Unlike other artforms, which can be argued as being made/performed for the artist’s or creator’s sake, a movie has a very specific purpose. Especially if it is commercially released for public viewing. Which is to engage the audience who pays for it to come and watch it.
So in order to engage the audience, it has to entertain. Or enlighten. Or at the very least should be evocative in terms of some emotive response. One cannot simply be in a movie hall and feel completely blank about what is happening on the screen and feel a total disconnect with it. If it is any other form of art, like say a book, or painting or any such, one can simply walk away, but one does not want to from a movie hall – a) due to the expectation that there could be a last minute twist that is going to make it interesting (what is generally referred to as a climax) b) due to the fact that one has to pay upfront to go and watch the movie and not at the end, only if you stayed until the end! And c) there is an inertia and it is quite embarrassing to walk out in the middle of it – not just the hassle of getting up and walking out, but even to face the folks back home to whom you had proudly declared you were going to watch a movie, and who might ask you “what happened!”
Yet braving all that, I had to walk out of a movie in the middle of it, despite my hating it. I mean hating the act of walking out. That too a legend’s movie, which I was wanting to see!
Now don’t ask me which movie it is. You can make your own guesses :)
(Image courtesy : Daily Flux)
