Suspension of Disbelief

I saw a horror film at the cinema last weekend. These days, most of us have immediate access to films on our phones, but with the cinema it’s different.

When I go to the cinema, I’m cut off from the world. I love when we’re told to turn off our phones, see the lights dim, and be alone together. We share the experience of group isolation. The only thing we can focus on is the story. Soon we lose ourselves to fiction, and start existing beyond our own reality.

The term for this feeling is ‘suspension of disbelief.’ It’s the unwritten pact between audience and creator to pretend fiction is real. It’s part of what makes cinema so magical, and one of the reasons I still prefer it for stories I really care about. Suspension of disbelief is hard to achieve while sitting on the bus, or even home alone.

I think one reason for this is the peculiar group dynamic. On a bus, other people are disruptive. Not overtly; but simply by existing. People have places to be and things to do, and no time to tiptoe around while you watch a story being played out on your phone. Alone in our homes, we don’t have to be well-behaved. No one is going to call us crazy if we hum along to music or shout at the screen. But in the cinema, we are generally inclined to both behave ourselves, and not disrupt anyone else. This leaves us the opportunity to give the film our full attention (further aided by the all-encompassing screen, distraction-free room, sensory depriving surround sound, and the lack of light). We even have our own personal armchairs all pointing in the same direction, making it uncomfortable to turn and talk to anyone.

On Sunday, however, there were a few people who broke the social pact. A woman sitting next to me (who had politely asked me if this was the right cinema, and whom I had answered with equal politeness) waited until the film had started before going into her bag and making a noise that sounded like tin foil being scrunched into a ball. She then opened a bottle that hissed and spilt over her seat, before popping open some Pringles and munching on them vigorously with her open mouth. She waited to do all this until after the film had started, despite having sat next to me for twenty minutes in perfect silence. Why would she do this? Had I wronged her in some way? Had it all been part of some elaborate scheme to repay me for some evil I had bestowed upon her?

It would have been less noticeable in an action movie where the loud explosions and high octane soundtrack would have hidden her noisy munching. But in a horror film, with its tension building silences creating the anticipation for jump-scares, it completely ruined the atmosphere.

All the same, she continued to loudly munch away as the film went on. I considered asking her to be a little quieter, but I knew it wouldn’t help. Even if I did get my way, I’d spend the rest of the film feeling uncomfortable about it, wondering if maybe I’d overreacted. Then I’d completely lose track of what’s happening in the story, and my suspension of disbelief would evaporate.

The couple sitting behind me joined in the elaborate revenge scheme. One of them had lost track of the plot and asked the other if they knew what was going on. As it happened, the other person was extremely confident about everything that was going on. So much so, that they were able to recount almost the entire film thus far in great detail. They also had a number of theories on the significance of various characters, shots, and objects; including some predictions for how the story would end.

There may have been patrons who found this stream of consciousness impressive, but the loud pontificating made it impossible for any of us to hear the film and accurately compare against the predictions. Then again, the older gentlemen two rows ahead of me was snoring thunderously, and unlikely to have heard anything at all.

I don’t want to sound like an old codger who longs for the bygone days when folk behaved themselves, but it makes me sad. This small matter isn’t important in the larger scheme of things, but it really bothers me. It’s so easy to stay quiet, not to make a fuss, and to show other human beings the simplest of courtesies. I feel there is an unfortunate trend for us to not care about each other: Not holding the door; not letting someone into the lane; not saying thank you… There are so many of us completely wrapped up in ourselves. It’s the small courtesies that spread, and it’s the small courtesies that present themselves most often in our lives. If we took all those opportunities, then the total good will would surely weigh the same as any grand gesture.

I know it’s hard. There will be times when I think my problems are more important than yours, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sure I’ll be wrong, but I won’t think so at the time. We all know that the world can be a cruel place. We all know that we can be jerks to each other with little to no repercussions. And we all know that being noisy in a cinema probably won’t lead to anything bad happening to us, and we’ll most likely never see any of these strangers again. But that isn’t the reason we should be nice to each other: We need to do it because the world is cruel, and because we’re all a bunch of jerks.

We need to believe that we can be better. We need to stay positive and suspend our disbelief. And, perhaps then, a happy fiction can be our reality.