My Relationship with Film

My Relationship with Film

Active spectatorship is the idea that everyone who watches a film is an individual, and has their own thoughts and ideas about the film they are watching. An active spectator is someone who won’t just watch the films they are told to watch and led to believe are for them by a marketing team, but will actively seek out new films to watch and go against the grain sometimes to find a new genre or style to watch. On the other hand there is passive spectatorship, which is basically the antithesis to active spectatorship. A passive spectator is someone who will just sit and watch a film and not question anything or have their own thoughts about it. Some filmmakers will try and make an audience into one or the other kind of spectator, a famous quote from Quentin Tarantino says that ‘If a million people see my movie, I hope they see a million different movies’, an obvious reference to the fact that he tries to make his films different to each person watching. In the classic example of Pulp Fiction, he chooses to break up the narrative and make the film confusing and hard to watch, so that each person who watches it will think and feel a different way after the film is done.

There are many different pleasures to be gained from watching films, not the least of which is escapism. People use a film or book or game to escape their own life and enter a new world. A great example would be the film Avatar, when, after watching, people were leaving the theatres crying and feeling suicidal because they would never be able to live in a world as beautiful as Pandora, the world depicted in the film. Some people will watch a film to escape from the realities of their own life, as they feel it may be better to live in a beautiful lie, a film, rather than an ugly truth, their life. Another reason people might watch film is to substitute it for real relationships, as in some people may go see a rom-com because they are single, and would rather see other fiction people have a working relationship than try to seek out their own. Some people may watch foreign films to learn more about a particular part of the world, such as in the film City of God, set in the Brazilian slums, that showcases how hard a life people their live. A finally reason people may watch films is because of their personal identity, such as stoner films like Pineapple Express or the Harold and Kumar series. People who identify with a particular group will be drawn more to films that fit them in a personal way such as these.

 

Films can have a very obvious effect on fans, but fans can also have a very powerful effect on the films too, as is the case in fandoms. A fandom is where a group of people share the same views on a particular thing and can group together to share their ideas and thoughts with each other. An obvious example is the fandom of Star Wars or Star Trek. The fans continuing love for the films has resulted in endless spinoffs and sequels in both cases. Some fans have even started to get into film production and have started to reference the things they are a fan of in their own films. An example would J.J Abrams who is a self-professed fan of Star Wars and has now made his own Star Wars film.

Media literacy of the viewer is an important part of reading and interacting with film, but not everyone does it fully. If someone is literate about films and the media as a whole because they watch interviews or the special features of a DVD then they will have a better understanding of how the industry works and the way a film tries to get at a particular audience or the way a work of film tries to speak to a particular group. An example would be the film Kidulthood, which is seen by many as a commentary on the slums of London and how people there live, but some people also see it as using a stereotype being used to sell more tickets. This can also tie into intertextuality in using references to other media, whether on purpose or by accident. Some films do it on purpose by either parodying a source material, as in the case of parody films like the Scary Movie series or other parody films like Vampires Suck or Epic Movie. All of these films reference other forms of media and parody it and make them humorous. An example of a parody film directly referencing another film would be in Scary Movie 3, in which it copies a scene from the film The Ring, and turns it into a comedy scene rather than a horror. This is good as only people who know about or have seen The Ring will get the reference and the joke, while to everyone else it is just a joke scene. Sometimes a film can be made as a standalone thing but is so similar to a previously existing text that people will say it copied or stole from the original.

One main point about the way people interact with film is the effect it can have on people. The main point people bring is violence in film causing violence in the real world in the case of copycat violence. An example of this would be the case of the film Old Boy causing violence in the real world. A member of an American college killed a number of people and evidence was found that he was copying this film, but evidence was also found that he wasn’t mentally stable to begin with. Another reason people are afraid of film is desensitisation. If you see lots of blood in films then you are less likely to be affected by it in the real world, leading to desensitisation. The real concern for people is children having their minds and lives changed due to seeing modern films. Can a child become violent because they have seen violence in film and in cartoons? Evidence points to both yes and no.

Another huge part of an audiences relationship with films is the marketing and merchandising. When a film comes out there are many ways a producer can make money from it, and not just from ticket sales. It can be from a great many things, like the soundtrack being sold separately, the film being released on multiple different formats, such as DVD, Blu-ray, download or stream, there can be children’s toys made of the characters in a film if it is aimed at people of that age, and many more. All of these different things will add up to the film getting a good reception or a bad reception. Some of these things can be seen as post viewing experiences, like the soundtrack being purchasable after the film’s release, this is so that people can experience a separate part of the film after they have seen the film as a whole. There are also pre viewing experiences, and these are things like teasers, trailers and posters. All of these have a massive effect on how an audience will see the film when it comes out. If a trailer leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths after being seen, then people will be less likely to go and the see the film when it comes out. Trailers are the best way to build up hype for a film’s release, so if they aren’t done well nobody will want to see the film, but it also works the other way, if a trailer looks amazing it can trick people into seeing a bad film. A great example of this would be Prometheus, which built up an immense amount of hype, being a prequel to one of the best sci-fi series of all time, and having a great cast and great pacing in the trailer, but when the film came out, a great many people said it was a bad film, so even the trailers didn’t help it too much. All of these things must be considered when creating a pre-viewing experience for a film.

Another point would be preferred readings of films. This is where the director or writer have an idea or point they want to get across through the film. A great example of this would be the film Avatar. Director James Cameron made the point of colonisation and capitalism being bad, taking from an indigenous race and not giving back. Throughout the film we see how the humans only want to get friendly with the Na’vi so they can get to the resource they want easier. We also see how the Na’vi are a friendly nature loving race who don’t like violence against others, but are forced to fight when the military won’t leave their planet. This can be linked to how the whites went over to the Americas and took direct control of the land and the people there and just like in real life, the humans arrive on Pandora and immediately try to take over from the indigenous population. This can also be linked to how capitalism still does this in the real world, entering third world countries and taking without thinking and not giving back, with mining and deforestation.