l'importance du Public

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:

Jim Murdoch said...

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.