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What film did it for you?
Saturday, 17th July 2010, 18:17

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 17-7-2010 18:17

Was there a film that turned you into a film addict? Was there a time when you saw something, either at home or at the cinema, that made you think "I want to watch more of these. Many, many more." Was it a case of going to the cinema as a young child and just enjoying the experience and grow to love it more and more?

As I have said many times, for me it was The Exorcist as, before then, I hadn't really bothered with movies that made me realise the power of film as a medium and was the first film I truly loved. It made me go on to buy numerous other films that had been re-released (or, in some cases, given a certificate for the first time) by the BBFC and the films in a whole new light.

So, what film did it for you? Which film transformed you from a 'normal' person into a rabid film addict who had spent most of their time and money on trips to the cinema, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs (not to mention the equipment)?

Comments on this Item

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 23-7-2010 13:04

Anyone else?

ChangesPosted by David Simpson on 23-7-2010 13:09

it will sound cliche. but the film that did it for me was citizen kane. i just sat there (about 12-13) and was in awe of all of this. the way it was filmed, the way the story dipped in and out past and present. quite frankly this film was lightyears ahead of its time. without this film there would be no pulp fiction/godfather 2 and so many more

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 23-7-2010 13:15

Are these discussions hidden away too much so that, when there is a new one, people don't notice?

As for Citizen Kane, it is a bravura piece of filmmaking which is even more astonishing when you consider Orson Welles’ age when he made it -- he only turned 26 when it premiered!

ChangesPosted by Curtis Owen on 23-7-2010 13:21

Good question David. What film turned me into a film addict? I would have to say watching Dawn of the Dead when I was young. That had a huge impact on me. I was way too young to appreciate the social critique Romero was making so it was the balls out entertainment that got me (‘how cool would it be to have a shopping centre all to yourself? what would you do? etc). That is what got my imagination ticking. It is strange when you ask someone who is addicted to film ‘what film did it for you?’ The majority of my friends who are obsessed with cinema usually mention a horror film as their key influence too. From this, I think going to the cinema had a huge impact on me as a teenager when I was at school (films by John Carpenter). I hated my time in that hellhole so I used to go the cinema once or twice a week to help me survive (lol). I remember the first ever issue of Empire I brought in 1997 at the age of 15, it was about The Fifth Element and I went to see that movie 5 times. I think Tarantino helped to open up films for me. Watching his movies and realising that he based them on other films I was always trying to watch them on telly. I think Leon also was a film that made me think about film (when Cox used to do Videodrome). It was great when I was at school and my career adviser asked me what I wanted to do. I remember going in there writing an essay on Tarantino saying ‘I want to go to college to study film’. She gave me the strangest look as if I was an alien (lol). Going to college and University allowed me to watch films that I never thought existed.

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 23-7-2010 15:25

Studying film academically is a real eye-opener as, prior to going to university (I really went in at the deep end, going from a life of studying politics to a Masters degree in International Film!), I had never even heard of D.W. Griffith, let alone seen Birth of a Nation or Intolerance.
Interesting that you mention Tarantino as (and I mentioned this in Becoming a Film Addict) it was during my long stay in hospital that I watched Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction to the point where I could almost quote them verbatim. I also watched Trainspotting multiple times and Leon so often that the tape ended up breaking in the VCR!

ChangesPosted by David Simpson on 23-7-2010 16:05

Those are some interesting points. I think apart from Citizen Kane which really got me into writing and structure the other film that made go watch EVERYTHING was Monty Python's Life of Brian. I thought that was an amazing film that I watched probably every day for a good year until I could recite it line by line. With that film I discovered Holy Grail. Fish Called Wanda and of course the epic that was Gilliam's Brazil. As for breaking a tape... I never did that with Brian, but my sister did with Dirty Dancing!

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 23-7-2010 19:26

I did just about the same thing as you did with Monty Python's Life of Brian only with a copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail that my parents had taped from (I think) BBC2 late one night. I would watch it over and over again, taking it to a friend's house where we would laugh our arses off at King Arthur's fight with the Black Knight.

I remember one English class in secondary school when I was in the first year and the teacher had nipped out for a bit to fetch something or other and, unbeknownst to me, she walks in just as I was standing on a chair and in the middle of yelling "Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!" at one of my friends across the room!

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 23-7-2010 19:31

Actually, the whole thing went"I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!" but I'm not quite sure when she walked in or how much she heard. Her rather calm reaction was a quite restrained and rather weary "Oh, sit down David". Such behaviour was not exactly uncommon!

ChangesPosted by Jitendar Canth on 24-7-2010 16:52

I had the usual strict upbringing of my generation, no TV in my room, to bed before the watershed, and so it was that I watched a lot of stuff aimed at my age group, but nothing really outside it. I was even late to the home video party, and while I used it to tape stuff from TV, I never bought prerecorded tapes, didn't even rent. I was the guy who wore out the Star Trek II and Animalypics tapes, while my dad wore out the Chisum tape. I did become a Trek addict before a movie addict, and my first purchases were of a pointed ear nature.

But it was when I was twelve that it all changed. One night, rather than homework, Knight Rider, dinner and bed as it was most days, my father insisted that I stay up with him to watch a movie. He wanted to share his favourite film that the BBC happened to be broadcasting that night. Aged twelve, staying up to around two in the morning sounded like a good idea. Getting my first experience of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was a life changing experience. Clint Eastwood, Lee van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Sergio Leone, and Ennio Morricone. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. That's when I learned what cinema was... on a 21 inch 4:3 CRT with mono sound.

