don't walk out and ponder over why other people do and what it means to them (I will never forget how literally hundreds demonstratively walked out during Maguy Marin's Description d'un combat in 2009 at MuseumsQuartier Halle E, Vienna).
Is it, like in the case with The Artist, that if people don't get what they've come for, or they think they've come for, it's a huge disappointment and who wants to sit through something unexpected? God forbid surprises! Or any change of direction!
Or is it to do with how people don't wish to identify themselves with a bad piece of work? And by cat-walking out, they make sure that everyone else knows that?
Is it because bad (or just undesired) work can feel like a waste of valuable time? Time which we don't seem to have enough of. Ever.
Some things are just too much?
Is walking out insulting or should it not be taken personal?
And lastly, why have critics always cared more about the one person walking out, than the 599 staying?
Comments
Seke Chimutengwende says:
I once went to a Claire Denis film about Mathilde Monnier at the Cine Lumiere. There were 11 people in the audience, seven people walked out before I did. Not sure if the other three stayed till the end. Generally I don't walk out of performances or films.
24 January, 2012 - 08:42
louise says:
In that way it's quite 'democratic', walking out sort of en masse. Which is useful, well it could be, if it was somehow 'put out there'. It is now!
24 January, 2012 - 21:48
Chaplain says:
I like how you call it 'cat-walking'. It's definitely a statement isn't it? This makes me wonder if it has a lot more to do with the person walking out than what's happening on screen/stage. And time is definitely a factor- 'This is a waste of my time'. Time feels like it's getting longer- and there's an anxiety that comes with it that's amplified by the money you've paid and the claustrophobic nature of theatres. I've often wanted to get out of a cinema/theatre even if I'm interested in what's happening there. I've left a couple of times, not out of disgust but anxiety- a feeling that I'd like to be somewhere else. Says a lot about me, eh!
I think if someone is expecting a certain kind of experience and then they are confronted with a radically different one which makes them extremely aware of their own body and the bodies of others and time passing- when they were expecting just to have their senses blasted into oblivion, it can be a very anxious experience, which for you might make a very interesting experience, but for others they would rather be anywhere else at that moment. I don't think walking out should be taken personally.
24 January, 2012 - 16:09
louise says:
Okay yeah, extreme awareness I guess can make you sensitive and feel a bit self-conscious... I never looked at it from that perspective.
24 January, 2012 - 21:42
Seke Chimutengwende says:
I once walked out of a show that I was performing in.
24 January, 2012 - 18:14
louise says:
Ha, like you left the building? Why?
24 January, 2012 - 21:37
Seke Chimutengwende says:
Well that's not true, strictly speaking. Got too nervous had a panic attack and couldn't go on stage.. It was kind of like walking out I guess..
24 January, 2012 - 22:19
Flora says:
I once had a nose-bleed when I was full of anxiety in a place I didn't want to be, doing something I didn't want to be doing. I didn't feel like I could voluntarily voice this or act on my feeling even though it was so strong. And that's when I realised I was having a nose-bleed. That was a stand-out physiological, reactionary experience for me.
I can't imagine walking out being an impulsive action. I think I'm too polite for such an impulse to crack me. The impulse would have to be qualified with some rationale. And then the action of leaving would indeed be a statement. My temperature would shoot right up and my ears would throb. It's kind of a question of self-censorship. A filmmaker friend of mine aired the (tongue-in-cheek, ish) opinion that artists are arrogant and manipulative in that they want people to see the world the way they do...
It is our perrogative to throw in the towel at any point during a performance. Maybe we should exercise it more often? Can you imagine? Anarchy in the theatre (not just the streets).
25 January, 2012 - 01:00
Chaplain says:
Oh me oh my, last night was one of those moments in life when you astonish yourself with your own stupidity:
I had somehow got it into my head that The Artist was actually IN absolute SILENCE the whole way through. Hence my imagining it being a rather more challenging assault (or anti-assault) on the senses! Blushed away quietly to myself in the cinema, I did.
In other news, I really liked it and am pretty sure my views on walking out still stand.
2 February, 2012 - 11:54
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