Here are two questions:
1/ What makes a film rewatchable, or not rewatchable?
2/ If a film is not rewatchable, does it mean it’s not truly great?
Or slightly rephrased: if you like a film and never want to see it again, do you really like it?
Except for the weirdos who watch everything only once, I think we all have experienced revisiting a film we once liked and wondering what we had seen in it (off the top of my head: American Beauty, Edward Scissorhands)—I’m not talking about that.
I’m also not thinking of films the enjoyment of which depends heavily on the twist (such as Bong Joon-ho’s Mother), or on the unexpectedness, randomness of events (like The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie).
Perhaps I don’t feel like watching Dogville or Nymphomaniac again because I don’t like the vision of life and humanity, because the films lack balance. Perhaps I don’t feel like watching Mystic River, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, or Infernal Affair because there’s such a strong sense of injustice, because the truth is never discovered, whereas the main character of Sunset Boulevard chooses to be a mensch and makes the right choice before the tragic ending, and the anti-hero of Ace in the Hole in the end realises what he has done. I’m thinking out loud. Perhaps it’s a me thing. Or perhaps these films don’t provide catharsis.
Let’s have a discussion.
'Cries and Whispers' is an interesting film, some years ago my partner and I made our way through the Bergman catalogue, having never seen films like this before I found the emotional starkness difficult viewing sometimes. 'Cries and Whispers' is pretty much peak Bergman emotional car crash, it's a difficult movie to sit through. However, the end is such an amazing catharsis, it had me in tears for reasons which I can't quite put into words (surely a sign of great art). I could watch this again because of that.
ReplyDeleteVon Trier is a different animal, his films surely provoke reaction, but I don't always feel that I get anything from it sans his rather caustic take on humanity and intermittent humor. As such, I'm not sure I could watch 'Dogville' or 'Nymphomaniac' again. Von Trier has taken a lot from Bergman, except perhaps Bergman's final message of hope.
Yeah, I think so, the ending of Cries and Whispers is a great catharsis. It's a painful film, and yet that ending...
DeleteLars von Trier has a bleak, cynical view of humanity and I think that's a very narrow, limited view. Life is not just that. That's why I think he's brilliant, but not great.
I now can't hear that particular Chopin Mazurka without thinking of the end of that film. The only Von Trier film which hints at catharsis in an odd way is (ironically, as Von Trier seems not to like it) 'Melancholia'.
DeleteThis I suspect reveals more about the individual than about the films. I enjoy rewatching Withnail and I & Jaws, for example, probably because of the sense of boozy camaraderie throughout Withnail & on the boat in the 2nd half of Jaws. I could enjoy drinking the characters. Same reason I love Boswell's Life of Johnson so much.
ReplyDeleteI will also rewatch any good film with a viewing companion who has never seen it. As though I get to watch it vicariously for the 1st time again.
You won't get me to watch Jaws though lol. No way.
DeleteBoo.
DeleteTeehee.
DeleteI could enjoy drinking WITH the characters, I meant to say....
ReplyDeleteProbably the film I've rewatched the most is Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder, which is odd, as it's a courtroom movie and as I of course know the verdict, all the surprise should be gone. But the issue is so finely balanced that I find my opinion shifting every time I watch it. (Maybe that just means I'd make a lousy juror.) It's also just pleasurable watching the principals operate in their judicial arena; it's like watching the operation of a superbly engineered machine.
ReplyDeleteThere are other movies I rewatch frequently just because they move me, make me feel something - Chaplin's City Lights and Nights of Cabiria come to mind. (I watched Cabiria three or four times in the first month after I discovered it.)
And of course there are those that just make me laugh helplessly, chief among them The Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, and W.C. Field's four greatest movies - It's a Gift, The Old Fashioned Way, The Bank Dick, and The Man on the Flying Trapeze.
Hahahhaaha I guess you shouldn't be a juror then.
DeleteYeah, comedies are very rewatchable.
Speaking of Nights of Cabiria, have you ever seen the musical remake Sweet Charity?
It popped up on the Criterion Channel a month or two ago and I lasted until the "Hey Big Spender" number. I love All that Jazz, but aside from that one movie (and parts of Cabaret, I guess), I am not a big Bob Fosse fan. Too often, his stuff makes me feel a little...icky.
DeleteMaybe I should give it another try - I love Shirley MacLaine.
It's not a great film by any means. Rather corny in parts, even. But I love the musical numbers in it, especially "The Aloof, the Heavyweight, the Big Finish" (I'm obsessed with that sequence), so if you don't like Bob Fosse, I don't know...