ChangesPosted by Stuart McLean on 24-7-2010 22:16

Without doubt the Universal horrors. These seemed a special dish indeed to a pre-teen new to US TV at the fag end of the sixties. Up till then it was kids gems like 'Whistle Down the Wind', Jerry Lewis and Norman Wisdom movies. The Universal horrors (particularly Frankenstein / Werewolf / Dracula) often aired late at night on a show featuring a badly made-up man in a top hat called Dr. Creep whose make-up ran under the lights. I think he may have been local to Ohio TV because it seemed amateurish even then. He showed clips and endlessly interupted the movies with adverts and jokes but it all seemed very cool at the time (1970 - 71?). That and four years of US TV fuelled an insatiable addiction that is as fiery today as it was then. 1700+ DVD's and the collection just never seems quite complete!!

ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 25-7-2010 01:12

For me it was either Live and Let Die or Battle For The Planet Of The Apes. I know the year was 1973, and I'd been a frequent cinemagoer with Mum and Grandad for a few years (Dad's hours as a postie precluded him from joining in). As a family we'd seen pictures like Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Monte Carlo Or Bust and things like that. I'd been traumatised by Battle of Britain (although I have a sneaking love of the picture now). 1973 was the year I got into how they made movies. It was the year I made my first aquaintance of Mrs Bond's little boy - the papers were full of making-of pieces about the stunts. It was also my first exposure to the magic of sci-fa movies. It was the year I got into the whole cinema thing - the huge screen, the booming sound, the collective experience in the darkness. It was also the year Dad bought an 8mm movie projector from Boots, and I was hooked.

ChangesPosted by Si Wooldridge on 25-7-2010 19:30

For me, it started when I was around 9 and my Dad went through a phase of taking me to the pictures. I remember seeing Star Wars, Moonraker and the Guns of Navarone with him before I was then old enough to go on my own to see things like Battlestar Galatica, Blade Runner and Empire Strikes Back.

I'm pretty sure that the major turning point for me was Moonraker, specifically the laser battle at the end with teh Space Marines that was essentially ripped off from Thunderball (although I didn't know it at the time). That one battle sold me on the spectacular that cinema could bring...

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 25-7-2010 21:27

I'm not sure I've even seen every James Bond movie and, even if I have, I certainly can't remember all of them! As for Battlestar Galactica, I haven't seen any of that either but have recently bought the entire collection (only £89.95) on reputation alone but I don't know when the time to watch all of those hours of what is supposed to be one of the finest TV shows ever made as well as plenty of extra features.

The pending pile never seems to shrink, does it?

ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 26-7-2010 00:29

Ah, but you've bought the new "re-imagining" of Battlestar, haven't you? Si's on about the creaky Glen A Larson original complete with wise-cracking Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene with a permanent frown on his face like he's wondering where Hoss has got to, and a chimp in a teddy-bear suit pretending to be a robot (presumably he was cheaper than hiring Felix Silla).

As for the pending pile - my whole collection's a pending pile.

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 26-7-2010 14:09

Yes, I am talking about the new Battlestar Galactica (which I purchased as a 'blind buy', having never seen an episode) and, as I may have mentioned, what I don't know about classic science fiction could fill a rather large barn! I have never seen an episode of either Battlestar Galactica TV show, Lost in Space, Star Trek and I'm not even sure that I have sat through an entire episode of Doctor Who.

Don't worry, I can hear you tutting as you read this!

ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 27-7-2010 19:05

Far from it, David. There are times I wish I'd never heard of any of the shows you mention, tainted as they are by nerdliness I'd probably appall you with my lack of knowledge and appreciation of horror movies (with the exception of the Universal Legacy). Chacun a son gout.

When I did film appreciation as a Combined Studies elective, a fair amount of what they had us watching was "been there, got the teeshirt" territory for me. The interesting thing for me was that, listening to the pseuds who delivered the course, they missed the most important fact about the movies they were ramming down the students' throats - they are cracking good stories, told by master storytellers. Sod the minutiae of how they're made - the innovative photography/cutting/acting. People wouldn't still be watching them decades on from when they were originally made if they draw the viewer in and entertain them for the 90-120 minutes they run. That's genius.

ChangesPosted by Si Wooldridge on 27-7-2010 23:47

Why aren't the page numbers working?

ChangesPosted by David Beckett on 3-8-2010 08:28

On Radio 5 Live on Friday, Nigel Floyd who, along with Boyd Hilton, has taken over reviewing duties for Marc Kermode for the next five weeks whilst Kermode and Simon Mayo are on holiday, was asked what his favourite film was. Prefacing his answer, he made the interesting point that his film basically marked 'life before and life after', with life before Mean Streets being distinctly different to life after seeing Martin Scorsese's gangster classic. I thought this was a really interesting idea as it applies to my favourite film and the one that changed the way I look at film.

So, in my case, I had life before seeing The Exorcist and life after, with a huge dividing line occurring that year.

ChangesPosted by Mark Oates on 6-8-2010 01:17

I think my dividing line was Star Wars. I'd enjoyed watching movies, and I was fascinated by the technicalities of making movies, but I think that movie opened my eyes to the potential of storytelling on an epic scale. Certainly I got into writing (first scripts then proper novels) after seeing Star Wars.

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What film did it for you?Saturday, 17th July 2010, 18:17