First Film Favourite Film

[paulofilmo]

I'm curious to know how common this is:

The first film watched from an auteur often goes unsurpassed.

I've seen about half of Bergman's output, but have never ranked a film higher than my introduction, Scenes From A Marriage. It's the same story with Satyajit Ray, Charlie Chaplin, Malick, Welles, Leigh, etc, etc.

It's as if I'm taken by their exotic style in the first instance, but this exoticism is lost--the auteur hymen torn for eternity.

Can we be moved only by the unexpected?


I'll follow-up with the catalyst to this thread. TL;DR, but I like the working.

[paulofilmo]

Radiolab did a fascinating segment on the potential neurological causes and implications of the "Rite of Spring" incident in their "Musical Language" episode.

"27 years after Stravinsky had caused a violent, bloody riot, he was negotiating with Mickey Mouse over the rights to use his music in Fantasia."

"The Rite of Spring is perfect evidence of the brain's astonishing plasticity"

"Neurons learn.. and they learn fast
because they're actually part of a larger network of brain cells with a very technical name--called the corticofugal network--and what this network does is it's always sort of monitoring, listening to the sounds that are coming into the brain and tuning those neurons to better hear those sounds."

"So our neurons literally adjust. Literally. We're talking the biochemical engineering sense. So, if on that first night you just hear The Rite as pure noise all-the-way-through from beginning to end; if you're listening, if you're letting your corticofugal network do its job, it can actually re-sculpt your brain and let you hear the patterns better as the symphony evolves."

"Is it fair to say that this is a sort of tug-of-war--that an artist comes, creates something that is new, and unpredictable, and strange, and maybe noise-ish at first hearing--and the artist is thrilled to be new in that way, and then the brain ruins it all--slowly but surely--by making it familiar?

"Well the brain abhors the new. The brain constantly wants to assimilate every experience we've had into every other experience. And, I think Stravinsky realised it was the purpose of the artist to challenge the brain--to break the brain out of its conservative cycle."

[prowler]

yeah it's all about giving the brain information that's new enough to be unpredictable, yet familiar enough to be readily assimilated. the most immediate occurrence of this is in music (sound being far less redundant than visual input) - a pretty good book about this is called sweet anticipation.

but yep, i think this can also be extrapolated for filmmaking style anticipation. the first film from a certain director, while not necessarily my favourite, usually ends up holding a special place. and the more films you see from that director, the more context you have for that first one, which also adds some value i guess.

[MmzHrrdb]

I can think of many examples where my first film from a director wasn't my favourite from them. From my ten favourite directors only three of them do I have my first as my favourite (The New World, Spirited Away and The Green Ray).

Some of the cases where my favourite film of a director is my first one I see is because I tend to start watching a director's work with what is critically lauded as their best film.

[tef]

I've never noticed an overabundance of this in my life.

[Anomaly]

Some of the cases where my favourite film of a director is my first one I see is because I tend to start watching a director's work with what is critically lauded as their best film.

This is what happens to me too. Some of my favorites are the ones I saw first (i.e. Aguirre, 2001) but in other cases they're not (i.e. Vertigo, Crimes and Misdemeanors). I've considered intentionally not starting off with the best reviewed film of a director before, simply so it wouldn't seem downhill from the first experience.

[MmzHrrdb]

I've never noticed an overabundance of this in my life.

Same here. In fact, off the top of my head I can't think of very many cases at all where the first film I saw by a director is my favorite.

[sebby]

the auteur hymen torn for eternity.

[Stewball]

We grow and develop and change. I suspect even maestros do so as well, but also I suspect, like prowler, the first one often holds a special place--if not the first.

[paulofilmo]

I'm not sure I can relate to 'a special place'. There's the appeal of the sense-datum being significant enough to create a kind of memory checkpoint, but it would be inaccurate for me to distance it in that way--as though the films were orbiting around me. The rating reflects a shock; one of being changed or understood by a film. A personal a priori milestone.

'giving the brain information that's new enough to be unpredictable, yet familiar enough to be readily assimilated'

Also sounds like learning. I wonder if there's a spectrum of experience from education to the madness induced by The Rite of Spring--and somewhere in between is the passionate equilibrium of frisson married epiphany. But once the style has been assimilated, the ability to then anticipate negates frisson, and the expectation of dissociation (escapism) negates the ability to do so.