The dangers of (re)watching films with a subconscious bias

I wanted to address one thing that gbgoodies said in Yoda's baseball thread:

Here's my original response:

To elaborate, our subconscious is mighty powerful, and more often than not, we're unknowingly influenced by it, for better or worse. This is true when we watch a film somebody we trust gave a high rating. But it's even truer when we're about to reevaluate something we probably kind of liked back in the day ONLY BECAUSE AND ONLY AFTER we saw an opinion enumerating all the faults and problems with the film. In such a case, we recalibrate our brains to look for those 'faults' and start to care about them / mind them much more than we would otherwise.

I sometimes see this when people ape another (popular/"respected") reviewer's opinion about a film, an opinion that was based on a political or worldview pet peeve of that person. I'm sure that most of those people wouldn't even look for that or notice it but given the explicit idea that they SHOULD, gives them the incentive to do it.

This is similar to watching one of the 'terrible movies' with the preconceived notion that it's indeed going to be terrible instead of a tabula rasa approach of 'lemme see if it's terrible'. A confirmation bias of sorts.

I try not to look up much of what's been said on a film (nothing beyond their %ratings really) BEFORE seeing it. I don't want to be influenced that way.

Reading a relatively "good" piece of criticism AFTERWARDS/prior to a re-watch is a different story though. It might put my enjoyment/good memory of the work in danger...but it can also be eye-opening; replacing the joy of experiencing art with the joy of a kind of learning (but I am a viewer who seeks/appriciates others' takes on things. I get many just don't have that concern)... besides, if the work passes my "learned criticism", I know with more assurance that it's "good" (in a more objective sense this time around). If not, I'll look for another film which does it better.

You should watch a film and then IMMEDIATELY rate it. Watching it, reading up on it, and rating it only then already messes with your perception of the film. The true, sincere, unadulterated experience you had with the film is all that should count.

I have to disagree. I think. I am reacting right away so I may be totally off base.
I rarely like to rate a movie right after watching it. The only way I think I will be right is if it was absolutely amazing or absolutely shit.
I like to sit and think about things, different aspects that I liked or disliked, does the movie still feel as exciting or as lame as it did the night before, have I had several fridge-moments about it since that take it down a peg or two, did some ideas that emerged after I thought about it for a while actually make the movie better? All of that.
I still think Apocalypse Now, for example, was probably best on like my 4th or 5th viewing (I've probably seen it between 15 and 20 times).
And I don't mind reading about things and all that and their influence because sometimes I just straight-up missed something (especially if I saw it in the theater and went to pee), maybe a line of dialogue that made a difference or maybe an idea that was right in front of me but I was a little dense that day. Not to mention the "is the film worth discussing" piece which the existence of this forum proves is a thing that matters, so if I'm finding a bunch of good discussion that can certainly help me to find the best or worst in the film.
I am sitting on a review right now (of a film I re-watched by the way) on Day 7 after watching it because I am still thinking about it. It was a lot to take in and a lot to think about.
And I still don't think I have reviewed my favorite movie so far this year because I just kept thinking about it and ultimately decided that my review is just "It's my favorite movie so far this year," and I'm gonna let it go at that.
So, yeah, it's definitely my preference to give a film some thought.


It's worth mentioning that this is how I live too so it may just be that. I try to think first and react after.

When I watch a movie I hope to enjoy it. I loved Cameron's Aliens, and rewatched it a year ago. Sadly, it's dated for me now. The acting and even the action intensity fell flat. It did not withstand the test of time, but films dependent on the gimmicks rarely do. Only films that resonate deeply on a human level thru character development, and relatable storytelling usually do.
JAWS imo could withstand the test of time because it wasn't gimmick heavy, Gone with the Wind also. The movie which inspired this topic was The Natural. It's a baseball fairy tale that touched me when I was a kid. Would I like it now? Absolutely. Id probably like E.T. still or maybe more now because it wasnt the special effects that made it great. As a kid I was thinking the movie was just OK, as a mature adult it may touch me.

I don't look at films so critically, and seek out the mistakes or how it can be done better. Only bring those things up when they are too obvious. Life's too short. It may be better too watch movies less to appreciate them more. Too much of anything causes an annoying want that can never be satisfied.

Works great if you watch a film a week. I watch 25+ films a week.

