I've had to endure intermittent artillery fire from seemingly bottomless popcorn buckets. Photograph: Andy Hall
What is it about watching a movie in an auditorium full of strangers that transforms us into socially inept freaks? Poor ergonomic seat design? The nauseating smell of melted butter on popcorn? Or perhaps it's simply the fact that under cover of darkness we can drop the pretence of manners and unleash our inner cinetard.
For some years I've kept a mental log of the most egregious transgressions committed by my fellow patrons, and it never ceases to amaze me how ugly things can get once we've pushed through the swing doors. Irritants such as whispering, loud clicking, or fierce and prolonged rustling of sweet wrappers are merely the tip of the iceberg: to go to the movies these days is to surrender to a tourettic tumult that robs the experience of much of its pleasure.
You wouldn't call Susanne Bier's English-language debut Things We Lost in the Fire a jovial work. Yet there was something about Benicio del Toro's performance as a drug addict in torment that really tickled the bloke at my local multiplex in Santa Monica the other week. A splinter of on-screen lightheartedness triggered an inappropriately extensive series of barks of mirth that suggested Basil Brush on E. The ushers weren't around, so it was left to a few audience members to dampen the man's enthusiasm.
Watching Joe Wright's stirring adaptation of Atonement the other night, I was yanked from Cecilia and Robbie's vortex of furtive glances by the peripheral sight of the elderly bloke next to me leaning forward into a plastic bag. After about 20 minutes a worryingly tart whiff had congealed into the mild stench of vomit. I like an immersive experience when I go to the movies, but it has to be on my own terms. What really left its mark on me, though - apart from flecks of chunder on my shoe - was my neighbour's complete lack of contrition when challenged on the matter.
What can I say? American audiences like to share. And they talk to the screen. In between mouthfuls of defrosted whatever from the vast troughs of food on their laps, they cajole reluctant heroes into action, berate the villains and offer their own blunt ripostes to on-screen banter.
We Brits are hardly beyond reproach, though. I administered my first across-the-aisle hush during a screening of Heat at the Odeon Leicester Square in 1996. The recipient was a woman who was chewing gum so loudly it's a wonder Pacino didn't turn to camera and put his finger to his lips. I've been literally rattled by the antics of amorous couples sitting behind me, endured intermittent artillery fire from seemingly bottomless popcorn buckets, asked a young couple to remove their screeching toddler from a screening of Saw and nearly hit one vile spoilsport who stood up 20 minutes before the end of The Sixth Sense and shouted: "Bruce's dead!"
But enough of my rant. What is it about audience behaviour that rattles your cage?
