Hal on JOI's and Mario's audience-films (pp. 397–398)

The Joke turns the whole apparatus back on the watchers: the film is the audience, watching itself watch. Patrons file into an art-house past an "anti-ad" marquee ("You Are Strongly Advised NOT To Shell Out Money to See This Film"), settle in with their espressos and knowing pre-movie remarks, and the screen lights up with a live shot of exactly that — themselves, filing in, settling, facing the screen, "i.e. now themselves, it turns out." Spectation is the entire content; the viewer's own expectant face is the film, and the gag runs until the last person, unable to bear watching himself watch, walks out. It's the purest statement of the father's obsession: strip away all content and what's left is the audience, and the audience cannot stand to see itself in the act of wanting to be entertained. The Entertainment is this experiment's opposite solution — instead of showing viewers their own hunger until they flee, give the hunger something it can never leave.