Anyway, the great ones will "win" anyway. You'll think about them anyway. And if you want to increase your rating after some time, why not? What I mostly mean is that watching something to "check if that reviewer I really respect was right" with the intent to indeed check every single thing he talked about OR watching something and THEN reading that reviewer's words, and thus retroactively remembering and checking every single thing he talked about is just insincere and skewed.

You'll never achieve full-on autonomy when it comes to experiencing film, but the closest you can get is not to read anything before or after watching the film until you rate it. After rating it, you can read about it, I guess, but not with the idea of changing your rating drastically in case you find out the film was after all transphobic, or the director really killed that dog or the film was shot on digital instead of film, or the film contained many errors and the acting was bad.

I still don't understand what this means. I do understand what it could mean if somebody said a film released today is dated. I might disagree or think it's no biggie, but I can at least understand. Saying a 38-year-old film is dated makes no sense to me. Nobody says Crime and Punishment or The Mother are dated. Nobody says Bach's or Captain Beefheart's music is dated.

This implies acting is somewhat getting better as the decades turn, that the old ways of acting are dated instead of just different. Do you think the German Expressionism kind of acting is dated, too? Nicolas Cage's acting is dated/bad according to that because he explicitly stated that he's inspired by German Expressionism-era acting. "Doesn't withstand the test of time" is a very problematic expression because it implies a film is not a work of art but a car or a computer - a utility.

Old, practical special effects are much superior to modern, CGI special effects for the most part. Shocking, I know, but the fact something is newer or more cutting-edge technologically doesn't mean it's better.

Temporalism...Humans are liner in their perception of time. To many people the past is like old milk, useless to consume. That explains comments like the 'movie was dated'. Of course everything is dated as the styles and themes of film making are part of the newest movie releases, just as they were part of the movie making process 100 years ago.

I do believe a new aphorism has emerged. I plan to use it frequently.

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I try to avoid such influence on a first watch, for sure. But for a follow-up looking for anything I may have missed or for perspectives I had not considered that is interesting to me. For example, Iro's comments on Mother! a few years back kind of flipped my experience upside down and gave me a very different point of view during my next watch. That in no way diminished my enjoyment of the original experience. In fact, it broadened it.

I agree that the OP's point is real and happens more than I'd prefer in so many topics, but that kind of assumes that we're not capable of guarding against such influence (at least from time to time), or that we're oblivious to it. I guess?

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I think it is definitely best to go into movies (or books or music, for that matter) with as open a perspective as possible. The only counterpoint that I would add, however, is that sometimes different people notice different things in the same film. It would be one thing to say that you reevaluated a film following another's review when you both were watching with the same criteria in mind (as close as one can, I guess). But it is different is people are watching for different things.

Hopefully that made sense---it seemed clearer in my head...

Maybe you should slow down?
I don't need to know if a reviewer I respect was right. I do not require validation from other sources. I may be interested to see if there's something I haven't thought of yet that is in fact on the screen and I do love dissenting opinions which can provoke further thought (which is extremely valuable) but don't inherently affirm or disaffirm my own belief.
And I just completely disagree with your last paragraph. I know what my initial feelings about a film are most of the time. But my feelings about many things evolve or change over time, sometimes I become better informed, sometimes it's that I am actually better at watching movies now than I was, sometimes I was just in the wrong mood when I saw a movie, all kinds of possibilities. To say that your initial reaction to anything is always right is, and I mean no offense by this, I am speaking generally, a foolhardy way to live.

There is no correct time to rate/react a film, any more than there is any correct time to watch one.

The timing can only be "right" or "wrong" in relation to some axiomatic idea of what you're supposed to be measuring with your reaction.

because they are not, amazingly. They do stand the test of time, but because you believe we should judge ("rate") the work seconds after consumption of it (and thus removing the process of reflection stated in the above post), such verdicts don't make much sense to you.

With some films I prefer to do a blind watch without even knowing what IMDB's mini synopsis says about it. I never read reviews before I watch a film, though in HoFs you do automatically see people's reactions to a film you're about to watch.

On the other hand my opinion of some films have improved when I first found out what type of a film it was by reading a brief synopsis.

Human behavior varies and so does the ideal way to approach a film. Besides it's nonsense that someone can watch a film without having some sort of preformed opinion, that's an impossibility.

