. . . actors, producers, and others, after they have given the audience some personal insights into their brilliant films. This was again unfortunately the crashing downside of an otherwise marvelous experience at BAM’s recent 18th Rendezvous with French Cinema series. 

I make it a point to arrive approximately half an hour early for important films at BAM so I can get a seat in the middle of a row about seven rows back from the screen for optimal viewing. Unfortunately, this leaves no room for escape when the questioners begin spewing out whatever inane thoughts pop into their heads. At this point, I simply slump down in my seat and make an attempt to become invisible while waiting for the torture to end. One would assume if these questioners made it far enough to find their way into a theater to experience an excellent film, they might also have the intelligence to ask a question that could have been posed by a member of the species, homo sapien neanderthalensis. 

As you have no doubt grasped, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to deal with this question and answer embarrassment to the point that in a recent dream, I saw myself ensconced in the nether region of distorted viewing—the aisle seat! And in this dream, or rather nightmare, I was not only cringing for myself as audience members hurled absurd questions forward  toward these charming and creative French filmmakers,  but also for my beloved Brooklyn, for the entire City of New York, and for the total population of the United States of America. And not only for those of us still living but also for those filmgoers who have gone before us to that big cinema paradiso in the sky. 

There must be some way to stop this Q&A insanity! When did it begin? Why does it continue? Who thought that this was a good idea in the first place? How long will it take to see there are better ways of probing more deeply?Doesn’t the freedom of speech have to have some boundaries? I’ve got to think of a way to make this nightmare stop.   

Perhaps several phrenologists could be posted outside the entrance of any film that is going to perpetrate the Q&A format and quickly feel for cranial bumps that may tip them off to vacuous questioners who would then be gagged or sent back to their homes. Maybe sink holes under the seats that will quickly implode when an imbecilic question is asked.  How about a good caning in front of the entire audience à la “Tom Brown’s Schooldays?” but I’m the exhibitionist tendencies of these questioners will be fueled even more by this opportunity. And if we can’t for some legal reason find a way to silence this voluble group, I pray to all that’s holy that Dante will reincarnate to create one more ring of Hell where they will be confronted for eternity with their own dumb questions and be forced to answer them over and over ad infinitum. Harsh perhaps, but I can’t survive another sleepless night filled with nightmares brought on by these villainous perpetrators of noise fog. Please, I’m begging you, if anyone has suggestions please post them now! Pleeeeeeaaase!

Just to give you a hint of the torture I was exposed to during the French film festival I’ll give you a sample question hurled at the unsuspecting guest speakers after Claude Miller’s, Therese Desqueyroux, a film directed with complex and moving restraint. Miller’s widow (the director died in 2012), Annie Miller, who collaborated with him, had just finished speaking about the complexities of sexuality and jealousy in the film, and Audrey Tautou, the star of the film, had made it impeccably clear how this character needed to hold her emotions deeply within in order to make the part work on the most intense level. 

And then it began . . . Someone, don’t ask me who, because by this point eyes were as tightly sealed as a tomb, was called on for a question. Please, I thought to myself, please think for just a few more moments before saying anything. You’ve just seen a film of profound  emotional complexity. Please wait. But it was not to be. Out it came from the darkness. A gift from the expulsive anal stage of childhood development. “Ms. Tautou, why was your character smiling like that at the end of the movie when she hadn’t smiled throughout the entire movie before? I don’t get it. Why was that? Why was she smiling.” The questioner queried cluelessly.

And now, before sharing her answer, I’d better give you just a little background. The Tautou character is trapped in a claustrophobic world from which she sees no escape and tries some truly shocking methods to break out of her suffocating confinement, but at the end of the film she is in Paris and senses a real possibility of at last finding at least a breath of freedom. The reason she is smiling is so obvious, the question becomes absurd. 

One would expect Ms. Tautou  to break out in gales of  laughter, but with great charm she replied sweetly and intelligently, “Well . . . no matter what Therese will be faced with in the future, no matter what she is going to have to endure in her new life, it can’t possibly be as terrible as the horror of living in a straightjacket of conformity, living as a prisoner in her own home. Do you see that? She is finally breathing in the first bit of fresh air that she has desperately longed for, she is finally able to be herself at least to a degree. . . . Does that help at all?” I was immediately alarmed that she had left an opening for him to continue, but mercifully he didn’t. 

This type of question is of course of the old, “I want to say I talked with a star” variety, and I want that star to fabricate out of whole-cloth a continuation of the film as if telling me a personal bedtime story. And this whole Q&A mishigas is made even more pathetic because as I’m writing I realize that this was one of the more erudite questions I heard asked at the festival. Now, you’ll have to forgive me, but I really can’t go on with more of these questions, I’m beginning to feel a dark cloud of depression moving in. 

The truth is, I absolutely love hearing the filmmakers describe their creative process, the behind-the-scenes intrigues, the feelings of actors for directors and directors for actors, etc. All of this can give insights into a film that might otherwise be impossible to obtain. But aren’t these invaluable and well thought out insights enough? Isn’t it enough that these major internationally-known artists have come to share themselves with the BAM audience. And isn’t it time for the phrenologists to gather at the doors and save us from further abuse? 

I have to finish now and start making up some protest placards. Please join me on a date to be arranged.