by
Eric Barker
A friend of mine who regularly waxes philosophical in film discussions likes to ask “What, exactly, are people looking at when they watch a movie?” That is, he’s curious about where a person’s concentration lands, moment-to-moment, as a film is unfolding: what part of the theater or TV screen they are looking at now, and now, and now again, as cinema’s complex array of imagery and sound flows over, around and at them.
I like my friend’s question a lot, for several reasons. First, it says to me that he’s fully engaged himself when he watches movies; they aren’t just a distraction for him. Second, as a screenwriter and inveterate moviegoer myself, I’ve often wondered the same thing, and I know for a fact that the people who make the movies are in constant dialogue with the question. Filmmakers of all stripes, from producers to editors to script readers would love to know the definitive answer, or at least the median answer, to my friend’s musings, so they could create more sure things for the cineplex, even in the arena of so-called independent film. Making a movie is an expensive proposition, period. Any clue about how it might be made more profitable, or at the very least less risky, would be greatly appreciated.
But for my friend and me, the curiosity is less mercenary (most days): in retrospect I can always tell you where my mind was focused during a particular movie, or during the most memorable scenes; I know how a particular film made me think or feel as I was watching it, and after. But I don’t know how it affected the woman or man sitting ten rows back, or the couple seeing it for the first time in their living room a few months later, their kids finally tucked in and just a couple of hours, if that, to relax.
I wonder about these things because, often when I talk to people about a given movie, it feels as if they didn’t see the same one I did, especially if we disagree. This is a sensation I’m sure everyone has had. People whose opinions baffle me no doubt feel the same way about my likes and dislikes – although they often frame it differently, as when they insist that I didn’t get what a film was really doing or “saying” – and in a very real sense we’re all correct: They didn’t see the same movie as me, nor did I see the same one as them. Taken frame-by-frame, the film itself doesn’t change, it is what it is. But as viewers we change the film as we are watching it, and in our memories of it afterward, and we change it again with every subsequent viewing.