I understand what you're saying, and for the most part, I agree with it.

But just to clarify my statement, in terms of "standing the test of time", I only meant whether or not it stood the test of time in terms of my opinion of it, not if the movie feels obsolete or archaic. I remember liking it, and I want to see if I still like it after rewatching it so many years later.

And in reference to keeping someone else's review/comments in mind, I only mean that I will watch it more closely this time, trying not to miss some of the things I might have missed the first time I watched it. I'm not trying to change my opinion of it. I'm more of a surface movie watcher than most people here. I don't like to analyze movies the way that many people here do. I just like to sit back, relax, and enjoy the movies I watch without dissecting them.

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Maybe you should speed up?

Or so you say. But subconsciously you respect him more than others so his opinion matters and shapes your own opinion. It's not a deliberate process, it all happens in the background, without you even realizing it. Doesn't have to be a reviewer. It can be a friend, for example. People who spend a lot of time amongst a group tend to take up the behaviors and opinions of that group.

I'm not saying they cannot evolve over time. I'm not even saying it's possible to avoid being exposed to other's opinions that will have an impact on ours. But doing it right before or after a film before giving it a rating/review of our own is a sure way to soil our pure experience with that work of art.

It always is right. Not in an objective sense, but in the sense that it's right because it's my own reaction/opinion that stems from a very personal and unadulterated experience with a work of art. It's right because it's mine and mine alone.

Yeah, yeah.

You're supposed to be measuring your own experience.

Because no book and no piece of music is. And hardly anybody claims they are. MAYBE politically speaking they do, but that'd assume there's objective morality and any work of art against it is terrible (not necessarily, "dated", though). But that's a different topic. You all treat art as if it was a product. I mean, using the word 'consumption' is very telling. I'm not against taking time before rating a film, provided you do not engage with anybody else about that film before rating the film. Our experience is very easy to sully and misremember in hindsight, and that's dangerous because we should be sincere and true to the work of art and its actual perceived quality, not the quality that was told to us by others.

Sadly, this is true. The least we can do is at least not to sully the opinion right before or right after.

Thanks for your clarification. Yep, makes sense, but it'd be way less confusing if you just said that you want to rewatch it to see if you still like it. I still think that rewatching a film because somebody we like just watched it and disliked it is at least tricky, though.

He really has a point, though. Maybe your opinion about this follows from your movie viewing habits. You "have" to believe this, because the alternative would be either watching fewer films, or admitting you're actually not giving them sufficient thought or consideration.

1) Says who?

2) Your experience is constantly changing. You are not more "you" when you watch the film than you will be if you watch it later, either again or for the first time. In fact, it's pretty much universal that the later you is the more complete you, since it by definition incorporates all prior yours, but with more experience and information.

You were never destined to watch a movie when you did. You could've watched it later, or earlier. And if you would've treated your experience at any of those times as sacrosanct, it must mean none of them really are.

When it comes to special effects, I'd mostly agree with you. Mad Max Fury Road blew me away more than any film had in years because of it.

Acting is different. It's a craft like anything which evolves or improves with time and work. It's not a living person, where you equate it's value equally no matter what time period he/she came from. You're overvalueing it almost diefying it. Good actors today, certainly not all, have a range and intuition that would mesmerize the great actors of the past. Sports athletes would humble great athletes of yesterday. Time goes on, we can evolve. Not just technology, but as people. We can also devolve, and squander what could have been built upon. Directing styles can also evolve too. Any skill can be improved upon. Even art can evolve, or devolve. Just because it's Art doesn't mean it's above anything. Don't deify a craft.

as I mentioned before at the end of the day the greatest films will still make you think about them regardless of how many films you watch a day.im still thinking about a movie I watched yesterday. Watching more films makes it easier to compare them to each other too which bears better results rating-wise. There's no need for me to think about a film I didn't like while watching it because it won't change my rating anyway.



says anybody who thought about the matter for longer than 5 minutes. You really can't argue otherwise with a straight face.

You can't tell me we should rate a film based on whether it's popular or hyped amongst cinephiles. Actually I see you as the 1st person to strongly oppose this.


This is missing the point. I'm not saying your own taste doesn't change with time but it's a long process and many factors come into play there. I'm talking about a shorter period of time where a single event or person makes us reevaluate something.