The guy who walked into the showing of “The Artist” that Kath and I were attending, stood there for four minutes, and then asked in a loud voice, “Is this Mission Impossible?”
Well, it turns out there are people who are more oblivious than he was. I’m talking about the moviegoers who demanded their ticket money back because they went to see “The Artist” and were irate to discover it was a silent film.
No. I’m not kidding.
Perhaps any theater that has moviegoers wanting refunds for that reason should give them a complimentary DVD of “Clueless.”
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Now, there’s a shocker ![End Sarcasm] (What can I say, it’s a Cylon thing.)
The sad thing is how absolutely easy this is to believe.
Reminds me of my aunt, who walked out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit because she didn’t know it was a cartoon. (Dummm da-dum dum…)
Ha! “Adventures of Tintin” would have had her walking in circles until her head exploded. “It’s an animated film! It’s a live-action film! It’s an animated film! It’s a live-action film! Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
If only the refund could come in the form of common sense.
Given what has been posted here and on the other movie thread, common sense (and common courtesy) are not so common anymore.
Reminds me of the time I saw “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in the theater and there were a couple of people a few rows behind me that very loudly said, “I come to the movies to watch a MOVIE…not to read a book!”
Thankfully, they left
Oddly enough, the only time I’ve watched “Clueless” was at a friend’s place with the sound off. I could follow it fine.
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I’m not that surprised and I’m not sure that the people in question are really that oblivious or clueless. I know quite a few people, especially people senior to my age group, who don’t follow every development about films on the web or even through television. They’ll hear some general buzz about a film and when out, if they have the time, sometimes go see the movie on a whim.
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You’re talking in the SOPA thread about the fact that you just called the pre-net days like today (where various sites are down in protest) just Wednesday. Well, a decade or two back, when this would have been just another Wednesday, people went to see films that they just knew the general buzz about. I knew people who went to see Nightbreed thinking that it was just a straight horror film and were shocked to discover that it was basically a flip on the concept in other horror films in that the monsters were the good guys and the characters in peril and some of the humans were essentially the monsters. All they really knew about it going in was that it was a horror/monster movie from the guy who created Hellraiser.
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Hëll, I knew a ton of people who went to see Last Action Hero and hated it because they went in to it thinking it was Arnold doing an over the top action film and not a sly spoof on the direction that action films had been going. And when Arnold came face to face with Slater… There was actually a guy who stood up in the theater I was in, looked around and asked out loud if anyone had the faintest idea of what was going on. Yeah, he took it to the extreme end of actually being a clueless idiot, but the point was that a lot of people were seeing that in the first week it was out knowing just the basics about what the film was about.
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There are still people who like to see films in that way. They don’t want to know a lot about it. They want to know just the general information about the film and, if it sounds like their kind of thing, they avoid “spoilers” at all costs to enjoy the movie going experience in the way the used to enjoy iy.
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Sometimes it bites them in the ášš. Doesn’t make them oblivious. It does make them stupid for choosing to avoid large amounts of information about the films and then demanding their money back because the film wasn’t what they thought it was though.
Yes.
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Most of my friends watch movies this way, general buzz and word-of-mouth only.
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It’s actually a minority that seeks further information about a movie.
I dunno about that, Rene. I worked in a movie theater for a few years, and the number of people who came up to the box office without knowing what a movie was about, what the time showings were, etc. was considerable. From this I came to understand that moviegoing for the mass public is a far more casual thing than it is for me.
I love seeing a movie without knowing anything about it. If a movie has great reviews, or it’s by a director I really like, and I’ve somehow avoided seeing a trailer for it, I’ll go see it without reading anything about it. It’s very exciting to see a movie with no expectations. Sometimes, like you say, it bites me in the ášš, like the time I saw Fados, not knowing the whole thing was just a bunch of people in a sound stage singing Portuguese folk songs for an hour and a half. So what do I do when that happens? I sit and watch the movie, and hope I make a better choice next time. What I don’t do is ask for my money back because of my own mistake.
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Of course, the people asking for a refund for The Artist aren’t half as bad as that idiot who filed a lawsuit because Drive wasn’t what she expected.
