How to Watch a Movie
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 1101875399
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From one of the most admired critics of our time, brilliant insights into the act of watching movies and an enlightening discussion about how to derive more from any film experience.
Since first publishing his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film in 1975 (recently released in its sixth edition), David Thomson has been one of our most provocative authorities on all things cinema. Now he offers his most inventive exploration of the medium yet: guiding us through each element of the viewing experience, considering the significance of everything from what we see and hear on-screen—actors, shots, cuts, dialogue, music—to the specifics of how, where, and with whom we do the viewing.
With customary candor and wit, Thomson delivers keen analyses of a range of films from classics such as Psycho and Citizen Kane to contemporary fare such as 12 Years a Slave and All Is Lost, revealing how to more deeply appreciate both the artistry and (yes) manipulation of film, and how watching movies approaches something like watching life itself.
Discerning, funny, and utterly unique, How to Watch a Movie is a welcome twist on a classic proverb: Give a movie fan a film, she’ll be entertained for an hour or two; teach a movie fan to watch, his experience will be enriched forever.
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new daughter-like wife (Grace Kelly) to come to his aid. But virtue would be rewarded—though it was striking and novel in 1952 when the heroic sheriff told his wretched town to look after itself, and he threw his star in the dust. (In Touch of Evil, the corrupt sheriff also turned in his badge.) High Noon and Intolerance are made with great skill, and the people on view are appealing. Still, the more a film relies on pure suspense the less likely it is to hold an audience for long. A few years
unleashed a craze for wardrobe malfunctions, boobs and butts “we” love, and archaic but intrusive pinup galleries from a dark, depressing age. Our commercials still employ iconography, attitudes, and models that sustain a mythology of sexual attractiveness or beauty being vital to our lifeblood of purchase. We have never been happy with this state of affairs, and by the 1960s some movies had grasped that as a subject. In Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), Thomas (David Hemmings) is a
synapse will be the motif of the film in which the woman speaks of loving Hiroshima and Nevers. Once that link is established, Hiroshima Mon Amour can move back and forth in time without awkwardness or effort. Once upon a time, the flashback was like a found object, a vital cache of letters or information, an answer in the mystery of story, a tidy package of life and action introduced for its explanatory value. But in Hiroshima Mon Amour the past is always there, untidy, sprawling, poetic,
fear that lives in old motels at night? Is it another “once upon a time”? That last question is relevant because music goes all through the film, and covers several different characters, or scenes, where no one is present. Is the music even akin to a narrative tone, like the rhythm in a prose narrative? When Goldsmith’s music starts up on Chinatown, before a character has appeared, let alone spoken, does it not represent the mood and sadness of the story to come, a flavor of Los Angeles in 1937,
time. But when so many possibilities exist, then maybe marriage and love itself come to be less urgent or convincing. If we lament attention deficit disorder in our children, we should admit the dissolution of attention (or watching) in our own technologies. If that sounds too general, think of the agencies—from individuals and businesses to governments and ideologies—that would prefer us not to attend with too much critical concentration, but let the passing spectacle swim by without challenge.
