When I saw the headline "Moviegoers warned of Babel sickness," I laughed, not out of schadenfreude, but vindication. ‘Cause when I saw it in the theater last winter, it made me sick, too, and I mean losing-my-breakfast sick. Not just the scene where Rinko Kikuchi (pictured, left) goes to the disco with the synapse-frying strobes, but long stretches of the movie, with its wobbly camera work. So I was relieved to know I’m not the only viewer who got dizzy and queasy.
Curiously, I didn’t feel any such effects when I watched Babel in my living room. (The jittery camera work in Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives affected me the same way, churning my stomach in the theater but not at home.) So I open the floor to you, PopWatchers: can anyone explain why Babel (and Husbands) made me nauseated on the big screen but not on my TV? And which movies and TV shows have made you literally ill?
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Friday Night Lights (the movie) made me so ill that my friend said I had turned green. We were sitting pretty close to the screen, though. That’s why you get sick. The movie screen is bigger and it’s harder for your eyes to focus on one thing.
I don’t know if I just have a strong stomach, but I’ve never EVER gotten sick from watching a movie or TV show.
I haven’t seen Babel, but I’ve heard people complain about the camera work in Paul Greengrass’s movies (esp. “Bourne Supremacy” and “United 93). Personally, I think the camera work in those movies is brilliant. Then again, it’s never made me literally sick to my stomach, so I suppose that if it did affect me, I might find those movies unwatchable.
Guess I’m just lucky.
We went and saw “The Perfect Storm” on opening weekend and the only seats we could get was way in front. I got sick, especially watching the storm scenes with the boat rocking to and fro.
It’s happened to me. Blair Witch Project and I had to sit in the front row. I thought I was going to die. I was yellow when I walked out and had to lean on my friend. I think that when it is on the bigger movie theatre screen it does something to the eyes. I also think the camera wobble is that much more apparent in the movie theatre and our eyes try to follow it which makes it too hard to focus. I’m not a doctor but after the Blair Witch issue, it’s all I could come up with…
I was stuck in the first row for “The Blair Witch Project,” and I got sick and ran to the bathroom to throw up!
ha – jenn got to it before i did…
It’s a matter of the picture taking up more of your visual field. In your house your TV takes up a small portion of your visual field and is encased in a frame which does not move. In the theater it takes up most of your visual field. And the theater is darkened so there is no frame. Some people are also more prone to motion sickness and will suffer ill effects more readily. I also don’t like Paul Greengrass’ (and John Woo’s) tightly framed action sequences but they don’t make me ill just annoyed.
My friend mocked me because I spent most of Open Water with my head down, but I wasn’t scared. The waves combined with the handheld work made me seasick. For months after, the sight of moving water made me ill.
I can never sit too close to the screen. It turns my stomach, no matter how good or bad the film may be. Last time was ‘DaVinci Code’. A terrible movie, regardless but literally stomach turning due to how close I was sitting to the screen. I ran out to the lobby to get some carbonated water or something to settle my stomach and ‘burp’ through it, but the concession had closed! I splashed cold water on my face and sat outside and waited for my friends. I was miserable.
It’s the same principles of motion sickness. In the theater your brain thinks that you are moving because the screen is all you can see. That is why they have disclaimers in IMAX theaters. It happens to me all the time if I don’t sit far enough away from the screen, even for movies that don’t have shaky camerawork. Most notably I nearly threw up in a crowded screening of LOTR: Return of the King when forced to sit in the very front row.
I tend to get nauseous at the theater and at home while watching any movie with guerilla camera work, but I have to say The Bourne Supremacy was the absolute worst, especially during the car chases. The second worst would be The Blair Witch Project.
i gagged in the theater bathroom at The Cutting Edge- all the close-up twirling, i felt like i was on a carnival ride. I know it will be ok to watch on the small screen but even thinking of renting the dvd kind of makes me throw up a little to remember…
Babel made me sick too…but only because I hated the movie so much. The fact that it got a Best Pic nom damn near hospitalized me.
The movie “Dancer in the Dark” made my wife so nauseous we had to leave halfway through. The fact that the story, and the Bjork soundtrack, weren’t very good made it much easier to bail out…
Blair Witch Project! I had to step out of the theatre to recover.
Dancer in the Dark got me, too. The only time I’ve ever walked out of a movie. (I saw it on DVD later and realized I’d kind of done myself a favor, anyway.)
HOSTEL HOSTEL HOSTEL….gory does not equal scary
Blair Witch didn’t affect me, but the end of King Kong when he climbs the building and the camera starts spinning overhead while the planes are circling him made me a little dizzy.
I got the Babel sickness, but it was almost a fatal dose of boredom. The last hour was excruciating.
RE: gory does not equal scary
True that. If you go over the top with gore it usually ends in comedy, like Dead Alive or Hot Fuzz.
Dancer in the Dark messed me up for at least two days. I’m prone to motion sickness… but that’s the only (non-iMax) movie that’s done that to me. Blech…
For some reason, the first five minutes of “The Shining” (with that creepy music and those spirits wailing) are scarier than any gore-fest that any second rate filmmaker has released in the past twenty years.
Come to think of it, so are the last five minutes. Yikes.
I have the schadenfreude sickness because I am exhausted of explaining to others what is it means. Gary do you experience schadenfreude everytime you use it knowing that you confuse so many? Please let this word go the way of Def and someone will officially retire it. Besides that I always enjoy your writing, and I don’t mean to be snippy, I just don’t know when obscure German words became so trendy. Schadenfreude!! Zeitgeist!!
The Bourne Supremacy gave me a headache. I was really annoyed when reviewers praised the camerawork as making the movie more realistic or something. No thanks!
The Bourne movies made me sick, especially during the fight scenes. It’s a PG-13 movie, it felt like R because the handheld camera switched angles at an insane rate, just very shakey work. It made me feel naseous.
Any Given Sunday & Pearl Harbor in the theatres but not on television. Blair Witch Project: every time.
American Idol makes me queasy every week, does that count???
The Constant Gardener…I went with my brother and his wife and first I moved back five rows, then ten more…until I was at the back of the theatre. Eventually I left and sat outside until it was almost over, head spinning, stomach in a knot. Then, I snuck back in and pretended I’d been there the whole time.
Dogville made me stomach-sick. I don’t know what it was, but I have never had such a visceral, unpleasant experience… and I sat in the front row of a packed NY movie theater for The Matrix: Revolutions. Shudder.
The Bourne Supremacy’s hand-held camerawork gave me such a bad migraine I couldn’t move out of my seat for 20 minutes after the movie, when they’re cleaning up the popcorn. MI: 3 was the same way, only slightly better because that time I brought advil.
I want to shoot all directors who think handheld camera work is somehow “artistic!”