Sometimes, audience entertains

Bruce Lee doesn’t need subtitles. That fact was driven home to me late one night in Guatemala City several years ago when, during a showing of Lee’s kick flick “The Big Boss,” the audience of mostly young Spanish-speaking men yelled out every time the Hong Kong hero struck a fighting pose.

Lee would kick and they would cheer. Lee would punch and they would slap their chests and fall back into their seats. Lee would take a punch, spit a glob of blood and grin, and they would cry out as if the punch had landed squarely alongside their own heads.

I enjoyed the show, and not just the one on film. I’d seen “The Big Boss” several years before, at a drive-in where my friends and I ended up holding our own martial arts contest in my 1967 Volkswagen. But the audience that night in Guatemala City proved to be even more entertaining than the scratchy images dancing across the big screen. They paid about as much attention to the subtitles as they did to what American audiences would consider good movie-theater manners.

Truth is, seeing movies in other cultures is a good way to get a good view of what is appropriate, more or less, in America. My experience in Guatemala was no different than those I’ve had in Mexico. During a showing of “The Sound of Music” that I once saw in Guadalajara, kissing sounds interrupted every romantic scene.

I remember it sounding something like, “The Hills are (smoooooch!) alive, with the sound (smoooooch-smoooooch!) of music.”

In France, as you might expect, the viewers tend to be much more serious. And quiet. Especially quiet was the viewer who, two years ago during a screening of “Monster’s Ball” in Paris, managed to sneak 200 euros out of my wife’s purse. No dollars, no credit cards, just the euros. Not everyone, it seems, was stupified by Halle Berry’s nude scene.

I blame Billy Bob Thornton for that.

Even though it probably happens, I can’t imagine a cell phone going off in a French movie house. The croissants would likely fly if one did. Italian audiences, as a rule, have far less reverential attitudes toward filmgoing. During a screening of Adrian Lyne’s “Lolita” in 1997, one fashionably dressed, 20-something guy sitting next to my wife seemed to love the film so much that he ended up embarking on his own journey of personal self-satisfaction – if you catch my drift.

Yet as in France, I’ve never heard a cell phone go off in an Italian movie house. And remember: Italians are so obsessed with their mobile phones that it’s not uncommon to see people drive motor scooters while talking on them. I once saw a guy in Sorrento speed by with a phone in each hand.

The exception, in my experience, came last week in Florence during an evening English-language screening of “Troy” when a young American college student’s phone began to emit a particularly irritating Beethoven melody. Those of us sitting near her had to endure three full rounds of Music Appreciation 101 before she was able to find her phone and silence it.

That’s hardly the worst cell phone crime I’ve witnessed. Several years ago, my wife and I sat in a north Seattle movie theater and listened as a young woman not only answered her phone but went on to describe what she was doing, ending nearly every sentence as if she were asking a question. Like: “Hey, how are you? Me? I’m here at the movies? No, no problem. The film isn’t very good? You and Gary made the right decision? Yeah, but you know? The theater is full? Right. And anyway, Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t all that cute? Right? Me? What am I gonna do later? Well. … “

I might have grabbed the phone out of her hand and chucked it at the screen, but the sad fact is that we were watching the sappy Gwyneth Paltrow-Ben Affleck romance “Bounce.” So anyway? Her conversation? It was better than the movie? Ya know?

Cell phone etiquette has changed in the United States. For one thing, it’s fairly common to hear audiences self-police. At AMC’s “Lord of the Rings” back-to-back-to-back marathon in December, I thought the crowd was going to evoke the wrath of Sauron when a phone went off. For another, the theaters have once again begun doing what theaters did decades ago: present warnings. Both AMC and Regal have taken to showing pre-show announcements that remind patrons not only to turn off their phones but also to shut up once the film starts.

What they need to do in addition is post some other rules: Don’t put your feet on the seat in front of you (this isn’t your living room). If you’re going to a PG-13 or higher rated film, especially at night, don’t bring your children (and if you do bring them, don’t let them talk, whine, wiggle in their seats or, worst of all, run up and down the aisles). Chew your food quietly (especially popcorn). If you’re sick, stay home (during a screening of “Tupac Resurrected” in Seattle, we once watched a guy vomit, and then, believe it or not, continue to just sit there).

And please, if you have to talk, keep your voice down to a dull roar. My wife and a friend were at a preview showing of “Love Actually” one Saturday night in late October. The theater was crowded, and they arrived just as the house lights went down. Everything was fine at first. Then a nicely dressed, middle-aged man sitting nearby began giving a running commentary to his companion.

It wasn’t as if he was whispering either. Every word he said could be heard by those sitting around him. My wife, who wasn’t really enjoying the film anyway, waited until it was nearly halfway over before leaning over and asking the guy – politely – to keep quiet.

He immediately flared with anger, as if she’d questioned his patriotism. “This is America!” he snapped, apparently thinking that the First Amendment applies to movie theaters.

“Exactly,” replied my law-professor wife, “and in America we … don’t … talk … during … the … movies!”

Even Bruce Lee wouldn’t have bounced back from that constitutional head butt.