"All digital sound" proclaims the ad for the cutting-edge multiplex Muvico, right under "all stadium seating" and "valet parking."
State-of-the-art sound has long been a selling-point for mall moviegoers who want to savor the subterranean bass in a hard-driving rock score or the cymbal-like crashes in a car chase.
But pristine audio is actually more important to art-film lovers, because the nuance of a sophisticated comedy or drama can occur in a tone or an inflection, a tense whisper or a mumbled wisecrack.
So, it's ultra-irritating when art houses fail to tweak their sound systems.
Art houses can get away with murder showing subtitled films, but when they show a British movie or an American independent, a muddy or erratic speaker set-up can damage the whole experience. The middle range of sound becomes an aural morass from which you're lucky to pluck an imprecation or a punch line.
Watching The History Boys at the Charles was particularly frustrating, with playwright Alan Bennett's fluent wit seeming to come into your ear through cheesecloth. (Happily, with The History Boys, you could check the published script to fill in the blanks.) Films are not just a visual art, they're an audiovisual art. And no one should be more sensitive to that than the owners and patrons of art houses.
michael.sragow@baltsun.com