Watching With No Expectations

I have recently gotten into the habit of watching films without reserching them deeply first(I got this idea from a french documentary about Henri Langlois.He used to show three films a night at the Cineamatheque. He show them without description and often times in other languages without subtitles to explain what was going on to the audeince.). I have found that if I expect nothing out of a film and don't read up on the plot then it is ultimately the film's job to impress me(Alot of times when viewing a film that I've read up about I know too much or expect far too much from certain scene's/Character's.Leading me to maybe overate or underrate the film without putting emphasis on how enjoyable it was to me).It offers alot to the imagination when I haven't read up on other's impressions on the film and it reaches you on more of a personal level than a cultural influenced level.

Now,the results have been mixed on how this has worked out for me. For example I absolutly loved The Life and Death Of Colonel Blimp because I didn't know what was coming and knew next to nothing of the characters.But,for more obscure pictures I've seen recently it has left me very confused(Most of The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligiri was confusing to me at first and I honestly didn't quite understand the picture until I read up on it.).Still it has been more of an adventure when I'd usually give up on a picture after watching it confused.

However,when it comes to Surrealists pictures that I've seen recently(Un Chien Andalou,L'age D'or,etc.) it has really helped me to derive my own meanings from them and really has helped me to enjoy these types of films.

What are your opinions on going into a film cold turkey?

If a movie is amazing - it will be better the viewings after the first : if it isn't - it won't.

Hearing about what happens in the movie is sort of a small version of this process.

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I've always preferred not knowing much, if anything at all, when viewing a film. I do, at times, view trailers, but normally I prefer receiving movie suggestions, or I'll view certain films, simply because of an actor, director, etc . . . and go with it. You won't always love the film, but that is the case either way. This way, you're surprised more, when you do.

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I agree, going into a movie knowing as little as possible about the story is usually the best way to see it.

If I feel a particular film is going to be an important one, then I do my best to at least see it the weekend it opens. Unfortunately this takes a discipline I've not had lately, but I believe in it no less. Sometimes I'll even wait too long and consider my experience tainted. Hype is such an awful thing.

I agree entirely. If only I had a dollar for every good film I saw that I had already spoiled for myself by reading up on it...

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It seems fairly impossible to go into many current movies "cold turkey", but I agree, if you know too much or hear too much of the hype it often ends up being a disappointment (r more of one then it should be) because you expect more from the film. I have gotten fairly good at tempering my expectations on films even when they are hyped up a lot, just because I have seen people miss good films because they were expecting it to be great (or the trailer made it look completely different), and it didn't match up to their unreal/incorrect expectations.

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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'm sure Yoda would agree with all of us here on this one, although he's got a dilemma in running a movie site and almost *needing* to know some stuff in advance.

But I have been to enough movies with him over the years where he knew much more than I did going in (sometimes even the ending, like The Sixth Sense and The Village!), and I almost uniformly come out praising the film much more highly than he does.

I purposely STOP watching trailers and commercials for movies beyond the initial ones because I know it changes how I view a movie. For instance, I wish I hadn't known about the creatures in I Am Legend before going in. I might have actually liked the movie a lot more had that been more of a surprise.

I've been known to put my fingers in my ears and do the "la-la-la" thing when a movie commercial comes on the TV if it's a movie I want to keep unspoiled. TOO many trailers/commercials nowadays tell TOO much of the story.

Doesn't the word "teaser" mean anything anymore?

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I should have mentioned that there have been a few films that went over my head the first time around, or were so chock-full of subtleties and visual splendor that I found it too much to properly absorb in one sitting. Happens a lot when I sit too close to the screen.

As a teen, I worked in a movie theater where I saw (or mostly heard with occasional glimpses) whatever was playing day after day. This was back in the 1950s when a small town theater would play 4-5 feature films on the one screen each week. So I was exposed willy nilly to whatever was on screen. I discovered that the films getting all of the publicity buzz often (but not always) were better for one reason or another, whereas a great many turkeys were released just to fill up the screens. Later, with a family I didn't have the time or money to take the crap-shoot approach to movie-going, especially when there are movies out there that you don't want to have to explain to your kids or quite their nightmares later. And to me, it's much more interesting to know what the producer went through trying to get this film financed or that one pass the censors, what directors were hired and fired, who was considered for roles, who turned them down, who ended up playing it. I like to know that the author of the book thinks about the movie script they made from his work. If the film is based on a historic event or character, then what was the real person and situation like? Are they sticking to the facts or taking off on flights of fancy? This means I'm more selective about the films I see and at least have some interest in what I choose. Help's me weed out stuff like Porky's that I already know I won't enjoy.

Eisenstein's theory of montage: check it out and see how it applies to this topic. If you're cinema'techie you should enjoy it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Eisenstein

If you hear or read about a movie before hand, it's gonna' effect you're opinion, whether you like it or not. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes its necessary to get info before, sometimes its damaging.

I'm trying to think of a term.....
Mesi Scene
Misi Scene

It has to do with "what's on screen." Someone help me, please?

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Mis-en-scene?

Ummm ..."what's on screen"? Errr ... "movie"?

No, wait. You mean something else entirely. Sorry.

I think it's spelled mise-en-scene.

It's an interesting idea I suppose if you say, live on an iceberg I guess. Nearly impossible today though, unless you don't watch television or listen to the radio or have internet access. Personally I think in the end it doesn't really make a very big difference to me if I'm going to like the film or not if I know nothing about it. I watch plenty of movies on the Sci-fi channel that I don't know a thing about and for the most part they are all pretty bad. A bad movie is a bad movie. I love movies, all kinds of movies. I want to know about them before I see them.

I was reading about I Am Legend months before it came out and I still enjoyed it quite a bit. Do I have bad taste? Probably. I also don't place a lot of expectations on those types of films either. So I have an easier time enjoying them more than some I suppose.

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

I just put American Dreamz on my Netflix list on top, all I know it that it is a satire with Mandy Moore. I'll tell you if I experiance it any different

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I wrote this in the Movie Tab thread, but it should go in here too. Further validates my feelings (and a lot of yours) about watching a movie without knowing much about the story beforehand.

I also have no idea what The Philadelphia Story and His Girl Friday are about so I'm gonna try and watch both those within the next few days.

Ooh! A Billy Wilder film. I love his work(Double Indemnity is such a great film and the perfect film noir.) and haven't seen The Apartment yet, But I will when the oppurtunity presents itself. I also have managed to make it this long without knowing too much about that film. All I know is it's about an Apartment and Lemmon's in it.

Also,that Sergei Einstein link was very interesting and I've been meaning to see Battleship Potemkn for the longest while I just haven't gotten to it yet.

I'm pretty sure you just misspelled it, but just in case: the dude's name is Sergei Eisenstein*. Not Einstein.

And Double Indemnity is definitely an example of film noir perfection. I wish I could light matches the way Neff did.

That is in my top 100 I belive, good film-noir either way