We watched the entirety of the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday evening. This post will be mostly about that. The title of this post translates as ‘The Importance of the Audience.’ and that’s kind of how I feel about the opening ceremony. So there, you’ve had the gist of the post now, just in case you haven’t sufficient time to read on.
Our viewing
of the opening ceremony was by no means an edge-of-the-seat affair. There were
a few beers and some rice and noodles and other takeaway things. There was a
good Friday night vibe in the Armstrong living room and the opening ceremony
did nothing to dilute that. It provided a spectacle, a show, an event. There were
some memorable things and some less memorable things. I think it will succeed
better in memory than it did in real time. I could be wrong. I am wrong more
than 50% of the time, according to my scientific calculations. So be sure to
take that into account.
The horse.
I think the
horse will live in my own memory in the same way that the rising chimney stacks
of the 2012 opening ceremony does. It was a wonderful iconic image, replete
with both social and cinema history. I can never bet on what will stick in my rather
fluid mind, but I think that horse might. Of course, it outlasted its optimum time
in the ceremony by a long, long way, as so many of the items did, but it was
still quite something to behold.
What else
will remain with me?
Rafa Nadal’s
smile as he accepted the torch from Zidane. I think I’ll remember that. And Celine.
I’ll remember her too, I reckon. She was amazing and she is also the key to why
I think the opening ceremony, though ambitious, did not quite succeed. Celine
is the key and that’s why I’m going to come back to her in a moment. Celine and
the audience too.
Let’s cut
to it. I think the lack of the presence of a coherent audience is one of the
key reasons why the opening ceremony left some people a bit cold. Of course,
the weather did not do what it ideally should have done, and that was a shame. Although
perhaps I’m just being ‘contrary’ when I say that the rain may have added
something valuable and unpredictable to the pot. The pianist on the bridge was
somehow more present and more ‘there’ for being absolutely drenched, the lid of
his instrument bubbling with huge residual droplets. The rain was a problem but
not as big a problem as the audience. Or lack thereof.
For therein
lay the rub. The lack of a visible audience.
For much of
the three-and-a-half hour run time, there was no sense of a live audience partaking
in what was unfolding. Of course, they were there but they were remote, perching
on the distant banks of the river. The absence of a visible audience made the
whole thing feel like a television programme rather than a live televised
event. Perhaps that’s a subtle difference but I think it’s a valid one.
Let me try
to explain what I mean. Lots of television these days likes to create an
impression that it’s ‘real life’ and that its events have unfolded in the same
way as we are watching it. This stuff is often branded as ‘Reality Television.’
It’s real, except it’s very much not. Take ‘The Traitors’ for instance. It sets
itself up as a bunch of people having breakfast and going on an adventure and
then voting each other out while, in real reality, the participants are all running
around filming inserts to be used at various times in the show. They recline in
beds they never sleep in; they traverse corridors and climb stairs for no other
purpose than to create an illusion of reality. And, critically, there is no
audience to all this "léger de main" because there couldn’t
be. It is mostly an illusion, a made-for-TV drama. Strictly does similar things.
Guest singers appear, huge dance numbers slot in, both often recorded many
months before.
The absence
of a tangible audience in the Paris opening ceremony heightened the effect that
this, too, was just some kind of a televisual drama, rather than a true live
event. Even though, slightly perversely, it was a true live event.
The audience
often serves a key role as our witness to an event. The audience can reflect
our remote emotions right there in the room and we can tell that there is no major
trickery going on because they are right there, checking everything closely on
our behalf.
In Paris on
Friday evening, there was trickery galore and without any visible audience to
represent me. I felt quite detached from it all. It was a TV show rather than a
live TV event. The journey of the flame to the cauldron, for instance, was
disjointed and unconvincing. It was as if one of the most revered ceremonies of
the Olympics was subverted for mere spectacle and effect. The masked runner was
obviously a long series of masked runners, tricked out to look like one person.
Did these ‘trick people’ actually pass the ceremonial flame to each other or
was that also conveniently set aside? I didn’t see it happen and the audience
didn’t see it for me, because neither of us were there.
Of course
there is always trickery. I know that. I’m not that much of a fool. The Queen
didn’t really skydive into the London Stadium in 2012. There are always tricks.
But what I am saying is that, on at least some primitive level, the presence of
an audience seems to make some level of gentle duplicity acceptable. Like with
Strictly or the Sky-Diving Queen. On Friday, the absence of that same audience
made certain moments seem somehow sneakier and more underhand.
That’s a
negative example of the importance of an audience. Let me give you a more positive
one in conclusion. Back we come to Celine Dion. She was utterly fabulous, and
this opinion is coming from someone who wouldn’t really have given two hoots
about her in previous years. So why did I care now? Two reasons. Firstly, I
knew something of her backstory. I knew a little of what she has suffered in
recent years, and I knew a little of what it had taken to get her to this magical
place, to sing her amazing song. And secondly, there was an audience to witness
her live performance on my behalf and to react as I might have reacted had I actually
been there. Compare this to the performance of Axelle Saint-Cirel from the top
of the Grand Palais. Her rendition of La Marseillaise was right up there, and arguably even beyond, Celine’s
wondrous turn. It was amazing. But she was all alone on that deserted roof,
just her and the millions of us sitting here at home. As a result, it wasn’t
the same.
As the
final host of Olympic flame carriers made their way through the quiet city, it
was almost as if everyone had given up and gone home to bed. Then, more than
ever, we needed the crowd to be excited on our behalf.
This is
just a point of view. I’m not even sure if I believe it myself. Like I said, I’m
wrong far more than 50% of the time. The Paris opening ceremony was great, but
it foundered a bit in the rain and in the extraordinary overrunning of many of its
key sections. These things played a part in the difficulties it had.
I just
think that the audience, by not being more of a part of it, was a part of that too.
1 comment:
You know I didn’t even know the Olympics had started. Seriously. I read Google News every morning but nothing jumped out at me. Or maybe I think I’ve read it because I usually read it because I can’t actually remember the last news story I read. It might’ve been Biden stepping down. How long ago was that? We never watch TV or radio news and I haven’t bought a newspaper in, Christ!, forty years, not even the local rag. This is not new. I’ve never been someone who needs to know what’s going on.
I also can’t remember the last time I watched any of the Olympics. Decades probably. Just not a big sports fan and too much else demanding my attention. Watched it as a kid but what else was there to watch? Liked the gymnastics and athletics but didn’t sit on the edge of my seat cheering on Team UK or whatever we called them back in the day. Same goes for football and rugby and I just never got cricket. My dad (who grew up in England) watched with my sister (who didn’t) but I could never get into it or see the point. At least with baseball there’s a bit of excitement.
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