Spontaneous Musings

I started writing this as an updated severely edited version of my review of The Prestige in the post below. Instead decided it would make more sense to do it separately. Because this is not about the film The Prestige but rather about something I've recently figured out while railing at the universe, which I've decided for whatever reason to write about. Maybe the reason I'm writing it out is much the same reason Marcel Proust wrote five paragraphs on steeples to get it out of my mind and make sense of it. What boggles my mind is why the heck I want anyone else to see it and why I can only seem to type it out so that they will. That inclination feels a tad insane to me, and just a little exhibitionist.

Yesterday, after months of anticipation I took off and saw the film The Prestige - which contained everything I wanted in a movie at this particular point in time. I went by myself and refused to read reviews ahead of time, for a very good reason - lately I've discovered that what I want from a movie or TV show or even a book is in direct opposition from what many tv/movie and book critics want. Not all though. Found a really good review in Newsweek by a professional film critic, David Ansen that more or less sums up what I adored about the movie, how I watched it, why I can't stop playing with it in my head - without giving all its secrets away:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15338103/site/newsweek/

By the way, The Prestige has gotten 77 positive reviews and 28 negative ones. Proving something I keep getting reminded of, that like it or not as the internet slogan goes our mileage will may vary (or YMMV - your mileage may will vary). Human beings think differently for biological, environmental, educational, relationship-nurture, and other reasons I can't come up with at the moment. For me, the movie in a way was about that - how and why people think differently and how that different thought process can cause conflict. I'm well aware that not everyone who sees the film will see that aspect of it.

It occurs to me that we see different things when we look at something, even something as absurdly simple as a flower. A botantist for example may see where the flower came from, how it is clearly a hyrbid, and think about its history - it's filla. Which flowers or breeds of flowers it descended from, how it pollinates. A flower judge, someone who breeds flowers for a living - may look at it and think this flower doesn't work, the stem is wrong, the petals are off-color, the head is too big or they may think, it's too similar to so many breeds, easy and unworthy of their time, or depending on the flower - that it is brilliant, rare, new breed of color, and the most perfect flower they've seen. While the child, a little girl, might think flower pretty, Mommy will like it and I'll give it to her for her birthday.

But it isn't just education or knowledge of something that affects our perspective, it is emotion, what we are going through at this moment in time, even how big we are or what our bodies look like.

Another play on perspective is well - when I saw The Prestige, my first reaction was how short Christian Bale seemed to be in the movie. I didn't realize he was such a small man. Tiny almost. I think he's probably 5'8, which is far from tiny but next to someone who is 6'3, 5'8 seems short. I come home, hop on the net, find someone else who saw the same flick and the first thing that throws me is their comment about how huge Hugh Jackman is. A regular giant. That took me by surprise. My immediate reaction was - no he's not. I think He's only 6'3. Same height as my Dad. My brother's taller at 6'5. And of course I'm 5'11 and 1/2. To me 6 ft isn't that big, I'm almost 6 ft.

See how differently two people can react to a movie, just based on how tall or short an actor looks? The magician relies on "point of view" to create a magic trick, just as filmmaker does, or even a writer of a mystery - to fool and mislead the reader. For the magician - it might be a pretty assistant - which will of course only distract the members of the audience who are interested in pretty assistants, those who aren't won't care. Which is why modern magicians don't rely on them as much. Once you switch point of views - see the trick from the magician's perspective, the answer seems so simple. It makes perfect sense. Oh, I know why they did that now. Going back to the flower -the little girl is not going to understand why the flower judge hated the flower until she becomes a flower judge, until she walks in that person's shoes. Once she does. Her perspective of the flower will change. She may not like it any more. Same thing can happen with a movie - you leave the theater happy, you loved the film, then you read a review that is negative, pokes fun at it, shows you all its flaws, you feel dumb for loving the film - and have to decide do you change your opinion about the film based on the review or shrug the review off entirely. Decide to stop reading the reviewer. I have to admit while the later is tempting, I tend to think about the review, decide if I agree, if I don't, shrug it off as someone else's opinion. Ie. Our Mileage Differs. And let it go. Or at least that's the plan. The other one is to avoid negative reviews of things we love, which to be honest makes life much simpler and easier to deal with. The other possibility is to attempt to change the critic's mind...

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a popular book entitled Blink about how people make judgements in a blink of an eye and how it can often be impossible to change their minds. Not always of course. But people are stubborn and if their opinion is grounded in something deeply personal and meaningful to them - you are bound to alienate the person with the attempt. According to Gladwell most if not all of our judgementsdecisions are based on assumptions, some correct, some not - all based on that person's individual makeup. In short they are personal to us. What I think people often forget is it is more than likely someone else will see the exact same thing we did and come up with a completely different explaination for it. [**As an aside, it occurs to me re-reading this that someone might think that I'm proposing writing a movie review or stating an opinion is the same as a snap-judgement. I didn't intend to. Of course they are different. I am to a degree just comparing them. If that makes sense. This is more or less a brain-dump post, me figuring out something.]

Have you ever had a frustrating argument with someone online or offline, maybe with a brother or sister or spouse about a shared memory? They'll insist it happened like that. And you'll insist no, it happened like this. To the point in which you've stopped speaking for two weeks? I remember my Grandmother used to keep a journal because of my Grandfather's tendency to misremember things. The question is - did he? Or did they just experience what happened differently? Is it possible that our minds process reality differently from someone else?

