viewing art w/ a clear mind

[pryor15]

so, i'm working on an essay about the various ways we view films and read books and watch TV and how that relates to what we've already heard about the work in question, and i'm looking for ideas.

it occured to me that when my mother watches something that has some controversy around it (let's say Brokeback Mountain) she tends to judge it rather quickly, but when she saw Far From Heaven with me, she viewed it openly and was able to "look past" the content "problems" (she was Baptist for a long time). this, of course, annoyed the hell out of me until i realized that in some ways i do the same thing.

sometimes i'll give a film that should be good (The Life Aquatic) a bit of a break, but if that same film was directed by someone i think is a hack, i might be harsher. it's a small difference, but an important one. at least, i think so.

then i realized that most of my wonderful cinema experiences occured when i had no idea what the hell the film was going to be about, that the less i knew, the more i enjoyed the film for what it was.

this, naturally, got me to thinking: is all this hype and trailers and clips on Letterman and set diaries and whatever damaging the cinema experience? b/c if you spend enough time on the internet, you'll know everything you could ever want to know before you even walk into the theatre. maybe we should start ignoring things completely and just watch stuff blind.

[KDawg]

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maybe we should start ignoring things completely and just watch stuff blind.

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it would be nice, but its sooo hard to do it, and we as humans will have natural biases to films/directors/actors/writers etc. I generally try to watch films based on people or critics that I trust for recomendations and take it from there.

One thing though that can be hard is when a film gets hyped up to a insane extent. Even a near flawless film can get so hyped up and you hear that hype that even if it is a wonderful film, that you end up thinking, WTF. This is kinda why when I come across a film that has been pumped up and it leaves me flat, that I generally try to watch it at least another time down the road so as my mind has almost gone blank on it, and generally likewise for films that had been semi panned.

Its always a fine line that is hard to balance, and I definetly agree with the no expectations going in too(everything is illumiated comes to mind as a film that really impressed me w/o me knowing much about it and same with carandiru(which I highly recomend to anyone)), but I think that most would agree that having some sort of Point of Reference going in generally lets us know if we are going to like a film or not, whether it be trailers, reviews, or word of mouth

[El Diablo]

pryor,

For that reason I'll avoid ratings, reviews, 2+2 threads, etc. before watching a movie. Even a headline as simple as "This movie is very much like a modern-day adaptation of so-and-so classic" can have a big influence. Knowing that beforehand can definitely make the movie feel more derivative as opposed to just a sense of homage/inspiration.

[pryor15]

el d,

my new method i'm currently trying is to watch trailers (b/c it's awfully hard to avoid them when you see other films) and check the metacritic score. so, if the trailer looks good, but it has a 35, then i don't bother. i think this is doing a pretty good job of filtering out the rubbish without telling me too much about the film in question