We Already Know What We're Watching: Expectation and Cinema

When is the last time you watched a film without any expectation? You’d never heard the title, knew nothing of who was in it or made it, watched no trailers, saw no posters and read no synopses or reviews before walking into the cinema to let it unfold before you. Recently, a long time ago, ever? I think the role of expectation, especially put forward by promotional material and marketing, severely changes our viewing experience. We wait for the appearance of a certain character, a specific scene or location or, in the case of many modern extended-trailers, we wait for something we didn’t already know appearing in the plot.

Let me give a few specific examples which come to mind here, all results of different forms of publicity. Recently I caught Call Me By Your Name in the cinema, and due to the saturation of it’s trailer throughout cinemas I was waiting for the homosexual relationship to start—knowing exactly that’s where the film was heading in it’s hour-long build up to anything explicit on the matter. I also saw The Square,

which has a puzzling scene on the poster—a shirtless man with crutches standing atop a table at a dinner party. Throughout, at the back of my mind, I was wondering how this character, sparingly seen otherwise, and this scene would appear in the film. To take some older and universal examples we can think of our expectation of The Hateful Eight, even without exposure to trailers or posters, knowing that it is directed by Tarantino. You immediately expect an explicitly violent, quick talking film that’s at least somewhat offensive on the senses. And finally we can look at an example ruined by it’s reputation, David Fincher’s Se7en. The film explicitly leaves Kevin Spacey’s name off the posters, opening credits and promotional materials explicitly to avoid expectation of his on-screen reveal. However due to the proliferation of online sources such as IMDB, reviews, and the film’s reputation for Spacey’s performance even the first-time viewer will now be awaiting his on-screen appearance.

We also have other forms of expectation established by genre (often easily identified by title, poster or still) or reputation as a ‘classic’ film, both casting clear expectations of a films content or quality respectively. I believe the second to be the most detrimental in many ways. On the one hand you have a viewer who appreciates this as a certified ‘great’ film and thus submits to its reputation regardless of their actual opinion of the film—rating the film more highly. On the other you have a critical viewer who sees the film as almost never being able to live up to it’s reputation, and thus being harsher on the film because of it’s reputation.

If these things are so detrimental to our viewing experience why do we need them? Well, of

course, a filmmaker/studio needs to sell their film and gain an audience justifying the release of posters, interviews and trailers which often allow us to find a film that’s right for us. Furthering the reviews, the reputation of cast and crew and the reputation of a film allow us to distinguish if something is ‘worth seeing’ or not. But aren’t these things a little short sighted? Often marketing materials will be geared towards a specific audience, which (at least in a mainstream context) largely misrepresent the actual product. Look at, for example, the Only God Forgives trailer and tell me it is wholly representative of the mood, tone and pace of the film (not to mention multiple trailers for a single film tailored at different audiences, see Gladiator). Furthermore why do we allow the opinions of others to form our opinions on whether a film is worth watching because ultimately film, if it is aspiring towards art, will touch each individual in very different ways and it is very possible that your demographic is far removed from that of the majority of reviewers who are there to ‘refine’ your taste.

Ultimately it is a decision whether to allow the creator (or more often than not the financiers/marketing department) to lure you towards their film as it will benefit them monetarily, to allow a reviewer far removed from yourself to pull or push you from a certain film, or to allow the film itself to speak and for you to decide whether or not the film was worth your time, money and engagement. Yes, this is somewhat idealist as it is impossible for us to unwittingly watch every film offered to us—both because of the time, and the inevitability that we’ll dislike most of what we see—but I think the more we approach films free of expectation the more we give them a fair chance to make it in both our eyes and the eyes of the world. We will always be swayed by big names, be it Paul Thomas Anderson or Leonardo DiCaprio, by our genre(s) of choice and by the overall buzz in the media about a specific project, but I urge you that the next time you see a film choose a film you know nothing about and I guarantee you that the opinion you come out with will be yours, and yours alone. And that is exactly how we should try to approach any art as when we sit in front of a cinema screen that screen is trying to connect with one person—you.

Call Me By Your Name

2/2/0

4/13

The Square

4/3/3

10/13