Failure To Communicate: Midtown Theater Flouts Open Caption Law

MIDTOWN, NY — What we've got here is failure to communicate.

This immortal line from "Cool Hand Luke" is what hard-of-hearing film buffs would like to tell a new Midtown dine-in theater flouting city laws to screen some movies with captions.

"It's just hard to understand why they didn't bother to find out what the rules and regulations are for movie showings in New York City," Jerry Bergman said.

"I really don't understand why they haven't simply done what they need to do."

The theater in question is LOOK Dine-In Cinema's W57, which opened on May 4 on West 57th Street and 12th Avenue, about a year after the Open Captions Law went into effect.

The 2021 law requires about a quarter of screenings include captions on the big screen and comes with fines of up to $500 per violation. The reasoning behind the law is simple, according to Helen Rosenthal, a former City Council Member and author of the bill.

"Everyone should be able to enjoy a movie," Rosenthal said in May 2022, when the law took effect. "Open captions at movie theaters are a simple solution."

LOOK Cinema representative James Meredith acknowledged the midtown theater lacks mandated open-captioned screenings in a statement similar to what Bette Davis in "Now, Voyager" tells Paul Henried: "Don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."

"I'm going to focus on the positive," Meredith said. "We're following all the guidelines are already in talks with the city of New York."

Meredith noted he was in discussions with studios to get open caption screening up by the end of July.

The Consumer and Worker Protections department has yet to issue any violations for the law and spokesperson Michael Lanza declined to comment on any ongoing investigation into LOOK Cinemas.

Lanza said the department takes an "education-first approach" to "build a culture of compliance with the City's laws."

Hard To Hear — And To Understand

For Bergman, the hard-of hearing film fan and Upper West Sider who helped get the law passed in City Hall, it feels, frankly, like they don't give a damn.

The 77-year-old deaf/hard-of-hearing activist tried but failed to get in touch with LOOK when he saw the new theater was opening but not advertising open caption screenings.

"I really don't understand why they haven't simply done what they need to do," Bergman said.
Bergman also notes that since the digital revolution transformed cinema projection, basically every theater has the capacity to turn on Open captions by pushing a button.

"A given cinema would almost have to say to a distributor: 'do not send me the open caption tracks, or the closed caption tracks,'" he said. "Otherwise, they would normally be receiving them for almost all movies."

Another activist, who wished to remain anonymous, said nearly all city movie houses offer open captions, even smaller, independent theaters like the IFC Center and the Angelika Film Center.
And before the law was passed in late 2021, national chains, like AMC and Alamo Drafthouse, began offering Open Captions screenings.

Bergman hasn't seen any complaints from theater operators since the law took effect.
Midtown Council Member Erik Bottcher, who serves on the council's Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction offered his office's services to any business that needed help navigating the law, which he laid down in a comment.

"All cinemas in New York City must comply with our open captions law," Bottcher said.

"Any company not in compliance with these important regulations must take all necessary steps to ensure their business is accessible to all New Yorkers."

On The Fritz

As a movie buff, Bergman does not want to do to any movie theater out of business, he just wants to enjoy his favorite movie (which happens to be "Lawrence of Arabia") as much as any other patron.

The problem, he says, are alternative closed caption systems —which typically transmit captions to portable LCD screens or special glasses — can be frustrating, even when they work.

"Projectionists would forget to turn on the transmission of the captioning or the caption device wouldn't fit comfortably in the cupholder," he said.

"So people like me wind up having to hold it for two hours."

Meredith, in a way, agrees with Bergman's frustrations. He told Patch that it took time to set up LOOK Cinema's closed captioning transmitters, but that they are online.

But when Patch called Monday, the theater said closed-captioning devices are set up but on the fritz, and would hopefully be working again by the weekend.

Bergan mildly suggested LOOK Cinema wants an easier solution to their tech snafus they look at the "wonderful" copper wire hearing loop system used by the theater's former owners, Landmark Cinema.

"I suspect that LOOK does not even know that those hearing loops were in those auditoriums and might still be there and might still be functional," he said.

"I wonder if anyone bothered to look and try to turn them on."