The Sightless Movie Experiment: Risky Business, Part II

By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 7, 2011 5:40PM

Last week as part of our Sightless Movie Experiment, we "watched" Risky Business without the picture, only listening to the soundtrack. While we were holed up during the blizzard we re-watched the movie, this time the standard way with both picture and sound. There were some surprising differences between the movie we saw in our imagination the first time around and the one which unfolded in front of us the second time.

First off, the mysterious synth score finally made perfect sense once we saw the opening credit: "Music by Tangerine Dream." Of course! The dream sequence which kicks off the movie was pretty much how we had pictured it, and we were impressed by how director Paul Brickman visualized it. Generally speaking, when it comes to the visuals, the film delivers. We really liked the POV shots when Joel's parents are leaving for the airport, and there are some pretty good sight gags (our favorites: TV dinners, and the exercise video). Some nicely atmospheric shots of Chicago and the burbs are effective too, including Lake Michigan, the Bahá'í Temple, and especially Lake Shore Drive and the Drake Hotel. (Miles' crack about the $4 hot chocolate is definitely funnier when you know that he's sitting in the Drake's lobby.)

Overall we can conclude that we were able to follow the movie quite easily even without the picture to guide us. Seeing the picture helped to fill in some details, of course; but what we saw wasn't always better than our imagination. For example, Risky Business suffers from 1980's Teen Comedy Syndrome: the actors look far too old to be in high school! Tom Cruise is mostly passable as a senior. But his best friend Miles (played by Moonlighting's Curtis Armstrong), with his camouflage combat jacket, blue hospital scrubs, crazy hair, and substantial stubble on his chin, looks like he's stumbled in from some nearby quad. Bronson Pinchot looks positively post-collegiate. This uncredible casting was a major distraction for us. On the other hand, Richard Masur in the role of Bill Rutherford, the Princeton admissions counselor, was better than we'd pictured. His square blandness was perfect.

While raunchy teen comedies are a dime a dozen, ones that traffic in wholehearted sexual perversion are a bit rarer. Somehow when you're only listening to the movie, it feels cleaner. With visuals it's sleazier. Not just the parade of prostitutes with big hair and Dynasty-era dresses, or Lana's digs on Elm Street, or her (unfunny) pimp, Guido. The sex-on-the-L sequence, complete with leery, voyeuristic bum, is a bit hard to take; and the tacky, slo-mo ending made us squeamish.

So, was the experiment worth it? Absolutely. While this experiment only involved a single movie, we're convinced that watching a movie with your ears (so to speak) can be a pretty engaging experience. It's not so much different from This American Life, after all. Painting pictures with sound. Just the same, we'll stick to watching movies the good old fashioned way. Seeing is believing.