DeleteI’ll drop everything to watch “Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday,” (which I’ve done 4 or 5 times) even though I think “Mon Oncle” is better and even funnier. I love the hotel in “Holiday” and the quality of the black & white sunlight. I thought the later “Playtime” was brilliant and I never feel like watching it.
ReplyDelete“Zero for Conduct” and “L’Atalante” have proven infinitely rewatchable for me. There are sequences (sometimes just seconds long) in “Zero”— the two kids messing around with toy musical instruments, balloons, and cigars on the train, the drawing that briefly animates itself, the teacher in the playground who goes into a spontaneous Charlie Chaplin imitation— that are so inspired they feel like Beatles songs to me.
I have also seen “Anatomy of a Murder” multiple times, and I don’t think there’s another Otto Preminger movie I would sit through again unless there was a gun at my head. (Well, maybe “Laura.”)
Movies I have rewatched for the color palette: Cries and Whispers, Napoleon Dynamite, Shirkers, A Clockwork Orange, Zodiac.
Movie I have watched all the way to the end more than once even after I realized what I am watching: All Monsters Attack (1969).
Hold on, you watch Zodiac for the colour palette? Why?
DeleteI'm embarrased to say I haven't seen most of the films you mentioned.
Jeff, have you seen a little noir that Preminger did with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons called Angel Face? It has an ending that absolutely shocked me - jaw hanging open, "Oh my God" stunned. It's definitely worth a watch.
DeleteI couldn’t keep Zodiac’s visuals in my head between viewings. When I saw it the second time (after a gap of 4 or 5 years), I was surprised by the saturated colors in the opening 4th of July scenes. I’d remembered the whole thing as done in a gritty urban style, and didn’t remember the Zodiac scenes didn’t look like that at all. A few days after my second viewing, I found myself thinking: wait. Was there no yellow in that whole movie? Well, of course there was. Chloe Sevigny is blonde, for heaven’s sake, and there are car headlights shining throughout. So why was I remembering the palette so incorrectly? Alas, I have no idea. Maybe my meds need to be adjusted. Every time I see it, it looks different, though, or at least I remember it different.
DeleteAll the Jean Vigo and Jacques Tati movies I mentioned are available free on YouTube in excellent transfers, at least in the USA. As is “All Monsters Attack,” although that one comes with commercials.
Thomas: I think I’ve seen all of Preminger’s forties and early fifties noirs, and they range from competent to excellent, but they aren’t to my taste (except for “Laura.”) His big budget stuff, on the other hand, is horrendous. “Anatomy” comes along well into his big budget/horrendous phase and startlingly good. Go figure. (Sorry about the multiple postings. The deleted comments were all THIS comment, with some bad HTML).
Oh I see.
DeleteI think I've seen Zodiac twice. Or was it once? I think twice.
I have a list of films to watch, especially now that I've just started paying for Mubi again so I'm prioritising that, but thank you. Just too busy at the moment to watch anything.
And speaking of Robert Mitchum, I've watched Night of the Hunter many times. It's absolutely unique, not like any other movie I can think of. The moment where Mitchum and Lillian Gish sing "leaning on the Everlasting Arms" together ought to be absurd - good and evil singing a duet - but it floors me every time. The whole movie is frightening, poetic, comic, sinister, affirmative - it's just indescribably brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI tried Night of the Hunter once and stopped watching. There was something about it that I didn't like. Fake, maybe? I'm not sure.
DeleteBut so many people I know love it, so I was clearly missing something.
The protagonist is fake, but I don't find the film fake. Seen it only once & quite some years ago, and it has stayed with me. A hint of Henry James about the story. Not as subtle/twisted, but there.
DeleteOh.
DeleteIf he strikes you as fake, he strikes you as fake, but he doesn't seem so to me, any more than the wicked witch in Hansel and Gretel or the Wizard of Oz, or the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood seem fake. (Plus, I wonder how much experience y'all have with a certain stripe of Southern preacher...)
DeleteFor me, the movie is the movie is the closest anyone has come to putting the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson on film. But some folks have a sensibility that rejects fairy tales, and I can't tell them they're "wrong."
Oh by "fake" I don't at all mean unconvincing. He's a believable character, even to somebody like me with no experience of Southern preachers. I just mean he's a deceitful character, who at least to start with hides his wicked intentions under a veneer of goodness or sanctimony, a la Tartuffe or that horrible bastard in James Hogg.
DeleteAre you two trying to persuade me to try Night of the Hunter again?
Delete