I can tell when I think a piece of film is brilliant because I can’t help but smile extremely widely at it. No matter how sick, twisted, disgusting, or just plain amazing, if I connect with a piece of film or if I think it was well done, it always makes me smile. I remember watching Ikiru for the first time, and the image of Shimura singing on the swing set in the darkness and snow gets me every time. The final duel in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ranks up there too. That’s what I find so interesting about movies. You can find them horrific and depressing, depraved and violent, and yet come out of the experience completely satisfied, moved, and even happy.
I actually go a bit like the guy in American Beauty watching the plastic bag. When I see a truly beautiful film I get choked up (even if it’s not a sad film). I feel a relief that there is someone out there that was captured the same emotions that I feel, or that can enlighten me to a new kind of emotional response I did not know I harbored.
I can also couple that emotion with a touch of grief as well. A doubt that falls over me that my work will never be able to amount the the brilliance I have just witnessed.
Watching a great film (or discovering an amazing read or a life-affirming album) is one of those rare feelings that I cannot fully describe…but I am glad that I have an abundance of works out there that I can spend a lifetime discovering new gems.
I’m the same way, Brian!
I’m not really sure if I can describe how I feel when I watch a truly great film…
If a film manages to effect me on a really deep level, I usually get chills down my spine, and I just have this really cold, unshakable, hollow feeling. But it’s a good thing. :)
When I see a great film, it stays with me for days… it triggers every emotion, mostly excitement or a feeling of inspiration because there’s something out there in the world that I can relate to or is powerful or moving or all of the above.
It is hard to put into words, but is probably one of my favorite things in the world.
Brian nailed it for me
Inspired.
I have a blank stare when I watch something great. Because I’m contemplating how amazingly the film (or anything for that matter) was put together.
If it moves me, you can see it in my eyes.
I feel like I wished I’d made it. And I usually have tears in my eyes.
If my mind is left completely thoughtless when the credits roll, because the story or the characters were so personal or I could relate on a personal level to them and completely submerge myself in the story, then I know I saw a great film.
Usually you can tell when I’m really enjoying a movie when I get into it. Like I reel back when something surprising happens and stuff like that. Or sometimes I even have to pause the film altogether so I can flip out over what just happened. I’d imagine its rather humorous seeing me watch some of my favorites.
At times I feel like somebody has kicked me in the stomach, I can’t get my breath, the experience has literally taken my breath away. Someitmes I feel like my brain is ablaze, all cicuits are firing – like I am in an hallucinatory state or state of euphoria. Sometimes I am literally a basket case, crying my eyes out from too much emotion, or more exactly, emotional catharsis. Other times, I am just numb and speechless – my mind as blank as a tabula rasa. Other times I think, “Eureka – Yes they (the flimmaker or artist) have got it. They know the secret!” I am then transported into a state of short-termed reverie, another hidden dimension of consciousness opens up.
What is more interesting to me is what films do that to us and why they do touch us on this deeper level. I think the whole process is very individual and different for each person. It’s like asking someone, what is it like to fall in love. Only the very naive or very poetic can answer such a question. Indeed, there are few times when something effects us or moves us in this profound, and ultimately, mysterious way. When it happens, it is magic.
I get chills down my spine ( like at the end of Being John Malkovich)
Or I get a warm feeling in my stomach that makes me feel good (Mishima, WR., Citizen Kane)
:]
my reaction is usually delayed. but i usually find myself thinking about the film for days after watching it. a film that I have just recently decided was “great” was Closely Watched Trains. that one just stayed with me.
first I feel elated, then I curse ppl who cannot make movies like this then I feel if everybody make movies like this , movies like this would become ordinary and not great, then i think, ponder how the director conceived a particular scene or a character, what I can learn from the movie, more often than not write a post on my blog, recommend it to others and sleep, before taking an oath to watch the movie one more time when I am at leisure.
I feel honored :)
the feeling i get from watching an outstanding piece of cinema is one of relief and like nothing that may be going on around me at the time matters. im inspired by a good film too, much in the same way that wandering around my favourite art gallery or having an in depth discussion on something feels. there are also occasions where i feel useless, in the sense that i feel that i personally wont be ever make a film that good!
It’s usually pair or different reactions:
My first viewings of Ugetsu, Aparajito, Rashomon, Cleo From 5 To 7, Godfather 2 stick with me, because with those 5 in particular, I recall thinking – about 15 minutes in – that this was already shaping up to be something amazing, pretty far beyond the usual, cerebral “great movie” reaction. And I was completely swept up by all 5 of those films.
