Joe Morgenstern has an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about how critics often see a different movie because they get to see if before all the hype is set loose. We all like to think that we’re no affected by marketing and hype, but we are, even if it’s on a subconscious level. The big push to get people to the box office on opening weekend is apparently referred to as the ‘cattle drive’ (which says something about how Hollywood perceives its audience). I’ve long said that too much exposure to a movie is actually a bad thing, and I have a reason for it, I found this out through personal experience.
When I first started watching movies I got a buzz, especially when watching new films, it was a real high. I was addicted to film. I started buying all the film mags, reading books about it, surfing to all the websites (this is back in the early days of consumer internet use), I read all the in-depth articles and gorged myself on film trivia. I knew most of the plot for the movies before I got there, all the stars, the little back stories and I was finding that my movie-going experience was getting worse.
It was only when I rented The Faculty that I realised what had happened. I knew nothing about the film except it was getting good reviews, supposed to be fairly solid, but certainly no oscar winner. I watched it and I got that familiar high again, I was excited by a film, it hadn’t happened in a long time at that point, and so I took the time to try and figure out why. It wasn’t an exceptional film, solid but unremarkable and, eventually, I realised it the fact that I knew almost nothing about it before I sat down to watch it.
So, I let my magazine subscriptions run out, curbed my spending, steered clear of the many film sites and my movie-going experiences have, I think, improved no end. Oh, I still get caught up in some of the hype, I still keep an ear to the ground (so to speak) for exciting, small films that pass most people by and I still look at reviews (I rarely read them before-hand, but I know some of the sources to be trusted — both in the media and amongst my friends — and look at star ratings, I tend to take an average across these and combine it with the trailer, if I can find one, and I get a fairly accurate picture of what’s to see and what’s to miss), but I do while trying to make sure I know as little about the production as possible.
If you’re finding you know too much, maybe it’s time to give ignorance a try, it might explain why sleeper hits do so well and are regarded so highly.
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