From the Cheap Seats

Summer’s here and with it, the seasonal cinema: big box-office-bursting behemoths. And, no doubt, trailing in their wake will be the inevitable pieces from serious cineastes, bemoaning the success of these vapid entertainments.

This isn’t, I hope, going to be one of them. It’s not that I dispute the critical analysis – how can I? – but rather, I think it misses the point about big movies. These are the only films most folk bother with; laying into them makes the egg-heads sound shrill and elitist. It’s also a touch hypocritical. It’s not hard to find contemporary reviews of film buff faves like North by Northwest and Rio Bravo, apparently written with the same poison pen many reviewers used to spear Speed Racer with.
We can condemn the showmanship and hype as crass. And, yes, there has to be more to cinema than empty sensation. At the same time, however, it can be a joy to sit as part of a capacity audience and to share the experience. I was reminded of that when I went to the final Pirates of the Caribbean flick last year.
It was rammed: with teenagers and pensioners, with harassed parents giving the nippers a holiday treat. Judging by the mounds of confectionery and the way they laughed at adverts that had been on heavy rotation for months, I figured most of them weren’t cinema regulars. And so what? It was a good crowd to be a part of, free of the cynicism that can sometimes waft through the art houses.
What surprised me, though, was how little they seemed to enjoy it. There was none of the enthusiasm which I observed at, say, Lord of the Rings or the first Pirates flick. Now, I accept what follows is as unscientific as Creationism but the thing is, I’ve noticed this sort of dissatisfied audience reaction at any number of the blockbusters I’ve attended in recent years.
It’s not that the people are tiring of spectacle and excess. My sense is that they’re getting frustrated with how bloated and self-important these films have become. Hands up who else thinks modern blockbusters are too long? That last Pirates flick was pushing three hours! And hands up who else is fed up with not being able to follow the action?
This last point is important because action is one of the major selling points of a summer movie. Yet directors have forgotten how to stage it. Instead, each set-piece gets divided by hundred of cuts, rendering everything incomprehensible. Maybe this looks ‘cool’ if you’re jacked up on sugared drinks from the concessions stand but it don’t do it for me.
I want to explicitly exonerate Paul Greengrass, whose remarkable work on the Bourne series uses this aesthetic brilliantly. But then, he’s a real filmmaker and it’s part of his overall strategy. Too often, though, rapid-fire editing is used by clods who have no idea how to build momentum, pace a movie or carry an audience.

Summer movies exert a powerful gravity. Despite the above, I’ll probably check out a couple of this year’s juggernauts. However, I have an inkling I’m not the only one to get ever diminishing returns for my ticket money. In an age of piracy and audience fragmentation, perhaps that’s something for the studios to consider.