A few weeks ago someone I know mentioned in passing that she’d seen a great new movie called “The Artist”. After that, I heard the film mentioned a time or two in other places. I didn’t know it was a silent film until quite a bit later when I read about it somewhere, maybe on this site on the thread about courtesy in theaters. I am pretty sure that I have not seen any trailers or tv promos for the film, so I knew literally nothing except that there was a film called “The Artist” which some people think is pretty good.
So yeah, I can understand why someone would go see it without knowing in advance that it was a silent film–though for me personally I’d be unlikely to spend the money to see a film without learning a little bit about it first.
It’s not just that they didn’t know, Jerry. What stuns me is that it’s a MAGNIFICENT film. The first ten minutes make it clear that you’re seeing a one-of-a-kind movie. To me it’s unfathomable that anyone with even a shred of good taste (which may be the problem right there) could demand their money back simply because it’s a silent film.
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I mean, let’s say that someone wanted to see “The Iron Lady” and it was sold out, so they went to what was available, a film called…I dunno…”The Baker.” They go in and, ten minutes later, discover that it’s about a serial killer who shoves his victims into an oven and watches them die screaming. They come out of the film and go, “This is NOT for me.” I get that. I can understand that. And if they’re people who deliberately avoid finding out ANYTHING about a film because they always want to be surprised. I get that, too.
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But I simply can’t fathom how someone can walk out on a masterpiece like “The Artist” simply on the basis of lack of spoken words. The ONLY thing I can think of is that they were both illiterate and thus couldn’t handle the dialogue cards. Which I doubt. And even so, there weren’t THAT many cards and even they weren’t all that necessary.
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I guess you have to see it in order to share my incredulity.
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No, that complaint I get more than how it first seemed. But I unfortunately understand the problem there as well.
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It’s a silent film. Stuff happens and, if it follows the old silents that I like, you get a card every minute or so with dialogue on it. It’s not far removed from subtitles in a way and I know a lot of people, including people who like to read, that will not watch a film with subtitles in it.
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I’ve always found it weird because I’ve always been a foreign film fan, but I work with guys who love action films, read regularly and (back before we were all stocked with DVDs) handed me back a VHS of an amazingly well done foreign action film because it had subtitles. I have a friend who loves certain types of horror films. I let him borrow my copy of Let The Right One In because I knew it would be his thing. He hated it. He couldn’t make it through the film. Why? Not because it’s not a good film, but because the English language dub is painfully bad. I told him that the subtitles on my were fine because I had made a point to get the right DVD (long story for those who don’t know.) He didn’t care. He won’t watch a film with subtitles.
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Add in the b&w factor… I know people who wouldn’t watch Ed Wood or Good Night, and Good Luck because they won’t watch a black and white film unless they absolutely have to.
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Takes all kinds. But then, I actually like things like The Brainiac, Plan 9, Tokyo Zombie, Godzilla VS Megalon and Big Man Japan, so I can’t throw too many stones here when it comes to other people’s taste in films.
I guess I should have read the article more closely. I was under the impression that they asked for a refund after the movie was over, not after the first ten minutes. Now, I can understand it a bit better. Like Jerry said, there are people who just won’t watch a movie with subtitles. Heck, most of the people I know don’t like watching subtitled movies, let alone silent films, which, as you mentioned in another thread, require more work to watch than “talkies.” I’m actually surprised The Artist is getting the audience it’s been getting.
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And plus I just didn’t think it was a very good movie. It was basically just Singin’ in the Rain and A Star is Born mushed together, with music from Vertigo. I’m not getting the “masterpiece” label.
So first its “Wow, what oblivious idiots that they didn’t know it was a silent film”. And when it’s pointed out that a lot of folks see movies without knowing a lot of detailed info about them (not much past “This is good, go see it.”) it becomes “Wow, what illiterate idiots that they didn’t recognize this masterpiece for what it was.”
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Can’t we leave it at a simple amusing story that some folks didn’t realize it was a silent film and not resort to belittling them?
