Over analysis

Have you ever over analyzed a film to the point where you more or less missed anything you could have enjoyed?

I have


I watched serenity in class the other day and my teacher was like "Okay, look for this, then this, also think about this.......etc"

I found myself working so hard to analyze the films contexts, applications of genre and any underlying independent structure that by the end of it I felt I'd missed the thing!

It really spun me out a little.

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The greatest nations have all acted like gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes.

Good topic.

Yes, I used to do that frequently and ended with the same feelings that you are describing. My usual practice now is to watch something and then wait a few days to try to connect the dots.

Of course, I'm no mental giant so maybe it just takes that long to process for me.

I find that I do a generally good job of not analyzing a film all that much while I watch it (the first time), it is after the fact that I will start to analyze it a lot. And second viewings of a film can lead to more analyzing as well, but I generally can keep the first viewing as purely just entertainment until after it is done.

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"As I was walking up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away."
-From Identity

I tend to be this way most of the time, The more I learn about the art of film making, the less I can just lose myself in a film. The sacrifice one makes for extensive knowledge, I guess...


Not that I have an extensive knowledge!

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Yeah that's pretty much my strategy now.

It's terrible that I have to go away and think about it, but I realize if I do it this way, I don't jump into making any hotheaded statements about a film then and I can look at it for what it is. There's nothing worse than saying to someone "God that movie sucked" and realizing a couple of days later that you liked it.

I love to talk about films, especially a real deep conversation about them, ooh it gets me going!

You won't want to miss the movie club discussions then. There is one ongoing right now about Death Proof and this format is one that's being considered as a permanent feature of the site.

As anyone can guess from my many entries in this forum that have stepped on so many toes (sorry about that!), I love to analyze films! To me, that's the whole enjoyment of going to a movie--I love to see what they are going to highlight and what they will skip over, whether they're really working at telling me a believeable story or whether they're just messing around hoping I won't notice the holes in the plot and the script. I also look to see how competant the behind-the-scenes workers are--did they get the continuity right from one shot to the next or does the amount of shaving soap on Judge Turpin's face ebb and flow from shot to shot? Do they let the boom mike dip into camera range? I haven't gone to the movies just to be going to a movie since the Saturday afternoon matinees of my childhood. There has to be something that lures me to the movies today--the subject matter,the story being told, the cast, rarely the special effects. And I'm pretty pickey about what I see on screen, and it especially upsets me when they change history to match the plot rather than writing a better screenplay. I want to get my money's worth, so sloppy work ticks me off.

Not really I guess, I'm not a smart person. I don't know very much about how films get made and what it takes behind the scenes. I'm learning a little though. I mostly watch the hell out of them, and there are those that would tell you I watch way to many bad ones. It is what it is.

A couple of months ago I watched the same film you mentioned 3 times in a row and I guess I was analyzing it a bit. But mostly I just really like the flick so I don't really know what I'm trying to say.

I benefit at times (I think) from never taking any film classes of any kind, I just watch them. So I probably don't even really know how to break a film down in the technical sense. So maybe I can enjoy films like Gladiator while others think its a pile from a cinematic stand point. Simply put, I just enjoy those "types" of films.

Good topic btw.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Thanks, yeah I think that may be one of the main reasons I'm starting to do it, because I'm constantly studying film day in, day out, I suppose depends how I'm feeling too.

I sometimes find myself just watching and average run of the mill film to bring me back to the days where I didn't look too far into it.

Only occasionally though as I hope my future is in film.

Not really. I've certainly overanalyzed plenty of films but it's never had much effect on how much I enjoyed watching them. Even if I've disected it and written pages and pages of analysis, usually then I go back and rewatch it and it's a different experience from how I remembered it. Maybe it's because all my real thinking about movies comes after I'm done watching, as I piece it back together in my head, little by little. I never take notes unless it's just to make the movie a little less confusing (for example I had to take notes to remember who the characters were while watching Ashes of Time).

On the other hand, I have watched too many movie before and just kind of felt films in general losing their appeal. Usually when that happens I take a break from watching anything for a month (the longest I ever went without watching a film was about 6 months), then I start again and even stuff I would normally think is mediocre is like a gulp of cold water in a desert.

Flippin' heck!

I'm on an average of 2 films a day right now, I couldn't handle that!

Blame Barthes' post structuralist essay 'Death of the Author' if you're bummed about over analysing film.

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Forgot to mention that decreased movie-watching usually just leads to increased book/comic-reading .

I also tend to do this ... but more on a plot, scripting, dialogue level than on a technical pov. Looking for subtle hints or visuals ... many a time that are not really there LOL

I especially like to 'predict' where a film is going ... and enjoy very much when I am taken down a completely unexpected path.

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I haven't ever done that since college (over 30 years ago), and that was probably for a Resnais, Fellini or Antonioni film. I am interested in the term "underlying independent structure" though. Is that a ten-syllable term for plot?

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

I'm going to use that tonight after attending Nosferatu the silent film from 1927. I wonder just how the pianist will relate to this important creative element

haha, are you serious?

I'm talking about looking for the comments on our society, any ideologies the director may hold or have held while writing his film.

The reason I referred to it as independent structure is because up until recently we've had a rather troubled state of affairs jumping at us out of Hollywood and into our first-runs. Plot-driven stories galore. Which I have no problem with, but It's a shame that I have to watch my indie films on DVD. I'd love a theater for Independent films to built near me.

OFF TOPIC

I had better correct the information, Nosferatu was produced in 1922.
Thanks Mark f

btw ... I did use the afore mentioned term ... and did infact instill some additional mirth to the table

the trick is to get the right balance; picking apart a movie as if it were a corpse is obviously going to make it resemble, well, a corpse. on the flipside, films are often made far more enriching by analysis and to neglect that entirely is nonsensical.

personally i'm in the habit these days of thinking very hard when i watch movies; i don't force myself, it came naturally to me with the realisation that i genuinely enjoy interacting with movies as much as possible. naturally, like linespalsy and co. i can't get an organised analysis of a film in my mind 'til after my first viewing, but during the film i'm always considering the nature of my emotional response, the ways in/extent to which its elements serve that response, etc. it varies of course; some films basically scream "ANALYSE ME" (2001 is a typical example) and so i'm doing it throughout. others, not so much.

Definitely, there are films that sort of trigger it I suppose.

Like they are written specifically for the audience to analyze, I love coming away from a movie knowing I'll be thinking about it for a while.