Had an interesting experience last evening: A screening at the Writers Guild of the hit film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It was followed by an interview with two of the movie's writers — Peter Baynham and Anthony Hines — and its star, Sacha Baron Cohen.
First thing that must be said: The audience loved it. People around me, including several good friends, were laughing themselves sick…and I must say that I admired the skill and the cleverness and the overall guts it took to make the movie. Cohen is a brilliant and courageous performer, no doubt about it…
…but I don't think I laughed once.
Well, maybe I'm overstating the case. I laughed a few times…but only a few and not with much vigor. Why? Hard to say. It wasn't because of the frequent lapses into low comedy. I usually love low comedy. What I don't usually love is the kind of Candid Camera humor where we're expected to laugh at the humiliation of people who are being ambushed and filmed for our alleged amusement. It always feels like a rigged game to me…like the situations that are arranged make it impossible for the victims not to look at least a little foolish. And if by some miracle they don't, that footage gets tossed. That alone, however, doesn't explain my general indifference to the movie. Matter of fact, I felt that parts of the movie weren't as spontaneous as the p.r. would have us believe, and that some of the people caught on camera had to have been playing more clueless than they appeared.
I guess I didn't like Borat the Character much. Many of those he encountered on his shlep across America were jerks but he was usually a bigger jerk. Matter of fact, the jerks he encountered were often only jerks because his jerkiness was provoking them into it. So I guess I thought something like, "This is supposed to be the Comedy of Reality, but the reality is phony because his actions are creating it." Or something like that. I really can't explain my reactions very well. If I come up with a better understanding of them, I'll post it here.
For now, I'll just say that I appreciated the skill of Cohen and the filmmakers, and I enjoyed (and laughed at) the panel discussion which followed, which may or may not turn up on a forthcoming DVD release. Still, I was an oasis of non-laughter in a theater of people who were howling, sometimes in spite of themselves…and I can't quite explain why. (For another report on the event, here's Marv Wolfman, who was sitting next to me, laughing and sometimes making that little sigh that suggests you're almost sorry you laughed at something you just laughed at.)
On the way in, audience members were subjected to metal detector searches. No one seemed concerned that we might have weapons. The fear was of cell phones with cameras or other recording devices. Seemed as if at least half of those trekking into the Writers Guild Theater had to step out of line, go back to their cars and leave their cell phones. I heard someone ask one of the guys wielding the wands why and he said the studio was worried about someone filming the movie and putting it on the Internet…which, of course, is not the reason. The movie's playing in hundreds of theaters across the country where you can go and not be searched on the way in. And though I don't venture near the wickeder parts of the World Wide Web, I'll bet that horse is long since outta the barn; that somewhere online, one can find plenty of copies of Borat that are better and clearer than what anyone could capture on a cell phone camera.
No, more likely, this is the legacy of the Michael Richards incident, or at least of the rise of YouTube. The studio wanted to control what would get out, not of the movie but of the live panel discussion after…and I almost don't blame them. Just need to make a note to self to start leaving the cell phone in my car when I go to anything that might get interesting. Or to act like Borat would have acted, had those men with the wands waved them across his privates.