Just watched 12 Monkeys (1996), and it’s a little uncomfortable seeing Bruce Willis portray a character struggling mentally, know of his real-life problems with frontotemporal dementia. It’s not the time of year yet, but I’m wondering if my enjoyment of Die Hard will be reduced, since the hearing loss he suffered on that film may have been a contributing factor.
The Crow (1994) - on which Brandon Lee died, and Rust (upcoming) - on which Halyna Hutchins died - aren’t films I’d normally watch anyway, so I don’t know how the deaths would have affected my decision to watch them. Conversely, Kevin Spacey is in a lot of films I like, but it’s a bit queasy seeing his performances, with the suspicion that we all now know why he’s so good at portraying creeps.
So do you just try to enjoy a film as a film, or does real-life events ever stop you re-watching them?
There was a nagging doubt when I wrote the question on whether there was enough of a connection between what I was using as examples of meta-knowledge about particular films. From the responses received so far, it looks like there isn’t.
Also, I’ve been more controversial than I meant to be, so I’ll avoid compounding it by trying to explain myself. Harder than it looks, this whole posting stuff on social media thing.
The question has always intriguid me. How our experiences or knowledge change our perception of art and film.