I would not say too much about the film -North by Northwest- itself. Instead, by reading other students’ post, I kind of realize there’s a huge distinction among each individual’s focus and taste and therefore I want to talk about how people can actually tell a film to be great or not and how the film awards are awarded.
By reading the posts, some people find North by Northwest worth its fame while others might not be that thrilled since they originally expect highly of it. Well. First, the film is quite early, probably order then anyone watching it last Friday and therefore a lot of comments and awards had already been granted to it before we actually watch it. New York Times said it was the “year’s most scenic, intriguing and merriest chase” and it was ranked the 40th greatest American film by the American Film Institute.
Whether the film is good or not, it is a super popular film at least. And by this assumption, people in the latter generation all want to watch it and to see “one of the world’s best”. Some people may not be captured by the title e or plot at first but its fame, for example, me. Especially it was directed by Hitchcock. Then, the feeling toward the film might not be realistic and fair as it supposed to be. The feeling after the film is also just ‘oh, I watched it’, and now I am on the same page with most people who usually assume that people should watch it.
I think it is not a good way to watch a film. I mean, watching a film could be a way to catch up with the trend but to me, it’s also an entertainment or relaxing moment. People should have their own real feelings about this film, not depending on any other comments or effect. To this extent, I’m wondering what’s the role of ranking and awards.
I’ve always found rankings to be kind of arbitrary and random, and I generally ignore them. The main exception to this is for movies (or anything, really) that are really popular, in which case I’ll sometimes watch them just to be able to follow conversations on the topic.
Just before reading your blog post, I was doing a reading for CS 2850 on–coincidentally–popularity. (The textbook is available free online here: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/ . Chapter 18 deals with popularity.) The reading mentioned that it is mostly random which of a series of items will become the most popular. (At least at first. Once something becomes popular, it generally only increases in popularity.) So while it may seem as if there is something intrinsic about popular items that make them so popular, in an alternate universe, it is entirely possible that those popular items would not have been the most popular. It could have been that North by Northwest could have been largely forgotten, and we would all be wanting to see some other movie from that time instead.
Certainly one thing that happens is a movie will become the best and then people watch it because it is considered the “best” and then they just supply it with more positive reviews making it even harder to suggest otherwise. In other words, movie rankings create sort of a positive feedback loop. Perhaps an interesting case is the IMDb top rated movies list. Apparently the Godfather was at the top of the list for a long time before the Dark Knight was released (which quickly rose to the top of the rankings). Then the community was split between hardcore Godfather fans — who kept downvoting the Dark Knight, and hardcore Dark Knight fans — who kept downvoting the Godfather. What ended up happening was both sides lost — the films got downvoted so much they were both knocked off the 1st place pedestal and the Shawshank Redemption assumed the number one position (which is where it is now). But these are mere rankings — they certainly don’t mean that the Shawshank Redemption is the best film or that the Dark Knight isn’t. Rather they vacillate according to the whims of the people whose preferences are often polarized for love or distaste of certain films.