In 1951 I saw Strangers on a Train, and movies were never the same for me.
I was working at a video store when I was 17, which incidentally is the greatest job for someone with a burgeoning interest in film, I would grab a stack of tapes at a time and indulge on images. One night I popped in the tape for Do The Right Thing and it just floored me. I immediately rewound the tape and started it again. I’d never seen a film that hooked me so into the enviroment of the characters, and then sucker punch me with that explosive ending. I have seen thousands of films since, some great, some not, but that was the first one I respected as art and showed me that anything is possible in the cinema.
I think it was the first time I watched Vertigo when I was if fifth grade or something like that. I remember when I was seven that my favorite film was The Nightmare Before Christmas. I remember going to see it when it first came out. I even had the Jack Skelington toy before I had even seen the movie.
But I think what really did it for me happened in one entire week when I was a freshman in high school. I remember watching The Seventh Seal, 8 1/2, Seven Samurai and A Clockwork Orange. After watching those four films, my entire perspective on film was changed
When I was 12 my Hair dresser referred me to Pulp Fiction(which seems like a starting place for most people these days)
When I was about 12 years old, I got into a lot of Czech, and french new wave films. I really liked Rohmer’s stuff, but I think the film that really turned me into the obsessed cinefile that I am today, would have to be Edward Yang’s Yi Yi. When I was 16 I caught a festival screening of the film, an almost felt paralyzed after the film ended. I had never seen such a honest yet masterfully beautiful representation of the human condition on celluloid. I actually found myself questioning many of the motives in my life. Since then I have been religiously studying/making films.
When I was about 12 years old, I got into a lot of Czech, and french new wave films. I really liked Rohmer’s stuff, but I think the film that really turned me into the obsessed cinefile that I am today, would have to be Edward Yang’s Yi Yi. When I was 16 I caught a festival screening of the film, an almost felt paralyzed after the film ended. I had never seen such a honest yet masterfully beautiful representation of the human condition on celluloid. I actually found myself questioning many of the motives in my life. Since then I have been religiously studying/making films.
When I was about 12 years old, I got into a lot of Czech, and french new wave films. I really liked Rohmer’s stuff, but I think the film that really turned me into the obsessed cinefile that I am today, would have to be Edward Yang’s Yi Yi. When I was 16 I caught a festival screening of the film, an almost felt paralyzed after the film ended. I had never seen such a honest yet masterfully beautiful representation of the human condition on celluloid. I actually found myself questioning many of the motives in my life. Since then I have been religiously studying/making films.
I guess I should expand upon my post just since I have nothing better to do:
Little Mermaid was the first film I saw and kicked off the obsession, but I was really launched into the throes of it during the obligatory nihilistic teenage angst/high school melodrama period of my life where I watched the cliched teenager flicks of Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Memento, and Kevin Smith movies, all of which I’ve grown out of (Memento I still find compelling though). The first canonical foreign film I saw was Seven Samurai which I remain ambivalent about – except for Toshiro Mifune’s performance which drew me in the most – but it wasn’t until I saw Chungking Express for my college film class that I became irreparably obsessed with film in all its forms, the movie caused me to suffer the beauteous Stendhal syndrome, which is the ends I seek when I watch any film since it is such a rewarding experience.
Five Easy Pieces
I was born with a love of films of all kinds, but I would have to say that seeing Eraserhead at the midnight show when I was like 13 sealed the deal on me being a total movie geek, because I absolutely LOVED it. I also remember seeing Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ in a small theater in Norwalk, Connecticut when I was 11 and there were protesters outside… behold the power of art!
GoodFellas did it for me upon my first viewing of it in 5th grade.
Being eight years old and crazy about dinosaurs, Jurassic Park is the movie that made me fall in love with movies. It showed me for the first time the true power of cinema, in that it could seemingly and realistically bring dinosaurs back to life for ninety-minutes. From that point on, my entire life, up until posting this now and beyond, has been about watching, studying and making films (with relationships and literature filling in the spare time).
Some other “definitive” moments would be Evil Dead introducing my eleven-year old self to the concept of independent film, and Rashomon bringing the world of international cinema to me when I was around thirteen or so.
Barton Fink
Actually, maybe the first foreign film I saw was Zhang Ke Jia’s The World.
When I was growing up these films were responsible-
The Terminator
Alien/Aliens
Blade Runner
Night of The Living Dead
Dawn Of The Dead
Psycho
Carrie
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
and then i started with Cronenberg and it was cemented.
I have enjoyed film since childhood. I had great experiences as a kid watching 2001 (as an impressionable 7 year old) when it first came out in the theaters – my dad took our family to watch it as a special event. When I was a bit older, I remember literally falling out of my seat watching Blazing Saddles in the theater, along with the James Bond and Planet of the Apes series. Of course Star Wars and the other spectaculars of that era kept me coming back and I’ve seen many great movies over the course of my lifetime.
