Can you tell someone's personality through the films they enjoy?
First off, they’re not kimono’s. Second, I think you need to be a bit more clear in what you’re trying to advance. You sort of contradict yourself in the first two lines.
In any case, I’m not so sure I agree about the personality characterisation. The films are quite different, but are by the same director and therefore quite similar at the same time.
I believe that someone more sensitive or prone to romanticism would find In the Mood for Love the better film, while those with a little more resiliency and a pension for eroticism might enjoy Chungking Express more.
I don’t really like this personality dichotemy. It’s quite possible to be both and to get both those qualities from both films. I’m just saying that things are a bit more complicated than that. In a general sense, sure why not? In the Mood for Love is certainly a bit “heavier” than Chungking Express both in photography and style (as you mentioned) so I suppose they may appeal to different types of people to a limited degree.
As for myself, I like both…
More generally, yes, you can tell the personality of a person by the types of movies they enjoy. It’s a bit sketchy though. It’s like reading into someone’s personality by what kind of literature they enjoy or what kind of car they drive. It works, but only kind of. I’d say movie choices give insight into a person, but only after having more or less known them. You can’t easily profile someone by their movie choices. Movies are complex, and appeal to people at many different levels. You have to consider everything about the person, not just one aspect.
Sheez. I was always under the impression that they were kimonos (because her husband worked in Japan, y’know?)
Yeah, I know that I contradicted myself, it was a little bit difficult getting off what I was trying to say… and I agree that you can have both qualities and still enjoy both films, but I was saying which one you enjoy more. I liked both as well, but I felt that In the Mood for Love was the superior film, but I’ve seen others who say different. I’m going based off my own personality and preferences with this, so it’s most likely incorrect.
She wears a Kimono perhaps in the film, I don’t really remember. In any case, what she’s wearing in that image is really just a dress…
I hated both his films In the Mood for Love & 2046. Sappy, romantic non sense. Pretty cool visual style though. Chungking Express seemed more interesting, but what little I saw had no subtitles :(. I know a lot of people like Wong Kar Wai and I think he’s a good film maker, I just can’t stand how pathetically shallow and superficial his films are.
I know a lot of people like Wong Kar Wai and I think he’s a good film maker, I just can’t stand how pathetically shallow and superficial his films are.
This is true.
Shallow and superficial to some maybe but I feel the emotions Wong Kar-Wai evokes throughout In the Mood for Love in particular are extremely poignant.
Also YES you can tell someones personality and I would add intelligence level by the films they enjoy. I work at Blockbuster and I see movie watchers from all walks of life.
I found In the Mood for Love painful to watch due to the pitifully conservative values of the two main characters. It was like watching two people slowly suffocate in a shallow pool of water. Magnificent on many fronts, but it was like waterboarding for me. Chunking Express is nice and playful and reminded me of many of the films of the Czech New Wave (and both stories were short enough to fit as one typically short Czech film each). I think they’re enormously different films, so I don’t see the comparison too clearly.
In terms of a person’s film taste indicating their personality, I think this is true to some degree. For example: People who love horror films above all else are crazy and you should stay as far away from them as possible. I’m standing by this one.
“Also YES you can tell someones personality and I would add intelligence level by the films they enjoy. I work at Blockbuster and I see movie watchers from all walks of life.”
I think that’s a dangerous assumption to make even if you’re talking about hardcore cinephiles. Outside of serious film enthusiasts, I have to say the idea doesn’t hold up. There are plenty of intelligent, even brilliant people who read, write about or teach the most complex and difficult literature or who have no strong interest in the film or the arts who are very personable and thoughtful.
Many esteemed literary experts might love nonsense like Avatar or Deuce Bigelow because they don’t take film seriously as a form of expression. This may be ignorance on their part in this one area but it shouldn’t cause you to form a judgement about their whole personality.
I’ve said before that their is no film canon and many have disagreed but what is undeniable is that while film "experts’ are almost unanimously aware of the importance, fallacious or not, of the literary canon, literary experts may not really believe there’s any difference between Hitchcock and Stan Lee. They may look on both as just quaint examples of modern pop culture.
And, of course, there are certainly brilliant scientists, engineers or just plain old regular folk who see movies as just a diversion from their problems. That doesn’t make them idiots, just ignorant.
Though I prefer In The Mood For Love (currently my favorite film) I am certain that I’m more likely to fall into a relationship more easily via the elasticity and tone of CE. Interesting debate you have here. Personally he is my favorite filmmaker with much of the same relational habits and interventions towards romance that I do.
I think its time for Elston’s diaper to be changed. Care to back up your statement?
Read my Cinema 21 essay
I thought Chungking Express was tedious, but recall really liking In the Mood for Love for its general sensuousness. I think it had more of an otherworldly sort of feel than Chungking Express, which kept reminding me of a long music video. I guess In the Mood for Love is like a music video, too, but not stuck in the 90s.
