I like films and music, but enjoy both in different ways.
I've listened to my favourite albums 100+ times, and will continue to listen to them periodically.
But I don't think I've watched a favourite film more than six or seven times, and have little desire to see those films again more than once or twice.
I think my listening/watching pattern is typical.
Does anyone watch a favourite film dozens of times?
And why does a favourite piece of music have such lasting appeal?
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Aural wallpaper - the mind thinks of other things while listening to the music. Must have something to do with it.
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I've watched the Godfather films many times. Not only are they great films, but I'm still trying to fully understand what's going on, and who they're talking about. So many dark scenes and muttering about foreign names from the past, it takes a while to sink in.
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Never read a book twice or watched a film twice but agree that music is different. My son though will watch the re-runs of Top Gear on Dave ad nauseam. Think we're going to have another car buff in time...Best start saving.
:-)
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Funnily enough I was thinking of this last night - Every Which Way But Loose was on ITV4 for the 400th time - panned by the critics it was universally loved by the cinema going public. Watched it again and enjoyed it. I do watch films like that quite often agin if I surf into them. The only other ones I watch are my wartime favourites like Cruel Sea and Ice Cold in Alex....
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There are classic (in my mind) i can watch MANY times.
Zulu - Never fails to enthral and stir the emotions. I have a blue ray copy taken from the original print, the quality and cinematography is jaw dropping.
Kind Hearts & Coronets - such a delightfully wicked tale, stunningly acted never fails to reveal another small facet previously unnoticed.
I'm all right Jack. - Watch that again and suddenly Bob Crowes father is revealed!
Any manner of films can be revisited and often reveal more on further scrutiny. Its the sign of a good film.
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I went to see Gimme Shelter - the Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in 1970 - five times in three weeks when it went on release at the Odeon Leicester Square.
I suppose I've seen every Bond and Carry On film many times over, but only because they seem to be on every other week and they take no mental effort to follow.
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Zero, you still not watched Marley and Me ??
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>> Zero, you still not watched Marley and Me ??
I will blub too much
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You better believe it!!!
Although I am sure you can blame it on the draught in your eyes, or your hayfever or something...
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>> >> Zero, you still not watched Marley and Me ??
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>> I will blub too much
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Blub? I laughed like crazy when the paras blew the bejesus out of the joyriders.
Oh, wait... that was You, me and Marley.
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www.imdb.com/title/tt1704614/
It's sequel, Marley and Me, the Puppy Years has been released. It's horrendously worse than the original apparently, if that's conceivable. Straight to video.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Mon 14 Nov 11 at 22:33
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>> But I don't think I've watched a favourite film more than six or seven times,
>> and have little desire to see those films again more than once or twice.
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>> I think my listening/watching pattern is typical.
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Well it's certainly the same as mine.
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In the late 60's my crowd used to quite regularly go to see 2001 A space odyssey on a Saturday night over Leicester Sq. in the 'West end'
Reason being was that we were usually stoned on acid or pot, and that film freaked us out, man.
Also, in the not-too distant past I was addicted to (wait for it, wait for it) Papillon starring Steve McQueen, I haven't watched it though for a number of years but, I was actually thinking about it only this morning = Great film!
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I don't tire of SF films being repeated, watched Mad Max 1 more than a few times.
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Struggle to watch films more than once, can listen to music many times. Also capable of re-reading books without any problem.
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...In the late 60's my crowd used to quite regularly go to see 2001 A space odyssey on a Saturday night over Leicester Sq. in the 'West end'...
Wasn't it The Rocky Horror Picture Show which had a regular audience in a cinema near Baker Street?
The same crowd would turn up each weekend and do things such as putting up their umbrellas when it started raining in the film.
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>>Wasn't it The Rocky Horror Picture Show which had a regular audience in a cinema near Baker Street?<<
Dunno m8, I was trying to find the picture house (cinema) we used to go to over Leicester Sq. on Google maps but I expect it's changed a bit since 1969 :)
It wasn't one of the BIG ones like the Odeon etc., but anyway - it had this HUGE wide wrap around screen (cinemascope I think en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CinemaScope ) we used to sit right in the front row (god was it awesome!)
The main part of the film for us acid heads was the bit near the end (I used to call it the Light Sequence) where he exceeds 186,000 mps and was stunning on a screen like that.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 14 Nov 11 at 00:18
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...I was trying to find the picture house (cinema) we used to go to over Leicester Sq...
There were a few smaller cinemas and theatres in the side streets off Leicester Square.
