About 13 or 14 minutes into a Salle Bazin screening of Pedro Almodovar’s Bitter Christmas, or roughly around 6:30 pm, and ironically during a scene in a hospital emergency clinic, a 60ish, frizzy-haired journalist with a drab wardrobe…a guy sitting a row ahead, maybe eight or ten feet away…began to bellow with a hearty ”aaaggghhh!” The howl got louder and louder but he was kind of wheezing at the same time.
I thought for two or three seconds that an actor in Pedro’s make-believe hospital was performing some kind of seizure or what-have-you, but then I realized “holy shit, this is for real!”
Many in the rows in front of and behind the frizzy-haired guy reacted in this or that concerned way. Standing up and staring, shouting “stop the film…turn on the lights!” Nobody wanted to touch the poor guy, possibly out of fear of being sued, more likely due to an ick factor…they all just stared. I was thinking of that old Richard Pryor routine about people eyeballing a drunk guy who’d collapsed on a sidewalk with vomit on his chin and shirt collar and his pants halfway down. “Hey, buddy?” Pryor said to the guy. “I don’t think you’re gonna make it.”
The lights came up and Bitter Christmas ceased. Two ushers came over, leaned over and gently asked the guy if he’s okay. Mr. Frizzy was motionless, silent, nothing. His lips were making a half-drooling, half-gurgly sound. A possible heart attack?
The crowd was asked to leave and wait in the outer foyer. As I was shuffling out I snapped a photo of two ushers standing next to the seated Mr. Frizzy, and was immediately admonished by a couple of scolds. Two EMTs arrived and went into the theatre, but they were in there for a while without bringing the guy out. A female usher announced that the film would resume after Mr. Frizzy leaves the seating area. They finally wheeled him out in a wheelchair. He was conscious and seemed nowhere near death’s door. Tragedy avoided.
Deadline reported that “loud yelps were heard from an elderly moviegoer in the Bazin.” The guy didn’t yelp — he moaned and aaahhh’ed like he’d been struck with terrible chest pain, or like he’d been speared on the field during the Battle of Hastings or was taking a giant dump or coping with an attack of stomach gas. Hyenas yelp on the African savannah — this guy definitely didn’t sound like one.
The Salle Bazin ailing man (light brown frizzy hair) is slumped to the far right:
