Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] - 2023-11-11
Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. Here we go...
The doors to each individual theater in the cinema complex are solid, heavy, and, I think, airtight. I'm guessing that each can serve as a shelter in case of sirens. It beats making a full audience run somewhere else within a minute and a half.
Not that we'll have to worry about moving a full audience if more sirens sound this evening. As Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour starts, I'm one of six people in the theater.
I got the ticket less than a day before the screening. I hoped that I could get a good seat. (We select specific seats for movies here. I don't recall doing that in the States.)
The seat that I wanted was available. All the seats were available. No one else appeared to have gotten a ticket. There had been rumors that the movie was pulled due to politics (possibly related to Taylor's friendship with Palestinian activist and apparent starlet Gigi Hadid) and reports of tech issues with the ticketing, but this was a surprise.
I got my favorite seat right away. I spent the equivalent of US $16.50, cheaper than the $19.89 reportedly charged in the States. I felt like I was gambling. The ticketing system might have glitched and sold me a ticket for a theater that would turn out not to be open.
The theater is about a half-hour walk from my apartment. I enjoy the walk when it isn't either too hot or raining. I go along a main road, across a bridge that leads over a major highway, and past a fairly new train station. All the billboards and posters along the way have some reference to patriotism or to the war.
Corporations announce that together we will be victorious. Someone has tied photos of hostages to the bridge. Many have been caught in the breezes. They've gotten shabby where they're attached.
It took me years to notice the movie theaters in this strip mall. You can only see the logo from across the parking lot. There's no marquee. A nondescript entrance leads to stairs with a small sign and a downward arrow.
Frames for posters surround the foot of the stairs. Most are empty. One or two announce upcoming films. Pictures of the hostages are taped to several others.
I don't see a clear entrance to the theaters. A long food counter stretches out ahead of me. To the left, empty chairs sit at high tables. Models of old projectors are scattered around the space.
Twenty minutes before the start of the film, I expect the area to be crowded, probably with overexcited teenagers. It isn't. Three workers lean on the food counter and chat.
I look up at the scrolling snacks menu and try to figure it out. The counter below it has an empty popcorn machine, an espresso maker, a microwave, and a fridge. The worker behind the counter looks over at me. "Want anything?"
I say, "I don't know." My accent betrays me. He switches from Hebrew to English. "OK, whenever." I get a Coke Zero.
I walk over to the ticket-taker's stand and fiddle with my phone. "Trying to get at your ticket?" A worker has followed me there. He speaks English with an accent like mine. I'm not all that surprised. There's a big Anglo population here, one town north of me. I imagine that he's the son of immigrants from the States, though some young people have learned the American accent from songs and TV.
He reaches a hand out. "There's no cell service here. We're underground. Give me your phone. I'll set you up with Wi-Fi." He does it quickly. He probably does it a lot.
He hands the phone back to me. I bring up the ticket from my email. He scans it. "OK."
I look around. "Where, um, is the actual theater?"
He points. "Down those stairs. The doorway to the left, then the door to the left of that. Theater 2. But the movie doesn't start for eighteen minutes."
The main space, down the stairs, is larger and much nicer than I expected. There are six theaters, though it looks like only two are in use. Red couches line the walls outside the theaters and restrooms.
I go into Theater 2. It's empty. I find my seat easily: on the aisle, one row down from the door. I look at email while I wait.
Two more people come in. Their seats are in the same row, in the center. I stand up and let them past me.
A couple and another single person come in just as the lights go down. That's it for the audience.
Maybe everyone else who was eager to see the movie saw it last weekend, when it opened. Maybe people are skipping this 6 PM showing to have Shabbat dinner with their families. That's still a big tradition here, even among the non-religious. Maybe Taylor Swift is not as big here as elsewhere. (I did just read an article about people who camped out for months for her concert tonight in Buenos Aires.)
The movie is a lot of fun. It's pretty much what I expected, from having watched several complete bootlegs of various shows, including some of the performances used here, since the tour started. With all the precisely timed projections, effects, moving sets, costume changes, choreography, and stagecraft, there isn't much room for improvisation.
In other shows from the tour, I've seen some looser moments when things went wrong. There's a running gag among fans, echoed by Taylor herself, where they call this "The Errors Tour." I've seen segments where she's swallowed a bug while singing. She's gotten tripped up by dead microphones, trap doors that don't open, and wardrobe malfunctions. Tonight, in Buenos Aires, the first show after a two-month break, she messed up the solo piano part in one song, apologized, and started the verse again. And I've seen entire shows done in torrential downpours. (Were it not for bootlegs, all that would be gone now, like tunes in rain.)
They've cut a few numbers from the full three and a half hour show. Other than "Cardigan," I don't miss them. I think they've also edited down some of the transitions between sections. And one climactic event, the Big Dive, happens at a different point than I remember.
Movies here have to show subtitles, though not, apparently, for song lyrics. English text pops up onscreen when she talks to the audience. She does that a lot, pointing at people and appearing to make eye contact and react to them. Her secret power is mass intimacy. She makes each of the tens of thousands of people in a stadium feel like she is singing specifically to them.
Her voice has also gotten stronger over the years. She has developed a low growl, rather like Stevie Nicks, a powerful mid-range belting, and an ethereal head voice. She isn't one of the great singers of our day, but, as with her dancing, she knows what she can and can't do, and her team has developed the show around it.
I don't see any of the audience dancing, though three of the six people are behind me. The woman down the row from me sings along to some tunes near the end. She's pretty good.
Even with numbers cut, it still runs close to three hours. A bathroom break is inevitable. I dash out at the start of the acoustic segment, and get back before the first song is over. It's a catalog number, "Our Song," which I don't know and don't miss.
When the end credits start, the workers come in, ready to clean up the theater. All six of us stay through the full credits. There isn't much to clean up.
Today's links:
- Some of these articles may be in Hebrew. Google Translate tends to handle them pretty well.
- TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR | LEV
- Taylor Swift's 'Eras' Movie Still Playing in Israel Despite Speculation
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You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.
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L'hitraot.