http://www.girishshambu.com/blog/2007/05/cinema-in-your-head.html
I also would like to remember films more accurately, and maybe that’s why I’m blogging, so I can note down what I saw before I forget it. Sometimes I suspect if I suffer from amnesia or not, including in the following cases:
1.In 2004, I bought a ticket to see WEST BEYROUTH (1998, Ziad Doueiri) in a film festival, and after seeing the film for 5 minutes, I realized I had seen this film before from cable TV, but had forgotten my seeing it, or else I wouldn’t have bought the ticket then. It’s a good film, but not the one I intend to see again.
2. I saw 24 Thai short films in one day in July last year. I had no time to write down anything while seeing them. I had enough time only for writing down my grades for each film. But the next day when I tried to blog about them, I could remember only 23 films. There’s one film, THE LAST DAY, which I couldn’t remember what it was about. I had written A+ for this film the day before, but I forgot the film completely the day after. I feel very upset about it. My memory for one short film can be completely erased in one night. It’s very upsetting because it’s the film I gave A+ to, and I still can’t remember anything about it now. I also can’t find any description of this film by other people.
3.I saw VALERIE FLAKE (1999, John Putch) in 2003, and in 2005 I intended to write an article on it for a Thai book. I intended to write about a scene in which Valerie Flake’s father-in-law was sitting in a car, looking at Valerie outside the car, but decided not to talk to her. But before I started writing, I watched this film again on video, and found that there is no such scene in this film. There is only a scene in which Valerie was sitting in a car looking outside at her father-and- mother-in-law, but decided not to talk to them. My memory of this scene is the reverse or the opposite of the real scene.
I think “film distorted by viewer’s mind” is a very interesting topic, and I hope there is some research about it. I think some films have the power to touch the viewer’s imagination, fantasy, secret desire, longing, past experience, memory, and subconscious, and thus by touching them, the film becomes mingled with them and distorted by them.
This topic reminds me of what Jean-Claude Carriere wrote in the book THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF FILM (1994, Random House). If I don’t remember it wrongly, he wrote that many people claimed they had seen the monster baby in ROSEMARY’S BABY, though there is no image of that baby in the movie. This film made a lot of audience see what was not there. Many female viewers also claimed that they had seen a baby, or heard a baby’s crying in the last scene of BELLE DE JOUR, though there is no baby or baby’s crying in that scene. There is only a sound of a cat. Carriere suspected that BELLE DE JOUR might have aroused some secret desire of female viewers and that’s the reason why this film was distorted by viewer’s mind.
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