The only way (for the next 65 days) to see Spike Jonze’s “Her”
This afternoon I will be watching Spike Jonze latest film, “Her”. What’s the big deal about that, you might ask. What would prompt me to write an article about watching a movie? Well, something as simple as the fact that said movie, despite having been released in the United States on December 18, will not be shown in Spanish theaters until… February 21.
That’s right: sixty five days later. One, two, three, four, five… and on up to 65. Has anybody bothered to wonder what, in a completely connected world, 65 days means? Has anybody with an ounce of concern for the customer thought what those 65 days of waiting for a product that you are genuinely interested in paying to see, while in the meantime, you read dozens of reviews about the movie? Does anybody in their right mind really think that I am going to wait 65 days to see this film, when I can do so with a few mouse clicks?
So, yesterday, after a good friend told me that he had watched it at home and that the copy wasn’t a screener, I went to The Pirate Bay and downloaded a perfect duplicate of the original. I refuse to watch screeners on principle, and aside from hating the coughs and popcorn munching, along with the inevitable silhouette of a late arrival taking their seat, I also question the morality and decency of somebody who takes a camera into a movie house to make a copy of a film. There is also the likelihood that these kinds of copies are linked to organized crime or simply made by lowlifes who think they can make a quick buck on the back of somebody else’s hard work without paying them any kind of royalties.
In essence, my feeling is that the person responsible for all this is the oaf who decided to wait 65 days before bringing the product to my market, and who is leaving money on the table that others are going to pick up. That said, I refuse to help enrich those who do take the money, and whose dubious morals I do not share and with who I wish to have nothing to do with.
So, after finding a copy of the movie that is obviously sourced from the original with excellent sound and vision, I will sit down this afternoon to watch it. In all likelihood this means that I will not see the movie in a theater, which is what I would really like to have done. Yes, I like to watch movies in a theater. I like to isolate myself from the real world, and focus on the screen, with my phone turned off, in a completely dark room, with no other stimuli than the movie itself, thus allowing me to really get inside the story. Going to the movies is expensive, absurdly expensive, but despite my not being, by any stretch of the imagination, wealthy, the price of a ticket is not really a conditioning factor for me. I would have been not just delighted, but over the moon, to have watched this film in a cinema, even paying a fortune for my ticket and popcorn. But it wasn’t to be.
So, this afternoon I will see Her on a screen that, for your average living room, isn’t at all bad, but is obviously much smaller than I would like, and one that provides a less immersive experience than I would have liked, and all because some bright spark thought that it made sense to wait 65 days before allowing me to see it in my country.
Sure, I know that it takes time to dub a film. But couldn’t somebody have thought about this earlier, so as to launch the film on the same day, or at least the same week? I wouldn’t have gone to see the film in its dubbed version anyway: I’m not interested in some fake version where I can’t hear the actors’ own voices, with their peculiarities and inflexions… there may be some very good dubbing actors in Spain, but it seems sacrilegious to do that to a film. As for subtitles, I find them distracting, but am prepared to accept them if the market requires them. So why can’t production companies and distributors think about segmenting their audience, offering a simultaneous launch around the world using subtitled versions? No? Is that really such a crazy idea?
Maybe it is a crazy idea, so, in a short while, I’ll sit down to “Her”, and in so doing, deprive the director of the earnings he deserves, depriving movie theaters of income they too might have deserved, and raise a glass to the person who was kind enough to leak a version on to a P2P site. Does wanting to watch a movie either for professional reasons or before any desire to do so has been quashed by reading myriad reviews in the international press make me a criminal? Am I a delinquent? If so, report me. I may be a lawbreaker, but the person responsible for me having to obtain the movie in this way is an ignoramus, and who deserves this, and much more.
(En español, aquí)