Most cinema screens are curved inwards a little at the edges so the full width of the picture appears to be the same distance from the viewer
I saw the first-to-be released Star Wars film in the Odeon Leicester Square - top rate experience.
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My father was a great cinema buff. We used to get our privy (not the loo, the railway "privilege" ticket) and toddle up to the west end.
We saw "How the West Was Won", and "Cinerama Holiday" in original 3 camera, three strips of film, Cinerama format at the London Casino Cinema (now the Prince Edward Theatre) where they had the three projectors and 146 degree curved screen, 64 feet wide by 24 feet high!
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>>Cinerama format at the London Casino Cinema (now the Prince Edward Theatre)<<
London Casino Cinema was it, long time ago now + we were on shank's pony of course,
I see IMAX is the successor to Cinerama, is it comparable I wonder?
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>> Reason being was that we were usually stoned on acid or pot, and that film
>> freaked us out, man.
You're in good company. In an interview I was listening to with David Bowie, he said he did the same. All of the cinemas at the time must have been full of pot heads :)
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>>All of the cinemas at the time must have been full of pot heads :)<<
My favourite pot heads were Bill & Ben :)
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Nah, that was too Little Weed !
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For all you heavy-rock fans, Devonite hears rumours that Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath are re-uniting! - wonder if they`ll be as good 33years on!
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No. Best left in the past. Motorhead are re-gigging as well.
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>> Motorhead are re-gigging as well.
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They've never stopped.
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>> For all you heavy-rock fans, Devonite hears rumours that Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath are
>> re-uniting! - wonder if they`ll be as good 33years on!
According to B junior who likes such things Sabbath are confirmed at Download/Knebworth next June.
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>> I think my listening/watching pattern is typical.
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>> Does anyone watch a favourite film dozens of times?
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>> And why does a favourite piece of music have such lasting appeal?
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A source of some discussion in the H household. Mrs H is a musician and will play, sing or listen to music endless times.
I don't "get" music at all; it's just another bunch of odd noises to me, but I do like a film with a beginning, middle and end and I do enjoy watching favourite films again. At some point Mrs H will say dismissively, "You've seen it before". Reminding her that I like to treat films at she treats music will earn me a "tut" and a derisive toss of the head. Reminding her that one Christmas she, her sister and my eldest daughter watched "Titanic" 'til the tape snapped is asking for trouble.
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Thank god VHS was so unreliable.
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Only ones that get close to repeated viewings are the Wallace & Gromit films. The Wrong Trousers particularly. There are a few that I will watch for the umpteenth time if they are on like Blade Runner, Blues Brothers, Holy Grail, Clockwise, Pink Panther.
I think it might just be a time and attention thing. You have to sit and watch a film and they're generally 90 minutes or so. The average album is 40-45 and you can just leave it on. Somehow I think visual imagery and dialogue might be easier to remember and become familiar with than music so it becomes less interesting more quickly.
I get bored of music too. Some cds I'll listen to a lot then won't listen to them at all for ages then will do again. Just depends on what mood I'm in.
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If like me you are an insomniac with access to a good range of channels and a decent sized HD TV, you are quite often faced with a choice in the small hours of unwatchable schlock, watchable schlock you've seen before and the occasional exceptional movie. In the latter case you usually don't mind seeing it again. Thus a few days ago caught the last third of Ousmane Sembene's 'Xala' which I watched with pleasure although I have seen the movie at least three times. For anyone who can tell the difference, any film by Ousmane Sembene is worth going to great lengths to see provided you can cope with subtitles. His masterpiece so far is 'Guelwaar'.
Fortunately I do have a taste for violent, often depraved schlock. Even a bit of classy seen-before TV is OK, The Sopranos being a mainstay even on a third viewing. But movies by Luc Besson and the like too. Something last week, CIA drama called From Paris With Love, well bloodthirsty, well psychopathic.
Hellboy 2 later this week. Saw it on a plane a year or two back, excellent... I can hardly wait. The only problem is it's on at 10.15 or some time like that, when other, more discerning people might be around to make trouble. I may have to bawl and bluster to suppress Newsnight or some cultural carp.
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I ought to watch more fillums, I've got a fair amount at home. Taped, DVD or taken off the +box. Loads of the Daily Mail offers...16 films for the price of postage. They sent me sets of War, Spy thrillers and the Ealing Comedies. Got tapes of lots of gentle British stuff, Genevieve, Titfield, Hobson's Choice, all that sort of thing.