And then – reaction 2 – I can remember thinking about them for days afterwards, thinking about stories and scenes, discussing them with friends. I watched Ugetsu with an old roommate who hated watching anything with subtitles, and she was completely blown away.
I nearly cry at the beauty of the film about half way through. I can feel it in my throat, even when I’m watching a masterful comedy. Giddy, tearful, and slightly insane. I want to talk about the film with my friends as soon as it finishes. I feel satisfied for the rest of the day, if not the week, that I found something amazing in the giant catalogue of cinema.
Later, like David-Davecito-Davidji… !, I keep recalling images and dialogue from the film, or use these as examples in conversation to illustrate a point or make an observation.
I felt that way in Blade Runner, Tokyo Story, The Steel Helmet, Drifting Clouds, Rashomon, Chungking Express, The Seven Samurai, and anything else that is listed in my favorites box.
I feel unbelievably anxious, excited and a mixed feeling of after taking a huge exam and acing it and seeing someone you haven’t seen in a long time that you used to have really strong feelings for. I also feel like i have taken in an experience and is now a part of me. I don’t know if i could exactly explain it in words. It feels a little like a drug or waking up from a really good dream.
The most intense feeling i’ve ever had as far an intense impact a movie made on me was Scenes From a Marriage and Ikiru.
I don’t know. Its hard for me to explain, but I do know when I’m seeing something great. It’s just something inside you that tells you your watching something special.
I agree with ‘watchmoresuzuki’. Ikiru was one of those movies that just gave me a big wide grin. When watching a great film, I just feel uplifted and hopeful, confident even and optimistic that maybe I could create something that beautiful some day. I just watched ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ a few hours ago and I still have a buzz from it. I called several people to rave about it and I think I’ll feel good well into tomorrow. It was just an amazing experience. Great movies work on the endorphins just like a drug. Ahhhhh :)
For me it is like My religion. It lifts me up.
I feel… satiated.
A great film does to me what a great book would do, only faster and more vividly.
After watching a great film, I try to wait it out before I can see another, just so it occupies my thoughts for a little longer. Films like 400 Blows and Cinema Paradiso are just two among many.
Extreme hunger and rage.
I feel happy, wondrous, inspired, and affected.
hope-full…humble, thank-full and not alone.
Nice idea for a thread, Alonso. It took me a long time to find it but glad that Joseph resurrected it in time for me to see it just now.
A great film generally activates all of my pertinent empathy circuits – sometimes with the characters depicted, more often with the sheer poignancy of the situations presented to the audience, but most of all for the creative minds and hearts that were most involved with the production of the film itself. I seldom get lost in films these days. Most of the time I’m quite conscious that I’m watching a movie (some exceptions are made for documentaries of course but even then I can’t escape the fact that selective editing preceded my viewing.) So I understand that the film is an expression of something profoundly personal when it moves me on that level – that some individual or group had it within themselves to communicate a powerful message, their truth, to a broad audience… and it just amazes and delights me that such a work of art was created, made available and preserved until it could be presented to me and the people I’m watching it with.
That kind of analysis and absorption of the impact that cinema makes is one reason that I have a hard time with most commercial, Hollywood-style productions these days. Corporately-engineered “crowd pleasers” too often seem manipulative and emotionally sterile to me, even when they’re trying to convey big ideas and feelings. It’s too often the case (or so it seems) that the various dramatic outcomes and turns-of-events have been selected to conform to time-tested and “bankable” patterns. It takes a peculiar sort of genius to come up with something both novel, culturally transcendent and timeless! But I think world cinema and the kind of movies that this site is dedicated to offer some of the best offerings of that sort.
When I am watching a truly great film and even later…I feel there is more to life than what we see around us otherwise. A good film (sometimes even bad ones to be honest) can open a new world and remind us of the bigger picture. A great film can make me feel that it is great to be human and part of humanity’s shared story.
Well put… A good film reminds you that you are human. A great film reminds you that it is great to be human.
Alonso Díaz de la Vega
I tend to feel enormously happy when I watch something that I consider brilliant, I mean, some might find me crazy, but I was so amazed at the degree of brilliance of Saló that I wasn’t grossed out or anything. When I saw Bycicle Thieves it was the same story, I was moved by it, but I was actually happy to have seen Lamberto Maggiorani’s beautiful acting and De Sica’s work as a whole, so, what I want to ask you all is: What do you feel?