Maggie Cheung in retro garb probably helped.
Many esteemed literary experts might love nonsense like Avatar or Deuce Bigelow because they don’t take film seriously as a form of expression. This may be ignorance on their part in this one area but it shouldn’t cause you to form a judgement about their whole personality.
I think this is your own dismissive ignorance on display, not theirs. Which is not to say that I love either, but to say that an intelligent person cannot both take film seriously as a form of expression and love either of those is rather silly.
And, of course, there are certainly brilliant scientists, engineers or just plain old regular folk who see movies as just a diversion from their problems. That doesn’t make them idiots, just ignorant.
Similarly, this doesn’t make them ignorant. They may have no interest in films as anything other than diversion, even once introduced to the existence and content of a wide array of films.
@Patapon
I don’t need to wear diapers anymore. I wear them because of the tactile and sensuous nature, and that feeling of safety. I noticed your essay doesn’t touch on this, so why don’t you back up your point.
Leaves, Mike wasn’t asserting that all who like Avatar or Deuce Bigelow do not take film seriously as a form of expression. He was suggesting that perhaps some like Avatar or Deuce Bigelow because they don’t really take film seriously as a form of expression. An example is not an argument.
Why yes, movie tastes can provide insights into someone’s taste and their perspective, but that insight is only valuable if you discuss the movies with them and learn to understand why; more readily, on this very board are we not having discussions about how the politics of a film can sometimes turn us off, the viewpoint of the film, what we think it says about human nature, etc.? Criticism is more about the critic than it is about the film—whenever I walk into someone’s house or apartment or whatever I am a helpless slave to my impulse to see what they value enough to end up buying and keeping around. But that really says more about me than about the person I’m shelve browsing.
—PolarisDiB
I once fell in love with this girl. One of her favorite movies was Godard’s Breathless . Even though I am not a huge fan of Breathless and there are some people who are huge fans of Breathless that I cannot empathize with, the personality and style of this girl was very much in line with someone who got profound enjoyment and poetic expression out of something like Breathless in a way that was very appealing and meaningful, and her enjoyment of Breathless thus was something I really admired about her.
Unfortunately she dated some other dude whose movie tastes I do not know off hand but since I hate him I can assure you they suck. Even if he likes movies I like, he didn’t understand them.
—PolarisDiB
There are no kimonos in either film, and I happen to love them both.
I’m thinking films tell you something about personality, but not much about character.
Introverts might prefer humanistic films.
Extroverts might prefer action films.
Character structure is a system of relatively permanent traits that are manifested in the specific ways that an individual relates and reacts to others, to various kinds of stimuli, and to the environment.
That character definition suggests that either personality type (Introvert or Extrovert) might not be trustworthy.
So yes, one can tell a personality from the types of films they like, but that doesn’t tell one much.
I relate extrovert personalities, but it takes many interactions to get to know their character.
Kimonos are Japanese.
Wong Kar-Wai is Chinese.
There is a word for the form-fitting high-collared dress that Maggie Cheung wears in “In the Mood For Love”
tat I can’t recall at the moment.
That type of dress is called a cheongsam or qípáo , also known in English as a “mandarin gown.”
Movies? not necessarily, but interests, yes. what if film is their main interest? again, it depends. i agree with Robert that character is different from personality, and it’s very difficult to assess the character of a person unless you know them relatively well. however, if we are going to make certain inferences about them based on interests, then yes, i suppose one could say that one is more ‘interesting’ or ‘intelligent’(in the artistic/cultural sense, not necessarily in the ‘pure’ sense, if you will), according to our own perception of what constitutes as interesting or intelligent, based on the kind of films they watch.
the problem here though is that one cannot truly assess the level of engagement without asking a series of questions. It’s just not as simple as ‘X loves 8 1/2 and Double Life Of Veronique and hates Schindler’s List and Forrest Gump; therefore, X is an intelligent and depthful human being’. There are just too many posers out there. hell sometimes i even question my own interest/engagement with film, let alone the relationship that others have with the medium ;-) And like Mr.Spence mentioned earlier, a lot of intelligent and interesting people could give a rat’s ass about film and find other mediums to be superior. A good friend of mine, for example, is a literature and ‘arts’ snob(as in, painting, sculpture etc), and he is rarely convinced about film as an artistic vehicle of expression comparable to the great styles and modes of old!!! and he is certainly not fool.
Catharsis has a lot to do with this. If the film delivers some kind of emotional or intellectual release, it depends upon the personality.
This…
“Also YES you can tell someones personality and I would add intelligence level by the films they enjoy. I work at Blockbuster and I see movie watchers from all walks of life.”