I tend to have just a few as regular repeats, The Quiet Man, Full Metal Jacket, The Blue Lamp, etc.
We have classical music on all the time, home, garage and cars. SWM likes Radio 4 and 4+ when I'm not around to supervise her..
Ted
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The former mrs w used to watch films over and over, to the point it wore out quite a decent four head sony vhs video.
Myself, I see a film, its seen. Don't usually need to see it again, but I will rewatch Bonds, Carry Ons, The Great Escape etc on tv if they are on. I impress the bin lids occasionally when I predict the next line, or when Bond will be faced with the bleeping count down timer of doom.
Like Iffy, though, I can listen to favourite music over and over again.
Last edited by: Alastairw on Sun 13 Nov 11 at 21:38
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Aural wallpaper - the mind thinks of other things while listening to the music.
Not with the good stuff, it doesn't! I think it's a question of what you get out of it. Some things - a lot of books, films, TV - are mostly about information, even if that information is what happens next. Those things can be enjoyed once and put away once you have the information.
The best art, on the other hand, isn't about the what but about the how. . We don't watch Romeo and Juliet to find out if it turns out nice in the end for the two young lovers. (It doesn't, incidentally.) Instead, we're carried along by the beauty of the language and the vibrancy and eternal relevance of the storytelling.
Nor are we surprised any more (if we ever were - even the first audience must have seen them) by the entry of the trombones in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, but it's still a thrilling moment, and we keep coming back for the same reasons as we do to Shakespeare.
There's a moment in Black Sabbath's Lady Evil where the guitar solo ends not with the riff we heard at the start but with a four-bar throwaway we won't hear again. A lesser artist would have saved it for a complete song. I know it's coming but it still makes the back of my neck prickle.
Even simpler things like radio comedy shows can be fun even if you already know the jokes. The Beests know every line of every episode of John Finnemore's priceless Cabin Pressure but we can't do them as well as the cast, so we'll happily play four in a row on a long trip.
No doubt some people get that from Lewis or Debbie Does Dallas or whatever. If so, that'll be the thing you can enjoy over and over again.
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I often think when listening to Mozart for instance (and who tires of listening to him) I have one ability that Mozart never did - I can listen to a selection of his music whenever and wherever I want, something he, I reckon, would have given his eye-teeth for.
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Beethoven would have been pleased to hear his once.
};---)
As I understand it, the reason for the exposition repeat in the first movement of most symphonies in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was to allow the audience to fix the themes in their minds so that they'd be able to follow the subsequent development section. It had largely disappeared before the advent of recording, though - presumably because symphonies got so long anyway that the need to get the audience home in time for bed had to take precedence.
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Films I never tire of seeing:
Kind hearts and Coronets
If
Lawrence of Arabia
Mary Poppins
My Fair Lady
Spagheti westerns with Clint Eastwood
Marx Brothers
The Driver
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>> The Driver
Snap. I can watch this film time after time. There is very little dialogue in it, especially from Ryan O Neal as the driver, but the tension and the weird soundtrack that runs through the film, and the cars, and Bruce Dern playing that seedy cop, and the cityscapes, well, I love it.
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I don't tend to watch films at all - the missus does and I kind of lose interest half way through them and usually find myself picking up the laptop, or paper.
But of the ones I have watched, there are a few that I have watched a few times
Schindlers List
The Mission
Dead Poets Society
Tend not to watch comedies over and over again.
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Bobby I'm so glad you said that, neither do I :)
They are far too long to be sitting doing nothing unless the film is real as in Long Way Round. or AC/DC Live in concert.
I can't read fiction either but can read any Biography even if I don't know the person.
Only proper films I can remember watching are:
Kelly's Heros (that made me laugh)
The Snowman and Lassie ( they made me cry)
The African Queen ( I'm not that old really!)
Pat
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There are of course thousands of real films with beauty and content, fit to be seen perhaps many times if you really like them.
Schlock is different, usually low on content and with impact, spectacle and false emotion replacing beauty. But at its best that too can stand more than one viewing. I like a good dash of overt irony and self-reflexivity along with the violence and depravity. Not at all rare either.
However there are various kinds of schlock, and I suspect some here of liking what I would see as the wrong sort of schlock, cosy and comfortable instead of, you know, not. No blame though.
Of course music is completely different, works every time, the buttons don't wear out nearly as quickly. It's abstract. Image is literal.
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Watching films and listening to music many times - Slidingpillar
