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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

The inability of adults to get totally absorbed into experiencing a movie (or a book) is a clear obstacle of enjoying the experience. Allowing the experience to wash over you without analyzing it while experiencing gets harder. Getting 3d or perfect reality virtual reality hardware is not going to fix that.

If you can do it as an adult, 2001 is great and Inland Empire from David Lynch is amazing. Inland Empire speaks directly to the unconsciousness and goes past of any explanation. You walk out from the theater wondering what happened. It's like you have been injected with something. The experience that lingers has no explanation.

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> Allowing the experience to wash over you without analyzing it while experiencing gets harder.

I agree, and I didn't realise the extent to which this was happening with me until a few years ago, when one of my children got interested in performance magic. Because he was young, I went to various magic conventions and meetings with him, and listened to a lot of people talking about the practice of magic as well as its technical aspect. Turns out, a big preoccupation of magicians is how hard it is to get people to just watch the magic without them being distracted by trying to figure-out how its done. If anything, its harder for magicians than film directors because what they do clearly does merit disbelief.

Anyway, I learned that it really is ok to just watch a difficult film and experience the feelings that it produces without picking them apart. As an analytical person this was both a relief and a learning experience for me.

(Also, 2001 is an excellent film.)

I had that problem with magic a long time ago, when I learned a fair amount about it (a friend of mine is a magician and I learned while he did, though only casually). I had to retrain myself to watch a performance with the intent to just enjoy it rather than try to figure it out as it happened. Ignoring the how and just enjoying the what makes it a lot more fun.

I think the inability largely stems from the manner in which we consume our content nowadays. How many movies or TV shows have you watched recently on Netflix using your laptop from your bed lately? Nolan has always been a big proponent of the movie theater experience. So much so he was against the idea of having a ~$50 monthly pass the allowed you to watch in-theater movies at home.

Overconsumption is the one issue, distractions from phones and such another, and IMO so is advertising, which over here would cause a break from immersion every half an hour or so, and in the US every ten minutes. Can't watch a movie like that.

With that in mind, the Netflix binge is a good example of how immersion is still very much a thing.

I can't think of a more disagreeable way to watch something. Not one time. I do read in bed though.

"Upstream Color"[0] by Shane Carruth, the writer and director of "Primer"[1] is another example of this kind of filmmaking. He aspired to create a film that you could watch in the same way one listens to albums/CDs over and over again and discover something new with each listen.[2]

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U9KmAlrEXU

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nj5MMURCm8

[2]http://www.indiewire.com/2013/04/interview-shane-carruth-tal...

I wonder how much of this is because we are increasingly watching movies at home or on portable devices with lots of distractions around us?

I've seen 2001 in 70mm a few times in recent years in a nice theater (and I'll see it again when it comes back), and it's very engrossing in a dark theater with no technology. You can let the entire film and all of its implications just wash over you. You can't get up, nor can you check your phone. You have nothing else to do other than just be in the moment.

This is harder to do at home. People should see more seminal movies in theaters, and I wish more theaters showed them. I live by American Film Institute's theater in the DC area, which is how I am able to see all of this stuff, but many other people do not. I think it's a big miss that more theaters don't show older movies year around.

My local art house showed the 4K restoration of Night of the Living Dead just before Halloween. It was a really fantastic experience, and I think you're right that more theaters should do this.

For what it’s worth, the first time I watched 2001 it was on a 3.5 inch phone screen. Still blew me away

I love 2001, but Inland Empire was almost too much for me, I'm pleased I went to see it though. From Lynch watching Eraserhead or Mulholland Drive (heavily influenced by Ingmar Bergman's Persona) were much more pleasurable.

After leaving an afternoon screening of 2001 directors cut I felt like I'd been taking acid. I really respect Nolan as one of the best modern filmmakers, creating blockbusters with integrity is a big ask.

I haven't seen Inland Empire yet. I discovered David Lynch in the last 5 years and it's taking me a lot of time to get through his movies because it takes a whole lot of processing to really understand every one of them. It creeps into your psyche and sometimes your dreams. And for me it takes time to muster up the energy to put myself through another one of those experiences.

