Friday, December 10, 2010

Noticing Things in Movies Without the Dialogue?

Does anyone else out there tend to notice a lot more little tidbits in a movie while you are watching it on DVD with the commentary track on? I know some of you don't like to watch movies with commentary tracks, but bear with me.

I don't mean the things that the participants are commenting on... I am talking more about the body language and more subtle facial expressions of the actors involved in the scenes. Technically you can get this effect from just turning the sound down, but because I watch so many movies with commentary, that is generally how I notice these things.

In thinking about this, it made me wonder if that very same idea ended up shaping my perception of foreign language films, because I often don't know what the natural cadence those languages have, so I rely more on the visual cues. The fact that most of these movies would also stay on a shot for longer than 5 seconds was merely a bonus.

So, has anyone else has this kind of experience with a movie?

1 comment:

Dan said...

I haven't watched a movie with commentary since the Lord of the Rings films.

I dunno why, but probbably because my time is so limited I tend not to want to watch a film twice I guess unless I really really like it. Plus I'm not sure my wife would tolerate it :)