"What other girls? There are no other girls. They don't exist."
Do they or don't they? Will they or won't they....
One of the best things about doing this blog is that it forces me to watch the movies at least a second time. I say forces because prior to this I adamantly refused to watch films multiple times. My reasoning was two fold. One, there are so many films I want to to see and will never have time for, secondly I felt the films would not impact me as powerfully upon second viewing and I feared this would diminish the overall experience. (The few exceptions to this were "Apocalypse Now," " Eyes of Laura Mars" and "Local Hero." for reasons I can write about at another point.) Through this blog I have come to realize just how important re-watching a film that I am intrigued by can be. Most often the experience becomes far more powerful, not less. Such was the case for me in re-watching 'Spiral'.
'Spiral' as I said in the blurb, is a creepy little thriller that I felt was deserving of attention. Not my usual genre of choice, to put it mildly. I knew that it would be almost as risky as 'Feed' as far as others wondering why the heck I would choose it when there are so many good movies out there. While I watched 'Spiral' again with a friend who had not yet seen it I noticed that I was watching in a very different way. It felt as if I was the film maker instead of a viewer and that my friend was the test audience for MY film. Seeing it through his eyes my mind looked for all the possible flaws, cringing inwardly when I perceived them and cheering at the moments of genius. I was acutely aware of his reactions, heard every sigh and groan of disbelief . I could clearly sense the point at which he began to suspend his disbelief and get drawn in. After it was over we talked about 'Spiral' for at least two hours, re-watching specific scenes, listening to the commentary etc. The more we talked the more interesting the film became to both of us.
In this give and take, the questions raised and the theories posited, I find many new things that I never would have caught or understood. There is the original viewing, the dissecting , the reviewing, the blog dialogue with you guys, and now with DVDS insights into the process itself, the people who created it, their concepts versus my reactions. There are so many angles from which to view a film and each of these angles, each of these phases is becoming equally important to me, equally stimulating and exciting. I loved films before I began this blog and now I am becoming enamored.