…matches this:
You must ask yourself: how well do you know your customers? People who work at Blockbuster rarely get to “know” the customers as someone working at an independent video store would. I have a Blockbuster card that I haven’t used in…how long now? I never got close to “knowing” anyone there and vice versa. Whereas the last two independent video stores of whom I was a member, they knew/know what type of stuff I liked/like, and the lady at the current video store I patronise can recognise my voice over the phone. She can also tell you I fancy classic films and somewhat “alternative” stuff. Additionally, Blockbuster has a very “parochial” (that’s my “Joksism” for this post) selection of films, so not much help there.
I shall second the comment that just because someone likes a film, it doesn’t necessarily mean they understand it as you do. I’m certain many people love “Taxi Driver” and “A Clockwork Orange” for the same reason they might fancy Steven Seagull and Vin Weasel films: lashings of the old ultraviolence and maybe some sex thrown in for good measure. But those who fancy “Taxi Driver” and “A Clockwork Orange” might not care for Martin Scorsese’s “Age of Innocence” or Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon”. And I enjoy most films I see, just some much more than others.
Perhaps it would be better to suggest it’s possible to know a person’s politics and cultural beliefs by common themes that run through the movies they enjoy. I think if someone were to analyse my favourites closely enough, they could gain a lot of insight into me as a person.
Elston, I love your diaper metaphore. It really connected with me. However, if i may, im afraid the others on this thread arent as intellectually stable as you and I so you might need to literally spell out your point here.
Bishop to G5. Check.
You’re move.
On the subject of kimonos, I’m not familiar with the cheongsam and I only believed they were kimonos because her husband worked in Japan. Thought he brought them back for her >.< I know the film is Chinese.
I don’t see how you could unless you knew why they loved those particular movies. My mom and I both love Kung-Fu movies for sometimes vastly different reasons.
Maggie wears a qipao, also known as cheongsam. It’s a form of tight fitting dress which I think was particularly associated with Shanghai, in which case it’s particularly appropriate that she wears them, as directly or indirectly, her circumstances reflect those of people such as the director himself, moving to Hong Kong from Shanghai and ending up as lodgers due to lack of living space.
Another example of why I disagree with people who maintain that WKW’s films are merely style over substance. The stylistic choices he makes are full of meaning.
Leaves, Mike wasn’t asserting that all who like Avatar or Deuce Bigelow do not take film seriously as a form of expression. He was suggesting that perhaps some like Avatar or Deuce Bigelow because they don’t really take film seriously as a form of expression. An example is not an argument.
Not taking film seriously is not necessarily a cause of loving Avatar or Deuce Bigelow, so it’s not even a proper example. The two are completely unrelated. He may as well have said, “People who love Avatar or Deuce Bigelow may also be allergic to shellfish.” That he chose to pair those two particular things certainly implied that one caused the other, in my mind, and it’s absolutely silly and ignorant.
“Not taking film seriously is not necessarily a cause of loving Avatar or Deuce Bigelow, so it’s not even a proper example. The two are completely unrelated. He may as well have said, “People who love Avatar or Deuce Bigelow may also be allergic to shellfish.” That he chose to pair those two particular things certainly implied that one caused the other, in my mind, and it’s absolutely silly and ignorant.”
@Leaves
Perhaps my understanding of the OP was flawed. In rereading Brady’s opening statements it’s clear he was simply suggesting that certain films can reflect aspects of one’s personality, not saying they would reflect one’s intelligence.
My statements were based more on Superkal’s implying that when someone rents whatever Superkal considers to be poor films that their choices are a barometer for their intelligence or sensitivity. I used Avatar and Deuce Bigelow as example of films that some may feel are of poor quality to make a point.
“Similarly, this doesn’t make them ignorant. They may have no interest in films as anything other than diversion, even once introduced to the existence and content of a wide array of films.”
Actually, it usually does make them ignorant. It makes them ignorant about the variety of films that could be more than diversions from their problems. I only like certain automobiles because they look cool, and not surprisingly, I am ignorant about other aspects of cars that an expert may use in an evaluation of which is the best car out there. Ignorance isn’t necessarily an insult.
Basically I was trying to defend non-cinephiles against charges of stupidity while reminding people that cinema isn’t taken seriously in as many quarters as they may think.
So, Leaves, what’s your problem again?
Using two different definitions of ignorant.
brady qw
It seems to me that there is a consensus about Wong Kar-Wai’s work; if a person only likes In the Mood for Love, he/she will love Chungking Express and vice-versa. This might say something about different types of people; in Chungking Express, the colors are more subdued, tropical and the story isn’t as melodramatic. In In the Mood for Love, the colors are vibrant and vivid, not holding back (especially in the case of the lead’s kimonos.) and the story is heavier, as opposed to the light-as-air narrative of Chungking.
Do you think this says something about a person’s personality? Both are similar, and deal with similar subject matter, but the differences in both are clear.
Personally, I believe that someone more sensitive or prone to romanticism would find In the Mood for Love the better film, while those with a little more resiliency and a pension for eroticism might enjoy Chungking Express more.