Directing Inattention

Hey Everyone!

A few days ago I watched Star Trek Into Darkness with several of my friends. Up until it came out some years back I had not seen a single star trek movie, but since then I've grown to enjoy the series and most things science fiction.

I saw the movie in theaters with my dad, who is a lifelong star trek fan, and his excitement for the show turned out to be justified. Between the actors I recognized from my favorite movies, the saga my dad had told me led up to this film, and the wholesome mental exhaustion that follows after running one's eyes around a 15 foot screen, the piece stuck in my mind as one of the hallmarks of great action movies.

There is no stretch of the imagination that lets me call myself a film critic, but I found myself very resistant to some of the stabs people threw at the screen. Notes about lens flare and camera angles went over my head, as did much of the criticism of the dialogue and plot.

My first reaction was that I was simply unsophisticated, which is true, but more to the point, in many movies I watch I find myself drawn in in such a way that I ignore details that remove me from the experience the director intends the viewer to have. I'm worse at finding any technical aspect of a film than most of my friends, but I am a champion at suspending disbelief.

That phrase shouldn't suggest that poor dialogue or choppy camera work won't rub me wrong; the opposite is the case. Anything that forces me out of the scene in front of me sticks in my mind, often becoming a key takeaway from a movie, but building a tolerance or even a directed lack of focus, so to speak, and training the mind to accept the world a director or a writer creates gives me a leg up when it comes to enjoying movies or books or any creative work for that matter.

It's not hard to believe that our brains are hardwired to experience life with this disposition. If we don't over analyze a situation we can dive straight in to an imagined environment, and see our surroundings and even ourselves as whatever we want to envision for a situation. It's not until our English professors tell us to be sure to omit adverbs that our brain starts seizing up in the middle of a gloriously crafted scene an author proudly pieced together.

This is written with the understanding that if no-one was paying attention to the details no-one could sit through any movie or read any book. That said, it's far more fun to be the friend who's excited to see the movie for the sixth time than to be the friend who's uncertain about watching the movie once.