A random purchase of a used copy of the three-disc Brazil set by Criterion showed me the amazing potential of DVD to expand my enjoyment of a film that I already liked.
But a few years ago, I picked up a used DVD documentary called Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, about a guy named Jerry Harvey who created an innovative cable station. His love of with film, especially art house stuff, really showed me a new way to watch and appreciate cinema, and pointed me to whole new realms of quality films I never knew existed. I think I’ve done a good job avoiding the extremes to which he was driven by his (no exaggerating!) obsession (the story ends quite sadly.) Has anyone else here seen it? I strongly recommend it to anyone who logs onto this site regularly – you will find him a kindred spirit and perhaps a helpful “negative role model” for how to keep your priorities straight. :o)
Seeing Hable con Ella in a converted porn cinema was a memorable experience as it made me truly appreciate international cinema for the very first time. Didn’t go to the multiplex for quite a while after that…
I re-watched The Royal Tenenbaums many times, then found and saw all of the other Wes Anderson films, looked him up on the internet, and watched films he was influenced by etc..
But now, I just pick out various titles and directors from here and try to watch some films by them. I just want to try and see as many different films as I can really.
i have to truthfully say “The Clockwork Orange” i know the cliché behind even though it is brilliant. The character that Malcolm McDonald Creates is one of the greatest character in cinema history. Id have to say that performance got me in to film.
Like any other child, I had a fondness for Disney movies – animated and non – but it was one weekend in 3rd grade that I happened upon The Dark Crystal, which began by search for other off the beaten path “children’s” movies. Jim Henson films fascinated me and as I became more and more interested in the modeling and costuming world, I began watching Spanish, Italian and (of course) Japanese films that were constructed similarly. Of course, as I began watching films from other countries, I happened upon Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini…which opened up a new world of films to me: plot-driven, supremely directed, finely cut and full of actors. That set off my love of character driven (strong actor – director relationships) films, pushing me into the American realm of Lumet, Van Sant, PT Anderson and the Coen Brothers.
Again, this is all due to Frank Oz’s brilliance in The Dark Crystal.
Kubrick’s The Shining, which I watched when I was 11 and it was the film’s first time on television. I watched tons of mainstream fare as an adolescent and things like Kubrick’s films were folded into that somehow. Then in the late 80s Jarmusch’s Mystery Train and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing introduced me to “independent film.”
Growing up my Mom bought me old Chaplin/Marx Brothers films. I loved the Immigrant and Pawn Shop. I took a Cinema course where we watched Hawks and Sparrows and Brazil. Those got me into the deeper mix of things.
Disney’s Fantasia
Kubrick’s 2001
The Godfather
The Seven Samuria
North by Northwest
Star Wars
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Maltese Flacon
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Citizen Kane
Reservoir Dogs – unlike any movie I had ever seen – when I was 13. Started me on a journey where I realized what little I had been exposed to and the many many many films I HAD to see as soon as humanly possible. Still going… and still grateful that the list is always growing..
My first brushes with cinema that made any kind of impression of me was movies like Raiders of the Lost Arc and Back to the Future. Those movies showed me the excitement and joy that a good and entertaining Hollywoodmovie actually can bring. Later on I seriously got hooked when I by accident saw Videodrome and Blue Velvet on late night TV. I really got freaked out by those two movies since I had enevr seen anything like it before. But from that moment on I knew that there was more to movies than what I had seen before.
I grew up watching thousands of Indian films and a string of popular hollywood and martial art flicks Evil Dead/Terminator/Jackie Chan/Bruce Lee/Jurassic Park et al, along the way I picked up a few indulgent favorites like Karma which spawned a hunger for more movies of any kind. Then came the Star Movies/HBO and video rental store-with-exotic-movies era that brought with it American Beauty Pulpfiction, Fight Club, 2001:A Space Odyssey, Godfather which gave the much needed spark. I remember demanding the video store guy to get Kieslowski, Godard and he had the funniest WTF are you talking about face put up with each title that parted my mouth.
Finally with access to BlockBuster, Criterion and 8 1/2, In the Mood for Love, Ikiru, Breathless, Fanny and Alexander, Apocalypse Now etc. I knew I was f’ed
Three words, Turner Classic Movies.
I believe the first films that really opened my eyes were The Thing, Withnail and I, and Taxi Driver when I was maybe early teens and that lead to me checking out the rest of their work (at that time, early ’90s). Finally getting into Bergman (after being intrigued by Seventh Seal) and from there just whatever foreign films I could get my hands on. Once I discovered Kurosawa though I was officially hooked.
Mitchell 109
one that polarizes people: Natural Born Killers