I wonder how many people will demand refunds for going to see “The Iron Lady” but were expecting to see the female version of a certain Marvel Studios property?
Jerry- Never apologize for TOKYO ZOMBIE or BIG MAN JAPAN, though after watching BMJ a few times, I still can’t make heads or tails of the ending. I’m just accepting it for its crazy absurd-ism.
I remember when Madonna and Bandera’s Evita was in the theater there was a big sign in the ticket booth of the local multiplex stating that the movie was a musical. I asked about it and the girl told me tha on the first day people had walk out and demanded refunds on account that the actors were “singing instead of talking”.
I wonder if people seeing Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie asked for a refund because they didn’t know it was a silent movie.
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I actually know someone who sort of had that experience (minus the refund bit) not long ago in their home. They saw it for the first time a few years ago on cable and had never heard of it before. They were aware of who Mel Brooks was, but they hadn’t really been a huge fan before recently. (Hey, the guy is 24.) He figured it was a comedy about a silent movie or the making of it.
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Fortunately, he likes foreign films and reading a film wasn’t that big of a deal to him. He loved it.
Of course, Silent Movie is actually not a silent movie.
Never mind, I was thinking of his short film “The Critic.”
Actually, technically, you’re right. It has music and sound effects (plus one spoken word of dialogue), which means it’s not really a silent movie. For that matter, neither is The Artist.
Absolutely true. There’s a superb musical score, sound effects in a few places. And other stuff I don’t want to go into in the interests of spoilers.
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Modern technicality. They could afford to send a small orchestra and a foley artist to every theater. While silent films were silent, most major theaters had someone who would play a piano or other instruments during the film to set the proper mood of the scenes. I’ve also read old revues that indicate that in some really good theaters, you also had a guy or two who did primitive foley effects during key scenes and/or for specific things (such as thunder) in the film.
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So even back in the day, silent films weren’t actually 100% silent for the viewer.
Yeah, but a silent film, by definition, is one without a synchronized soundtrack, which The Artist has. Regardless of whatever music they played in the theaters in the old days, the films themselves had no recorded sound, which is what made them “silent films.” I know, it’s splitting hairs.
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If you’re looking at it or discussing it with the eye of a film historian, then, no, you’re not splitting hairs by any means. In my case, I was discussing it in the general sense of just a movie goer. In that sense, I’m not sure that a lot of people think about a silent film being 100% silent. Even back in the day when films with sound came along, the common term among the non-industry folks seems to have been “the talkies.”
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Even on some of my old time radio cassettes and CDs, the stars of the programs where they played essentially a version of themselves refer to the movies with sound as “talking pictures.”
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It was probably an amazing thing to people when they went into a theater showing a film with a full soundtrack for the first time and, yes, anyone discussing it in the strictest sense film history would make the distinction. I’m not though. Most likely, if you asked the general population right now to describe a silent film, they’ll describe them based on what they’ve seen of them and all that they’ve seen of them are (for most people) modern fakes. They’ve seen scenes in films and TV shows where people are watching a silent film and music is playing and they’ve seen things like Silent Movie where the film has a soundtrack and takes advantage of that fact. Or they’ve seen silent films from back in the day that have been altered to add music to them for later packaging and presentation.
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In the truest sense of the definition, The Artist is not a silent film. However, again, the studios aren’t going to shell out the cash to send a foley artist and a small orchestra to every showing of the film, but the “proper way” to show such a film still included music and possibly foley effects. As such, they cheated and made a “silent” movie using modern cheats to replace the back-in-the-day way of doing the music and foley work.
The original Daily Telegraph story indicated that there were only a “small number” of refunds given out. I’m curious as to how many this is, and whether it would really be representative of the demographic that goes to see such films. Either way, I guess we Americans can take some consolation that we’re not the only culturally illiterate people when it comes to film.
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I pity those people who demanded refunds. They’ll never experience the laughter of seeing Charlie Chaplin and the other diners struggle to eat soup in the beginning of The Immigrant. Or the poignancy of the heartbroken actress first meeting John in The Kid, not realizing that he’s the son she gave up five years earlier when he was an infant. Or the joy of seeing Charlie encounter the formerly blind woman recently granted vision at the end of City Lights.
