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Alone in the dark
As far back as I can remember, I've always stayed until the end of the credits. A friend of mine condemned this as affectation, as if I had no deeper motivation than burnishing my cinephile credentials. It's long since become habit, but I can think of several reasons that keep me from abandoning it:
Any really worthwhile performance creates its own world. For the duration of time that the lights are off, you're transported to a different realm where you belief is suspended and some percentage of the rules of existence you've come to accept do not apply. This, in my mind, is the major reason for seeing an ordinary film in a theatre instead of on the small screen. (All films lose something in the transition to a t.v. set, but only some lose so much that they are hardly worth viewing on one.) A truly superior production could draw you in and hold you there even on a fuzzy screen in the back of a noisy bus, but most performances could use the assistance.
Once I've been transported in this fashion, I'd rather ease back to everyday existence rather than be rashly immersed in it. At live performances, such as the opera or the theatre, the curtain calls can function as this buffer. The cast lines up and faces you, breaking down the fourth wall, and then clearly departs, bringing home to you that there is no more to come. Some people are already talking to their friends and packing up their belonging while this happens, but if the production had been good, I'm still too caught up in it to want to let go of it so hastily. Besides, the applause is my one opportunity to respond openly to the performances that I've been mutely enjoying all evening.
Unless it's a special screening and the director is taking questions afterwards, there's nothing analogous for films. The end credits are an adequate substitute. I have a chance to examine my reactions and begin filing them away before I suddenly have to decide where to eat dinner or which direction I need to go in order to catch the bus home.
- Curiosity There's hardly a film, no matter how crappy, that doesn't leave me with at least one question that can be easily answered by the credits. It could be the identity of an actor, the title of a song, the location of a mountain, the number of female stunt doubles--there's always something. The IMDB is excellent for such things as cast questions, but there are always things it can't answer. It might tell me that a movie was filmed in Russia, but it won't thank the workers of the Staritsa Concrete Combine for generously allowing filming in their gasworks.
- Names I love names. Everything about them--their look, their sound, their history, their significance. I've been known to read the obituaries just to savour them. Movie credits list lots of names--and the speed by quickly enough that you don't get bored looking at them, yet slowly enough that you can spot the interesting ones. And call attention to them, if your companion(s) appreciate that. "Look--Ebenezer Cheung! Hermenegildo Van Straten!"
- Impatience I absolutely hate filing out of a venue in slow-moving herd behind people who are lethargic, inconsiderate, or just plain dumb. By the end of the credits, though, even the stragglers have managed to drag their sorry asses out the door and way is clear.
- Surprises You never know when there'll be an easter egg.
- Music Sometimes the closing song is just really fabulous and I want to hear it all. Particularly if it's an obscure feature whose soundtrack will not be available in 100,000 record stores the next day, this may be my only chance to listen to it in full.
Any really worthwhile performance creates its own world. For the duration of time that the lights are off, you're transported to a different realm where you belief is suspended and some percentage of the rules of existence you've come to accept do not apply. This, in my mind, is the major reason for seeing an ordinary film in a theatre instead of on the small screen. (All films lose something in the transition to a t.v. set, but only some lose so much that they are hardly worth viewing on one.) A truly superior production could draw you in and hold you there even on a fuzzy screen in the back of a noisy bus, but most performances could use the assistance.
Once I've been transported in this fashion, I'd rather ease back to everyday existence rather than be rashly immersed in it. At live performances, such as the opera or the theatre, the curtain calls can function as this buffer. The cast lines up and faces you, breaking down the fourth wall, and then clearly departs, bringing home to you that there is no more to come. Some people are already talking to their friends and packing up their belonging while this happens, but if the production had been good, I'm still too caught up in it to want to let go of it so hastily. Besides, the applause is my one opportunity to respond openly to the performances that I've been mutely enjoying all evening.
Unless it's a special screening and the director is taking questions afterwards, there's nothing analogous for films. The end credits are an adequate substitute. I have a chance to examine my reactions and begin filing them away before I suddenly have to decide where to eat dinner or which direction I need to go in order to catch the bus home.
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