Movie Maven

You know what I have in my hand right now? Come on, guess. Come on! Give up?

It is totally a theater program with Tim Robbins' signature on it.

He wished me all the best. And he spelled my name right. I am in cinephile heaven.

Robbins (dressed intriguingly enough a little like his hippie character Ray from High Fidelity,) spoke at Northeastern yesterday on theater as civic dialogue. He said that theater is the only medium where civic issues can really be addressed and discussed. "You don't get it with television, you don't get it with movies, but you can still get it with theater."

You don't get it with the movies? I was a little miffed when he said that, until I realized he was right. A movie can have themes that cause controversy. There are subversive movies, movies that comment on our time, or our humanity, or our relationships with one another. But there's no discussion- no debate. Theater is an incredibly intimate medium that can't really be copied anywhere else- there's something about watching a person laugh, rage or weep in real life that no movie can touch. In a way that's where the discussion and dialogue lies- within the give and take of the cast and audience.

Robbins spoke as artistic director of The Actor's Gang, a theater troupe he helped found and has ran with since the 1980s. They began in New York City, he said, and their focus was not only to talk about issues and raise questions, but also to "shock" and make people distinctly uncomfortable. He talked of the "theatricality of discomfort," how emotional involvement can be brought from, say, having a cast member in the audience with a loud radio shout epithets at the cast and spectators. You become part of the show- it makes you sit up and pay attention. It's another aspect that theater has always had over the movies- it's inherent communal experience, the performance without safety nets like jump cuts, special effects, and content editing. It's actually the main reason I still shell out ten dollars to see a movie in the theater. Would V for Vendetta have been as good if I'd watched it at home instead of in a cavernous theater with punky teenaged boys right in front of me? Not as good as a live performance of the show (V for Vendetta- The Musical!) but somehow a bit closer to the action. It's just better movie-viewing when you're fighting for the cupholder with the stranger next to you. If the movie is an escapist diversion, then you escape together. If it's to raise hard questions, you raise them together. The critical entity of the actor is not there in the flesh, as in theater, but it still fosters a sense of community.

Robbins also talked politics, hitting all the liberal mainstays (War in Iraq, death penalty, etc., etc.) It seemed like the audience was fairly nudging him into it, hoping to arouse that classic liberal Hollywood fire. But Robbins' passion lies in art asking questions rather than railing against "the machine." There was fire- but it was more about giving life to complicated issues in art than the "Bush is a lying toad," genre.

There was one moment I still have fixed in my mind. Robbins was discussing The Guys, an Actor's Gang play being shown at Northeastern University April 1 (go get tickets if you're in town, by the way, it sounds fantastic.) The play revolves around the true story of a fire chief who lost eight men on September 11, and a Columbia professor who helped him write their eulogies. Robbins was remembering the first time he saw the play in a theater in Manhattan, about eight blocks from Ground Zero. He remembered watching a fireman in front of him, a "huge guy," who was shaking and crying during the play. Robbins described his movements, and then burst into shuddering, and hoarse weeping to show us what he meant.

He became that fireman right in front of me. It stopped me cold. Because that was what he meant by theatricality of discomfort. In three seconds, he had broken my heart, and drawn me into the grief most of us can only read about.