Eraserhead was a trip, I still haven't totally figured it out. But in terms of pure cinematic enjoyment Blue Velvet would be my favorite.

Now that I hear other Lynch fans talk about Inland Empire I'm really excited to watch it.

I find Frank Booth utterly terrifying - I think he reminds me of some unpleasant characters from the high school I went to.... :-)

I wouldn't try to understand them completely, he is an artist and transcendental meditator. Try to appreciate them as painting not as a narrative and I think you'll enjoy them even more. Inland Empire is really a fan film in my opinion and should/can only really be watched which an existing knowledge of his background works.

I believe to have read Lynch himself say that Inland Empire doesn't have a deeper interpretation that makes sense. As far as I remember it's even largely made up of footage from other projects.

I agree with this - his works may have a logic of their own, or they may not, or the logic may not be a logic that can be understood by any human. For me, it helps to think of them as dreams - there's some normal looking stuff, but then there's that bit where you're cycling up a lane that looks like one you used to ride almost weekly, with the head of the sister of a teenage girlfriend looming large somewhere you can't quite place. It doesn't have to mean anything.

As a long time Lynch fan (I discovered Lynch from watching the original Twin Peaks series back when it was first broadcast in the early 90's) I'd probably put Inland Empire aside for a bit if you're just getting started.

What have watched so far?

Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Wild at Heart

Might be worthwhile taking a break and watching "The Straight Story". It's one of Lynch's films that you could uncharacteristically call "charming".

Then saddle up for "Lost Highway" :)

Looks good -- thank you!

I don't think adults have an inability to get absorbed that way; I think they still get that when they watch more "traditional" blockbuster movies. The problem is this mental division between what is perceived as commercial and fun, and what has to be seen as art. Basically, once people realize that something is very different from the baseline of normal movies, they will start to get into art+interpretation mode and spoil the pure experience. Christopher Nolan is probably one of the people who really manage in all their movies to keep the balance between those two worlds.

I agree - we went with fiancee to watch latest Star Wars few weeks ago. I don't recall the last time I enjoyed a movie in cinema so much, was drawn into the story 100% of the time, not a single blip that would distract & make me come back from being right there in the story.

It didn't happen with any previous SW movies, in fact maybe this was unique experience. For both of us. I didn't question logic of anything (which I usually do), everything just clicked and hummed along the story.

When I checked IMDB, I couldn't wrap my head around why it's rated so low and first 50-100 user reviews gave it either 1/10 or 2/10 and kept repeating how disappointing it is and how it is a worst movie in cinema history. Didn't bother to check their arguments, I enjoyed it profoundly and I still smile when remembering those moments.

Maybe I was in right mental setup for it, but that would be valid for both of us symmetrically.

In fact, as writing this, I recall once I watched Apocalypse Now, and somehow, for some reason, it felt very similar. I saw it before, and I saw it after this, but it was never so intense, so 'right'

I never though about it, but thinking about the last movies I've watcher, I agree that the mental setup/mood at the time can have a great influence on how much I'd be drawn into a movie.

I've seen 2001 at least 10 times in my life and I love it to death, but I got to see it in the theater once and it was like I'd never really experienced it at all before. You can't appreciate the incredible sound design until it's absolutely filling the air around you. Not just the music, but the klaxons and the moments of dead silence.

I've seen it in the cinema a couple of times over the years, and you're right, it's a truly amazing thing to experience; previously I'd only watched on VHS or on the BBC.

It wasn't until the blu-ray release came out that I felt the same experience and immersion in the film as I did with viewing in a theatre.

Definitely agree. I got to see 2001 in the theater on 70mm film. It was simply beautiful. Deafeningly loud, eerily silent, and brightly beautiful.

Yeap. Never had the chance to see 2001 in a theater, but I've watched Apocalypse Now after having seen it on a TV, and it was a whole new experience. The helicopters scene was overwhelming.

I saw Apocalypse Now in our high school film club when I was 16 in 1981/82 - was completely blown away by the introduction.

> Allowing the experience to wash over you without analyzing it while experiencing gets harder.

"It's not over-analysis when every stray thought about the film has to be quashed lest you realize how stupid the movie is." -- Howard Tayler

No idea about virtual reality hardware, but some chemicals will definitely help a lot

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