Following plots in films

Post Reply New Topic

I have trouble following things in films when they go back and forth between the present and the past; I was watching The English Patient and it took me days afterwards to understand that the lady asleep in the aeroplane was the same lady left in the cave. Even then, it seems that she was not asleep but dead

Then I did not understand that the patient was the man who went to get the lady from the cave.

Took me days and lots of thinking to get my head around this.

Does anyone else have that kind of problem?

Not really, I can pick up these sorts of things fairly easily. Only if there's no obvious clues to say that it's a flashback (like the Aragorn-Arwen ones in LOTR)

You may suffer from face blindness.
http://www.faceblind.org/research/index.html

Other aspies have started threads on this, Including myself in the last few days. Just do a search!

The site has some good tests, and a survey they would love you to fill out!

I think I know what you mean. I had a lot of trouble with The English Patient too! I agree with EarthCalling that you might have faceblindness. I think I have that too to a certain degree. Though it is only with certain movies. Ones that jump around from past to present, particularly when they have a totallly differant appearence. This might be what is going on with us.

I have a terrible time following the plot of movies. It's a combination of face blindness and not understanding people's (characters') actions. For instance I was watching "Children of Men" and I could not understand why anything was happening. I see so many inconsistencies and lack of logic in plots, that I obsess over those instead of just accepting the story as-is. I don't know how I manage to enjoy watching movies, actually... I usually don't, come to think of it.

I loved that movie! I have to admit, though, I did have a hard time following the politics and keeping some of the characters straight (aside from the main few). I just enjoyed the concept of the overall story and the extremely powerful visuals.

I find I don’t always need to know precisely what’s going on to enjoy a movie. If the overall plot concept is good, and if everything else is done well (the acting, effects, visuals, audio, etc), then I’m fairly happy.

Sheesh… makes me sound rather simple-minded.

I have problems with the scenes are disjointed and there is no transition. Modern movies are often noisy with special effects I could do without as they just distract me. I always enjoy the book more than the film of the book.

Yes, this can throw me also. I now tend to watch more carefully when I know a movie is going to have time swings. But beyond that, I am relatively good at understanding film plots...but then I have a movie buff mother so grew up watching endess films and have studied film and media at college.

Yep..all the time...I am trying to think of a good example but one is not coming to me at the moment...

I love old black and white movies where the dialogue is quiet and the characters actually talk to one another. I hate all this moving and doing things that don't make any sense. The last movie I really enjoyed was Master and Commander.

Last edited by SeriousGirl on 02 Apr 2007, 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

I love love love old movies...the older the better. I used to barely tolerate any movie made past 1950..I am a bit more open minded now...but still..if I had the AMC channel, I would never leave the house.

No Donny Darko for you

Ah thanks guys, I hadn't considered face blindness but if there are films where there are several characters with similar looks and hair colour, I get confused. I will go search and do the test.

I did in fact search for a topic like this but maybe used the wrong terms, oh well, another go needed then : )

I agree about old movies without sound, I love to watch TV whilst muted, I can follow it better.

How funny that the English Patient was used as an example!! Both my mom & stepdad are AS, and they drove themselves crazy trying to figure out who the English Patient was! And I think the only reason I didn't have a problem myself was because I'd read the movie review before I went to see it! Yes, it's really tough for me to follow disjointed movie plots, even more so than with books. If it's a movie I really want to understand, I usually have to see it at least twice.

I've always had trouble following plots full stop. In my late Twenties, I'm slowly getting better at it. Such changes in times seem to work better for me actually, since the visual cues are more obvious (it's obvious that "now you need to pay attention").

My boyfriend and I recently rented "The Departed",we couldnt figure out what was going on because we thought two characters(Matt Damion and DeCaprio)were the same character being shown at different times(flashbacks).If you showed me those two guys next to each other I could tell them apart but in this movie they looked the same to me....except one was clean cut and one was "scruffy"which we thought was because he was the same guy under cover.....very confussing.

I always read the back cover for clues about basic plot and that does help sometimes.

I think lod movies are more clear cut because there was a formula.....two main characters and charactor actors who were very unique in either their appearance or there voice.Sometimes I recognise someones voice before ther face.I wish hollywood would stop using so many "cloned pod people".....makes it much more difficult for people with face blindness.I also think this is why I always preferred dating guys with "unique" looks.....I could find them in a crowd better then "generic GQ" guys.