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And if anyone here has never seen a Chaplin film, I challenge you to watch The Kid at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdOmrcM8jJM&feature=watch-now-button&wide=1, and then say that it didn’t evoke any emotional responses in you.
Hear! Hear!
“The Kid” and “City Lights” are my favorite Chaplin films. Just saw “The Kid” again on 35mm a few months ago (“forcing” teenage daughter to join me and she loved it, too).
I kind of hate The Kid, actually. The only response it evoked in me was nausea over how sappy it was. Most of Chaplin’s movies are like that for me (especially Limelight), which is why I prefer Keaton and Lloyd.
Lloyd’s good too, from what I remember. I saw The Kid Brother in History of Film class when I was in art school, though I remember almost no specifics about it, aside from the ending. I do remember that I enjoyed it.
I hadn’t heard of The Artist until I saw the earlier thread on the site here. Later that night, I saw a commercial for the movie. Based on that commercials alone, I would not have known that it was a silent movie. It was flashing a scene from the movie every couple of seconds, and nothing in the commercial indicated that it was a silent movie. The tail end of the commercial, there was a dog that barked. If I went to see the movie based on that commercial alone, knowing nothing else about the movie, I might be, at the very least, disappointed that it was a silent movie.
Hey, there’s been any number of times I’ve gone to movies where it turned out not to be remotely what I thought it was. Sometimes I was pleasantly surprised. Other times, less so.
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But “The Artist” is just so astounding a film that I have trouble wrapping myself around the notion that anyone could be put off by the lack of spoken dialogue.
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The shear genius of Uggie is worth the price of admission. OSCAR FOR UGGIE!
No doubt these are dumb questions but ..
First are there silent plays on broadway?
and does anybody own or watch a black and white telivision?
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I no longer have a b&w TV, but I had one until about 1992. Never had a real issue about it. And I still watch b&w television now by the simple fact that I enjoy some old TV shows and still watch them.
I had a black & white TV until the ’90s, too.
I’m not aware of any silent plays, but there are silent acts in theatres sometimes, such as mimes and such.
I once attended a midnight showing of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW where an older couple got up and left about 20 minutes into it, obviously as annoyed with the audience antics as they were with the actual film.
That always, always reminds me of the scene in Fame where thecomplaienrs are not-so-politely reminded that the antics ARE the show.
As for my fellow countrymen – The Artist has been all over the enws recently, especially as it heads up the BAFTA nomination list in terms of nominations. It has been heavily advertised on the news programmes, chat shows and arts reviews. Leading is the fatc that it is a blackand white, silent movie that is very, very likely to be only the second silent film to win Best Film at the Oscars.
On the other hand, most people in this country believe The Sun is a serious newspaper, and that the antics in the Celebrity Big Brother house are mor eimportant than the Euro crisis or the tragedy off the coast of Italy…
They probably didn’t know that it’s strongly advised that you watch THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW in your home at least once before going to a midnight showing.
I think this is might be a case where the story sensationalizes the facts.
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Despite the fact that the headline says “outrage” and the first paragraph says that the customers sat through it, they only offer one piece of evidence and it doesn’t support either of those things. It’s just a quote saying, “Odeon Liverpool One can confirm it has issued a small number of refunds to guests who were unaware that The Artist was a silent film.”
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That could easily be people who saw the film because they picked it when they got to the theater, came out after a few minutes, and then came out and politely informed the theater that it really wasn’t what they expected.
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I don’t see a problem with that. I’ve sometimes gone to see movies that I hadn’t seen any commercials for and knew nothing about. I saw a movie last month just because of I liked the actors in the poster. It can be a superior experience, since none of the twists have been given away, not even who the supporting actors are.
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So basically we’re just talking about people who didn’t want to see a silent movie. I can see agreeing with them, but I don’t think they deserve to be called clueless.
