Dear fellow thread enthuisiasts,
Not much time for e-mail today because I have to finish all my work before
six, since a summer film festival, something which Montreal seems to have in
almost limitless supply, is screening old sci-fi silent movies with live
musical accompaniment and I feel that, as a lover of film, this is the sort
of oppurtunity that it would be wrong to miss. (Does anyone else share this
odd sense of duty or obligation to share in certain cinematic experiences
when the opportunity arises? What could be the grounds of a duty of this
kind? A film buff's duty to self, perhaps...but I digress.)
Anyway I just wanted to add that I think that Michelle's and Michael's
comments are spot on. It does seem that there are films that do excite the
imagination, even if we want to say that not all film watching experiences
are based primarily on acts of the imagination. My question for Michelle and
Michael (and others too) is what they think the fact that a film excites a
viewer's imagination might add to that viewer's film going experince in
particular. Does it make the experience more interesting? Does it enhance
our emotional responses? Does it create a more active role for the viewer?
Now, it seems that we might be tempted to quickly answer yes, yes, yes to
these questions. My only worry is that we might also find that an
imagination that is too active during our film going experience actually
detracts (or perhaps I should simply say distracts) from our experience of
the film itself (an experience we may truly value, especially if we think we
can share it with others). If this is so, maybe we should say that the
benefits of a film that excites the human imagination are largely felt after
the credits roll, when we are left alone with our thoughts once more and are
giving the chance to muse over and sense our reactions to the experience we
have just shared.
All the best, and thank you again for everyone's interest,
Karen Bardsley
Montreal, Canada
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