I've had four arguments in the last two-three weeks all regarding point of view. The arguments in of themselves are not that important and I really don't want to discuss them at length. Except to say in each, both people were right. And both were wrong. Depending on whose point of view you happened to be in. And people tend to be pretty passionate about how they experience reality. Some of the best science-fiction and mystery novels are about how easy it is for reality to bend and change depending on the angle we are viewing it from. The film Being John Malkovich is in a way about reality bending. Jumping into someone else's head and experiencing their reality. It is also about the desire to bend their reality to fit your own, to make them think and see the world the way you do. You are John Malkovich - why don't you go to bed with that girl? Or fund a cool puppetry project? I don't understand why you are just sitting there eating a meal in a low rent restaurant that I'd never go into.

A few weeks back I read something that pissed me off royally. From my point of view and the limited knowledge I had, it came across as a slap in the face. But when the message was explained to me and I was provided additional information - my point of view was flipped around, I discovered it was meant as a compliment. How can a compliment come across as a slap in the face? Ah.

A better question might be why is it that some people adored Twin Peaks and others thought it was obviously a self-indulgent Fruedian nightmare without much point? Or some people loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer, anayzed it, wrote lengthy books on it, while other's consider it a silly teen show? Or why do 77 critics love the Prestige yet 28 thought it a dull mildly entertaining caper with unlikeable characters? Why does a botantist appreciate the structure of a new flower and a flower judge see it as an ugly hybrid? Or, more importantly, why does one group of people see Ronald Regan as the best US President, and another the worst? In each of these scenarios, I'd like to point out that both parties believe with an emotional certainity akin to religious fervor that they are "right", you can't change their minds. Unless of course you do what my Grandmother did and point to a journal entry and say, see - that proves your assumption to be in error. But how you do it is important. People don't like to be embarrassed or proven wrong, when they've grabbed hold of an idea, when they've invested time and emotion in it. And when others have supported their view.

In some cases it doesn't really matter. Does it matter that I adore Studio 60 and you prefer Friday Night Lights or CSI Miami? Not a whit. Just TV shows. Does it matter that I enjoyed The Prestige and seeing it made me happy and gave me a bit of an epithany, while all you saw was a mildly entertaining magic trick movie with unlikeable characters? Hardly. But...

Clint Eastwood has just done something rather interesting. He has directed and filmed two movies. They are about the same historical event. A bloody violent event. A turning point in the US war with Japan in World War II. The films are about IWO JIMA - a small island in the Pacific that was equivalent in importance to the US landing on the Normandy Coast. We remember Iwo Jima because of a famous picture of six man pushing up a flag on a Mountain top. What we don't remember is how many lives were lost. 6,000 Americans and 21,000 Japanese in 36 days of fighting.

Instead of directing and filming just one film about this event, Eastwood has done two. From two different perspectives. The first is called Flags of Our Fathers and this deals with the lives of three of the survivors of Iwo Jima - three of the men who raised that Flag, before, during, and after the War. The second film, which won't air until February, is called Letter's from Iwo Jima and it is told from the Japanese perspective with English subtitles.

Why?

Because, he felt the need to honor both, to explore both points of view, otherwise the story is incomplete. And by experiencing both points of view - we can perhaps understand a little more about war and why we do it. WWII is an interesting topic to do it with - because WWII is amongst the few wars in which people often percieve as clearly good guys vs. bad buys. Of course nothing is ever that clearly delineated in war. It reminds me of a comment Joss Whedon of all people made, sort of off-the-cuff, to the actor Seth Green in a television commentatory that continues to haunt me - it was something along the line of, and my memory no doubt being my memory has embellished it, "the thing to remember when writing villians is in their head they are the hero not the villian, not the bad guy. It's a point of view thing really. In all our heads, regardless of who we are, we play the lead role, we are the hero of the piece. That's what interests me. And why I read or watch just about everything Whedon writes. Because it also fascinates me and he clearly gets the importance of point of view.

When I watch or read a book or movie or TV show that has multiple characters and more than one point of view, often the story will change when I go inside each character. A good writer can make me empathsize with a particular point of view. I'll change my mind about a certain character when I see them from another angle, another perspective.

When I read movie critics, I'll often think - did you see the same film I did? An example - many critics did not like the film Little Miss Sunshine - scoffed that its characters were stereotypes and not real to them, they did not believe in those characters. While I did believe in them, and felt they were very real. Sometimes I'll hunt for critics who tend to like the same things I do and most often agree with, I'll read their reviews - and trust their take on it. Taking with a grain of salt the ones that seem to like things I don't and do not share my take.

Reading reviews are hard - some people, myself included, often put more of themselves into the review than the movie. So you can't really tell from reading the review whether or not you'll like it. Same with books. What if you just don't share the same tastes or worldview as this person? What if your tastes tend to be more conservative? Or more liberal? There's so many factors to take into consideration. Which is why I've more or less given up on reading reviews except for horror films but that's a whole other post. Oh I still read them. I'll often rail at them in my head. But I don't take them seriously and no longer use what someone else thinks of a book or movie or tv show as an indicator on whether or not I'll enjoy it - in short I take reviews with a grain of salt and consider the source. I presume people more or less do the same with mine. I think it's all we can do since the odds aren't exactly in our favor that someone will like the same things we do. Our mileage is bound to differ.