The part of this that most sparks my ire and outrage is that the theaters actually gave these morons their money back. As far as I’m concerned, it works like this: you pay your money to see a movie. Theater shows movie. There is no guarantee that you’ll like it. If they start giving refunds every time someone says “I didn’t like it” then pretty soon theaters won’t exist anymore and all movies will be direct to DVD. OK, maybe a gross exaggeration of how much that would dip into a given theater’s profits, but still, it sets a bad precedent. If someone can demand their money back and get it because they “didn’t know” it was a silent film, or a cartoon, or whatever sets them off, it opens the door towards people demanding refunds for all sorts of picayune reasons that are even worse than this one.
Keep in mind that this theater will only refund tickets within the first ten minutes of the movie. That’s completely reasonable. It’s no different than returning a pair of pants to a department store because they don’t fit properly. I’ve often walked out of a movie and asked for a refund, although granted it’s always because the picture or sound quality were impaired in some way. But you don’t really need a reason to change your mind about seeing a movie, so deciding to leave because you don’t want to see a silent movie or a cartoon is as good a reason as any.
Sometimes, the advertising people are as much to blame for that kind of things as the audience. Case in point: remember lobby cards? Well, those that accompanied the release of Young Frankenstein were in color (and Peter Boyle was a nice shade of green). So, one can imagine the surprise of those people who thought, on the basis of the pictures alone (and having seen clips on a black and white TV set) that they were going to see a technicolor movie and finding that the whole movie was in black and white, as a tribute to those Universal monster movies. Other movies can blur the distinction. The movie “Les Cracks”, with Bourvil, starts just like a silent movie of the type made in the era the movie is set (late 19th century). “Le Gendarme de Saint Tropez” starts in Black and white (which prompted my mother to ask what was wrong with the TV set once). And the spectator coming in late in What a Way to Go might have thought that he was watching either a silent comedy, a black and white sexy french movie, a 1950s big budget extravaganza, or a musical.
For me, I think the most departures I ever saw from a movie audience (not at once, but a pretty persistent trickle) was during the movie “Boogie Nights.” I think people hear Burt Reynolds was in it, and went to see it thinking it would have a lot of good-ol-boy car chases, crashes, and fights, and instead discovered it was about the heyday of the pornographic film industry. In fact, as I understand it, it caused Reynolds to fire his agent. Later, then, Reynolds got his only Oscar nomination.
I also saw people leaving “Notes on a Scandal” who didn’t know it was about an affair between a school teacher and one of her students.
That reminds me of when some friends and I went and saw Cronenberg’s CRASH. Not many people in the audience and most of them were older. They sat through all of the weird and kinky but heterosexual stuff with no problem, but the second that Spader and another male actor kissed, about eight people got up and bee-lined for the exit.
I can see where folks might be surprised if they didn’t read any detail.
I have a friend who won’t watch any black & White movies.
says won’t bother.
Personally, I have seen more color movies that are unwatchable then B& W ones, but then I also find Silent films interesting, but I don’t find very many I like.
I do want to see “the Artist” though, because I think it may be the gold standard of this type of film, however, I will most likely wait for DVD, since I’m also probably the only one in my household/group who will watch it and will need then to watch it in chunks when I’m home for lunch with just my dog, who will watch anything as long as he is being petted 🙂
Hadn’t heard much at all about this flick. Haven’t been keeping up much with films.
But, your effusive comments decided me to take a look.
Thank you.
Was delightful.
Although I can’t help feel Dujardin should have heeded the words oft attributed to W. C. Fileds about never working with dogs (and little kids). The pooch pretty much steals every scene he’s in. I believe there’s an Oscar equivalent for animal performers. Uggie deserves it, paws down.
And, for what it’s worth, no one walked out asking for a refund.
I wonder if they’d get a refund for walking out of 2001 A Space Odyssey, since the first 10 minutes of that doesn’t feature any dialog or spaceships?
In the ’80s, I was acquainted with a film critic in the Tampa area. He knew it was time to *leave* Tampa when the teenage girls he shushed during a screening of “Amadeus” retorted (and I paraphrase from memory): “What’re you getting so upset about? It’s only the music parts!”!!