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A movie about the deaf, but not for the deaf
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21893 Reads
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 Several years ago, a friend told me about Evelyn Glennie, a percussionist from the United Kingdom who is deaf. A documentary film about her, called Touch the Sound, opened last night, September 9th, at the Nuart in Los Angeles. I was looking forward to seeing this film about this woman who is an inspirational role model for the deaf.
Since I am deaf myself and require subtitles in order to watch films, we contacted the Nuart to make sure that the film was subtitled; I couldn't find anything on either the theater’s website or the distributor's website that indicated the film was subtitled. Much to our dismay, we were shocked to learn that the film - a movie about a deaf person - would not be subtitled ...
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I sent an email to the distributor asking them why the film was not subtitled. Their reply was:
"Thanks so much for your interest. I'm sorry, but it will not. We made the decision not to subtitle the prints for two reasons: the visual aspect of the film is as important as the aural, and the director felt (and we agreed) that the subtitles would be hurtful; and because much of the movie deals with sounds that subtitles cannot deal with. Since the film will be available in closed caption format when it is released on DVD, we settled for that as the way to go, though we know we are disappointing some people, such as yourself, for which we truly are sorry.
Thanks-
Ken <shadow@prexar.com>"
I’m quite shocked and offended by this response, but even more surprised that they did not consider rear-window captioning. Allow me to explain further below.
There are several companies that will add text to some (not all) current run films; one is Mopix, which provides rear-window captioning. The text is displayed from a LED screen in the back of the theater, under the cinema projector; the text is reversed, and the theater provides the hearing impaired viewer with a piece of clear plastic attached to a flexible stand that fits in the cup holder of the theater seat. The LED text is reflected off the clear plastic, which the viewer reads while watching the film simultaneously. This is generally preferred by most distributors, as it does not require the text to be installed on the print, and therefore leaves the print "undamaged."
Another company is InSight Cinema, which acquires reels of films in current releases, cuts subtitles on them with a laser, and then travels them around the country, showing them at certain locations for certain periods of time.
For the most part, the hearing impaired usually have to settle for waiting for a film to come out on DVD and then watch it at home with closed captions or subtitles. In this way, deaf people miss out on the cultural experience of going to the movies; the quintessential first date location, the popcorn with the butter that sticks to the roof of your mouth, SnoCaps, Jujubes, and surround sound. Surround sound? Well, yeah. Deaf people can feel vibrations. It's just not the same watching Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith at home on your television, when you can go to the theater and feel the spaceships roaring through outer space and Darth Vader screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Touch the Sound is a movie about a deaf person, but it is not a movie for deaf people. Even Ms. Glennie can't watch her own film and must wait for the DVD like the rest of us deafies. I wonder how she feels about this. This is outrageous; suppose Steven Spielberg only showed Schindler's List on Saturdays so that Jews couldn't go to the theater to see it? Or Michael Mann only screened Ali in white-only theatres? Why didn’t the filmmakers recognize that many hearing-impaired people would want to see this film? As my friend Meredith pointed out, “I have here DVD’s of Amadeus, Immortal Beloved, and Impromptu: three films about musical geniuses, all three with subtitles in at least two languages. Not closed captioning -- subtitles. Huh. Who’d have thought deaf people might be interested in movies about musicians?”
Indeed.
Kathryn Hill shoots and blogs as Kosmonaut.
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| Posted by: Kosmonaut on Saturday, September 10, 2005 - 02:26 PM
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