Turner-ing in his Grave

(from The Hasings Independent) 

Turner Turning in his Grave at Open Captioning?

By Kent Barker

It seems that almost everyone in Hastings is involved in the arts. In our small crescent there’s a musician, at least two painters, a weaver, a photographer and a book designer  - and he has a fine art degree.  Hardly a week goers by without a private view or gallery opening. One evening we walked from an excellent new photographic exhibition to a cavernous gallery at the back of a pub, exhibiting half a dozen terrific local artists.

Which is why it was so surprising that the new film Mr Turner wasn’t showing anywhere in Hastings.  You’d have thought that they might have calculated a film about probably our greatest Victorian painter would have attracted a sizable local audience.  But no.  We had to traipse all the way to Eastbourne and do battle with the Labyrinthine roundabout system to see it.

To understand what I am about to tell, you have to realise the sheer sumptuousness of the cinematography.  Every scene was like a painting itself, beautifully composed with ravishing colours aping Turner’s own palate. One shot started close on a mountainside and pulled slowly down.  I was convinced it would reveal itself to be one of the artist’s works. But, no, it was a landscape the film was depicting, into which walked Timothy Spall as the grunting porcine painter.

In short it demanded to be watched as surely director Mike Lee intended, without distraction.  Yet, at our showing, almost every frame was overlaid with subtitles.  And not just dialogue, but everything on the soundtrack. Thus “Bells ring in the background. Indistinct conversation in Dutch” would pop up even if no one was actually speaking.

Now, I bow to no one in my respect for, and wish to assist, anyone with a disability.  Being deaf must be a dreadful burden.  And I can see why a cinema might want to hold showings with open captions.  But it did strike me that anyone at that main evening showing who was NOT deaf had the film all but ruined for them.  I wonder if the cinema had actually surveyed its audience to find out what the demand for this service was? And then asked whether a captioned showing at a different time of day or a hearing loop system would not serve equally well? I’ve written to ask the chain but, so far, without response. I shudder to think what Mr Turner would have thought.