At the recent release of the film Horizon: An American Saga, the audience at the Cannes film festival applauded for seven minutes.
There is long applause. And there is the standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
In the recent release of the film Horizon: An American Sagafor example, the festival audience applauded for seven minutes.
And it wasn’t the longest ovation in the festival’s history. This award goes to Pan’s labyrinthof 2006. The wave of applause lasted 22 minutes.
When I found out, I couldn’t resist and tried to repeat the scene. What would it be like to spend so much time clapping? I wasn’t even sure I could do it.
So this morning I asked my daughter to start the timer and started clapping.
“Why are we doing this, Dad?” he asked her as time passed. Not knowing how to respond, I could only mutter, “It’s for science.”
Sixty seconds passed and everything was fine. “That’s easy,” I thought. “I could do this forever!”
Soon I started asking myself questions – about my life choices, how I got here – but the main one was: After all, why do we clap?
Why did people start clapping to show their appreciation? Do other animals do the same? And why don’t we – and the Cannes audience – do something else, like honk, whistle or snap our fingers?
OR Homo sapiens It likely began clapping early in the species’ history, according to psychologist Alan Crawley in a 2023 research study on the topic.
Our primate ancestors didn’t have movies to watch on the big screen. But in the absence of spoken language, perhaps they realized they could use that sound to indicate the presence of predators, intimidate opponents, joke or draw attention to certain opportunities.
Nowadays, some primates have been observed clapping to attract the attention of their mates or to communicate over long distances. And wild gray seals do the same underwater, to demonstrate their strength and dominance to their partners.
Two minutes later…
…my clapping experiment got my dog’s attention. It was there that I realized that its members do not have enough drive to applaud.
If I spoke dog language, I could explain to him that I’m conducting an important study on human sociocultural norms, but I can’t, and he starts barking at me.
It’s unclear when people started clapping to show their recognition. Applause is mentioned several times in the Bible, as a manifestation of joy or adoration. And perhaps the ancient Egyptians also had the habit of clapping.
But the custom of having the crowd applaud speeches or theatrical performances also seems to have taken off in ancient Rome. There the theatrical performances included, at the end of the scenes, the word “plaudite”, from which the term “applause” derives.
Why do we clap and how did clapping become a sign of recognition?
For Roman leaders, applause was also an audible assessment of their popularity, similar to an approval poll or likes on social media.
Some of them even paid to make the applause even bigger. Nero allegedly paid 5,000 soldiers to applaud him at his public appearances.
Paid applause would return in the 16th century, when a French poet offered free tickets to the public in exchange for loud applause. And, over the next two centuries, paid cheerleaders would attend shows in France to lead the ovations.
Four minutes later…
…I’m still wondering what I do for a living. My hands hurt and I regret not taking off my wedding ring.
I remember how the actress Nicole Kidman was once ridiculed clap like a seal at the Oscars ceremony. She explained that it was to avoid banging the rings on her fingers. Good idea!
Applauding is easy. Observational studies indicate that infants acquire sufficient coordination to clap only towards the end of the first year of life. But children can clap easily.
This could explain the presence of applause in all cultures, especially in comparison to more difficult actions, such as snapping the fingers, which is the audience’s preferred method of reading poetry.
Applause also generates quite a loud noise, with little effort.
“Applause is, par excellence, the loudest non-vocal signal… and a simple, rapid and effective action,” comments Crawley. You can slam your hand against another part of your body, like your thighs, but the effort-to-noise ratio is lower.
Finally, clapping is perhaps more socially acceptable than yelling or honking. Opera performances can tolerate inelegant behavior, such as shouts of “bravo,” but applause brings flexibility by being light and polite, but also excited and time-consuming.
This motion also allows for variations such as the golf clap – the tapping of the fingers on the palm – which was created to demonstrate recognition more quietly, so as not to distract players.
Five minutes later…
…my mind wanders. Apparently, it was at this point that actor Adam Driver lit a cigarette during the long applause at Cannes in 2021.
I prefer not to do the same. After all, clapping and smoking at the same time is dangerous.
The researchers indicated that clapping can also demonstrate more than just recognition. In some cases, applause allows the audience to collectively underline certain passages during an event: “the national anthem is finished, let’s move on to sports”, for example.
Basically, clapping can strengthen social bonds.
During pandemic lockdowns, scheduled claps at certain times of day in the UK were initially intended to show recognition for healthcare workers. But the applause certainly also brought people together in a moment of forced separation, with an act of celebration, belonging and unity.
But in some cases, clapping is socially frowned upon. In the United Kingdom, for example, applause is given up in the House of Commons and the poor applaud between movements during a classical music concert.
Seven minutes later…
…my daughter got tired. “I’ll be back later,” she says, and leaves the room. “Wait!” I shout, but she’s already gone.
Some say the sound of clapping is called silence. When there are two hands, its name is loneliness.
Applause has an element of social contagion. Anyone who has ever been part of a crowd knows that a few people clapping sometimes leads the entire audience to imitate their behavior.
“Sometimes people clap because they want to send a message,” Crawley writes. “Other times, people may applaud not because of their own decision, but because of social pressure.”
In 2013, a team led by Richard Mann, then of Uppsala University (Sweden), observed this event after academic lectures. They found that the onset of clapping often follows similar patterns to the spread of disease.
But then why do we applaud? The answer, in short, seems to be: clapping is the most effective way to make a lot of noise, demonstrate our recognition and strengthen the social bonds resulting from joint appreciation of something.
And the very long applause, like those at Cannes? Why don’t we just clap for a minute or two?
In 2013, Mann told BBC News that the length of applause is not proportional to the quality of the performance.
“There is this social pressure to start [a aplaudir]but once you start, there is another equally strong social pressure not to stop, until someone else stops first.”
Applying this conclusion to the surprisingly long applause at Cannes, the conclusion would be that no one in the room wants to be seen – or, in the age of social media, filmed – as the first to stop applauding.
More than 10 minutes later…
…and the sound becomes something strange and abstract. It’s like my hands belong to someone else.
I imagine the Cannes audience, which reached 22 minutes in 2006, and wonder what they would have felt. Did they consider continuing indefinitely until death? Have they reached a higher level of consciousness?
I never found out. I decided to stop before I injured my hands, as I needed to write this report.
However, I end my experiment knowing that I clapped continuously for longer than ever before. My daughter may not have been impressed, but my achievement definitely deserved a round of applause.
Read the original version of this report (in English) on the site BBC Innovation.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
