The other day, Alex published another one of his brilliant lists on ’15 Movies that demand repeat viewings’. After going through his list, I started thinking about movies that would make my list if I made such a list. Anyways I did not have anything specific in mind to write and it has been a while since I stole one of his ideas for a post. But when I actually sat myself down, I realised that despite my dubious re-watch history, I have too many options if I decide to include movies that just get better as you watch them again and again. So I decided to use some filter to contain myself and put my own spin on it. What I came up with is movies that I did not necessarily liked, for various reasons, the first time I saw them or maybe even did not understand, as it did happen in few cases below, but went head over heels the next time I sat my butt down to watch them. It’s funny how that happens sometimes. Here are 5 such occasions:
8½(1963): Technically, I am not sure if this counts because my re-watch was on the very next day. Fellini’s masterpiece gave me a headache first time I saw it. I had no idea why was I supposed to be interested in this guy who is clearly not interested in what he is doing. And top of that, he is being a jerk. Add to it that most of what I was watching on-screen didn’t make a lick of sense to me. Where the hell did that dream sequence come from? What’s that supposed to mean? I was almost ready to give up on it but that final scene made some impression on me. If nothing, it made me think and I kept on thinking for a long time. More I thought about it, whole movie started to make more sense to me. Out of nowhere, I was justifying everything that I thought as senseless few minutes ago. I wrestled with myself quite a lot that day with two polar opposite reactions I was having. One telling me it's too pretentious, it is shooting for the stars but ends up in a roadside ditch; other one saying it's beautiful, it's poetic, you just haven't thought enough on it. Only thing I could do to draw some conclusion from this was to watch it again. I did exactly that the very next day and this time, absolutely loved it from very first scene. It was like I am watching a completely different movie from yesterday. Everything was making sense, his action, intentions; I was even reading between the lines. Everything was there for me to see but somehow I had missed it the day before or chose not to see it. If you ask me now, I will say that 8½ is as great as everyone has made you believe.
The Godfather(1972): Before anyone goes on lamenting my inclusion of 1972 classic which is widely regarded as one of the best films made ever, let me make it very clear that it is one of my Top 10 movies of all time. However it wasn’t always the case. First time I saw The Godfather was sometime in 1999-00. We just had a new PC at home and my older brother bought this on CD. When I put this on short while after, I had no idea what it was about. I had no idea who Mario Puzo was, who Marlon Brando was or for that matter, even who Al Pacino was. My cinefile days were nowhere near the horizon then. I had trouble understanding Brando’s dialog and to be honest, it really bored me. I don’t think I even made through the opening wedding sequence. Fast forward to 4 years later, 2003 Summer when I was waiting for my college to start and spent most of it reading a bunch of books from a library nearby, 50 to be exact. One of them was Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Off course, I loved it. How can anyone not? But I still had that first impression of movie somewhere in the back of my mind since I took my time to get back to the movie despite loving the book and knowing we have it in our collection. But when I eventually did, I was just taken by it as much as I was by the book. To this day, along with To Kill a Mockingbird(1962) and Lord of the Rings Trilogy, I site it as one of the best adaptations of book and probably always will.
Fargo(1996): Of all the movies on this list, Fargo is the only one that I did see from start and finish for the first time and didn’t like. There are two that I never finished the first time and other two that I did finish, I re-watched them the very next day and this time, loved them. My impression of Fargo did not change until very recently. So in a way, this is the only legitimate entry and all the other four are cheats. Whatever! It really didn’t work for me the first time though. It was supposed to be one of the best movies of that decade or something and I was having a very cold reaction to it which is kind of ironic, given all the snow in it. I remember talking to many of my friends, online as well as in person, who also thought my indifference strange. About six months ago, one weekend, I saw it again on TV just to make sure if I still hold my ground and once more, my reaction surprised me. This time everything worked like a charm. All the “Oh, Yeah”s which quite frankly are just far too many, all the humor and more importantly underlying creepiness of the whole situation. Everything! Margo Gundersan is the Man!! and Roger Deakins. Wow! I often wonder why I did not like it the first time? what changed? In all the other cases here, I have some clear cut reason for this change of heart and only thing I have come up with is probably I saw it very early in my Coen Brother's education to really understand all the dark humor in it. I am pretty sure I did not even know any of William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi or Pater Stormare then. Better late than never, I guess.
The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie(1972): Now my story of Discreet Charm is very similar to that of 8½. I had recently seen my first Bunuel, That Obscure Object of Desire(1977) and though I had certain reservations against it, I liked it enough to seek out some other titles Bunuel did. One that came into discussion quite often was The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie. I found it in our college library and gave it a go. One thing I didn’t know about the structure of the movie before watching it, was the episodic nature of it. The first time I saw it, this structure turned out to be a big distraction. For those who haven’t seen it, there is one scene of six main characters walking on a street, casually talking to each other that appears again and again(picture above). What happens between them is one story and we have five or six of such stories. We have same six characters in all the stories but all the individual stories aren’t necessarily connected or are in any sequence and watching it without knowing they aren’t gets really frustrating. That’s exactly what happened to me. I spent most of my time trying to connect them, make sense of characters behaving like they have dementia and that one scene again and again didn’t really help either. But then I read somewhere about this and when I saw it again the next day before returning it to the library, it really hit me. Incisive nature with which Bunuel attacks hypocrite nature of various factions of society is at its peak in Viridiana(1961) but Discreet Charm really isn’t that far behind.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy(2001-03): Yup. Lord of the Rings makes this list.This might come as a shock to many people, especially those who know how passionate I am about them now. Basically, LOTR is the movie I have seen the most; around 20 times and I am not even kidding. On top of that, I never watch one movie; it’s always three movies together and I have never seen theatrical version, it has always been extended version which as a whole clocks at around 11 hours. So if we do the math, I have spent about 9 whole days of my life watching this trilogy. And still the first time I saw it aka only time I saw theatrical version, I didn’t even finish Fellowship; hell, I didn’t even reach Rivendell. It was summer of 2003. I was with some of my friends and we were going to spend a night at Friend's place to leave super early next day for a two day hiking trip. Just like The Godfather, we gave it a go without any of us properly initialized to it, none of us was even particularly interested in it. I remember going as far as Saruman raising his army without any sense of whatever happening on the screen. Then either I dozed off or we turned it off completely and just went to sleep, never to return to it until 2006. 2006 Fall was when I read the book and I still believe that majority of my appreciation for films comes from the immense respect I have for the book. Immediately after, I borrowed extended edition from a friend which if I am not wrong was a pack of 10 CDs. And the love story began…It really is funny how that happens sometimes, isn't it? How about you? Do you have a movie you hated at first but somehow love it by now? Let me know in the comments.
