One And Done

This is going to be another one of those “I think it’s interesting that this phenomenon exists but I don’t have too much more to comment about it other than saying, ‘Look at this cool thing.’” But its neatness is also why I’m talking about it. So temper your expectations, I guess, but not too much.

I think it’s weird how often I go one-and-done with movies. Like, I go to a cinema, stare at a screen for two hours -- maybe more, maybe less -- reflect on my experience a bit, and that’s it. That’s the entirety of my experience with a movie. Sometimes I’ll talk about it later, generally in a, “Oh, have you seen this,” sort of way, but once I’ve left the theater, it’s very likely I’m not going to see that movie again.

Take Madeline’s Madeline from that top five/six I did last year. Or even The Proposal, which I just wrote about. I found both of those movies to be very affecting and occasionally technically impressive. Both of them are also ninety minutes I’ll never experience again unless I get exceedingly lucky and come across them by chance. It won’t be by myself, either; I’ll be forcing these movies on a friend or family member.

I bring these instances up in comparison to a similar phenomenon: the idea of “wanting to unwatch something so as to experience it for the first time again.” How I understand this concept (to be really clinical about it) is people yearn for their stronger positive reactions to things, given that they’re impossible to recreate even on a second viewing. Their glee at a season or series finale, for example, or their shock at a particular twist.

This isn’t something I’ve experienced myself. Not because I’m not really into certain pieces of media, just because, well, I don’t know. Maybe because of how seldomly I rewatch things? But even in terms of music, songs that I listen to over and over, I don’t think I have thought of any of that. As rad as the intro to Justice’s Genesis is, I don’t ever think I’d wished it was the first time I’d heard it.

I also don’t think I don’t have very strong reactions to things. I mean, I spent almost an entire blog post selling The Proposal to anybody who would listen. Every post on my now-defunct review blog was about a film that I enjoyed. What I like, I really like. The only other cause I can think of, though, is just because of the number of movies I’ve seen over the course of, say, a month has only increased. The idea there being that each viewing of a new movie is a new chance for those highest of high moments.

But that seems a little elitist when read like that. It reads like, “Oh, you people just need to watch more movies/read more books/listen to more music.” And I don’t think that was my intention at all. If anything, I’m all for that feeling. The way I experience these movies, I wonder if there’s a hint of “art is disposable” mixed in there in a way that I don’t think was intended by the artists. Not everything has to be a complex sandcastle just waiting to be washed away by the waves, right?

Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know what any of this really means. I just think it’s a neat dichotomy of ideas. It’s always useful, I think (and if you excuse the pretentious phrasing), to consider just how one goes about consuming media.

Come back next week to, ironically, read about a film I have watched a couple times.

-F