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So I was at the theatre to catch Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon for the second time (it really does live up to
all the hype) when the issue that has come up time and time
again since the release of this movie reared its ugly head.
"I heard a terrible rumor. Is this movie subtitled?"
Now it's no mystery to me that the average American movie-goer
has the brains and wit of a retarded labrador, but this seems
to needle that point home more than almost anything else (save
for the box-office record set by Big Daddy). Setting
aside the fact that most Occidentals fail to realize that
Crouching Tiger is, essentially, a fantasy movie (and
thus no real explanation is needed for the near-superhuman
feats of the movie's central characters), the average movie-goer
seems to have this problem with.. reading.
Granted, the central strength of film is its visual nature.
I recognize the fact that a movie is basically a story told
with pictures, peppered with expositional dialogue. Fine.
But if a person wants to appreciate cinema, and thus realizes
that many great films are not made in the continental U.S.,
they have two options.
One, learn every language on the globe, including the various
dialects for each.
Two, read subtitles.
The popular, cynical consensus is that reading skills are
rapidly dropping, people are less-educated than before, and
that in a few years we'll be lining up for our Mark of the
Beast tattoos at the local Wal-Mart. That's all fine and well,
except it's complete horseshit. You want to compare literacy
rates in the modern age to those of, say, the 12th century?
Be my guest.
So what is it, then? What about subtitles bothers people
so much? Are we really so cumbersome in our reading skills
that we can't be bothered to read a few lines of dialogue
between the heart-pumping action?
. . .
I don't really know. The collective IQ of the American movie-goer
isn't that great, sure, and for that reason I'm becoming the
kind of movie snob that seeks out odd showtimes so as to avoid
crowds. In the end, though, I'm not a true cynic. I can't
help but think that most folks just bitch for the sake of
bitching, but I have to wonder...
. . .
This is one of those frustrating essays. I thought I could
go somewhere with it, yet I'm brought back to square one.
Or maybe square zero. For all my worry and aggravation, I
know most of the fully-packed theatre absolutely loved the
movie, as it came to grow on them slowly until they were completely
drawn in. No, my Western friends, foreign film will not conform
to our needs simply to satisfy us, and it shouldn't. Hopefully,
with breakthrough movies like this and other success stories
(Life is Beautiful and Il Postino come to mind),
the stubborn American mind can be forced out of oceanic isolation
and be made global. Maybe we'll do the adapting, for once.
Except for the metric system. Fuck the metric system.
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