How many times? (New version!)

[serious crayons]

Here's a new poll designed as an update of the previous "how many times" poll, which was started last spring and focused on theater viewings.

You can vote place two votes, in case you know your specific number but option 7 also applies. You can change your vote if you see it a bunch more times and care to revisit the thread.

If possible, please elaborate by telling how you feel about seeing it as many times as you have. Have you seen it too much or too little? If your number is on the higher end, have you tried to limit or wean yourself? How hard is that? What makes you keep going back to it? Do you find yourself getting something out of each additional viewing? What other rewards do you find in multiple viewings? If your number is on the lower end, are you trying not to watch it too much for fear of desensitizing yourself? And so on.

[serious crayons]

I've seen it "only" 15 times, which is 12 times more than I've ever seen any other movie as an adult. But I know that, by some lights, it's on the low end.

I still feel I know the movie pretty well. I think being on the board and discussing it constantly helps. Also, there are certain parts that I've seen a LOT more often on YouTube.

I haven't watched the whole movie more often partly because I only like to watch when I have the house to myself, and over the summer that was almost never. But also, there's part of me that's afraid of seeing it too many times, afraid it will start to lose some of its impact.

So far, that hasn't been a problem. On the contrary, for me watching it is like getting together with good friends. Though sometimes if my time is limited I might FF through certain parts (though NOT, oddly enough, the parts I've already seen dozens of times on YouTube!  )

I'm getting ready to watch it for my 16th time. Maybe later this week!

[jpwagoneer1964]

Although I have seen it all the way straight through only 5-6 times, most recently A week ago at a friend house with home theater & surround sound ( the screen was built into one whole wall ), I was in the habit for quite some time of watching the first 30-45 minutes early every morning.   

[Front-Ranger]

I see the movie as often as I can--which means I see it once every two or three weeks. That's the oftenest that I can carve out two or three hours of time to myself.  I would like to see it more often, but I would not want it to become a routine thing. Usually when I am watching a  show I am also eating, reading a magazine, ironing, or some such thing and I could never multitask while watching BBM. Quell horreur!! When I watch the movie, I usually decide beforehand that I'm going to focus on one character, or what the sky looks like, or what props are around, or whatever. I always learn something new and fascinating. Quite often I find that in the intervening days I have dreamed up something that I am sure is in the movie but when I see it everything is different than I imagined.

[Penthesilea]

I saw it about 12 times now. I, too, prefer to watch it when I'm alone in the house respectively late in the evening, when my whole familiy is sleeping.

Sometimes I feel like I would like to watch it every week, but I don't want to desensitize myself, I don't want to wear it out. So I restrain myself and see it circa every two or three weeks. After that time, I develop a need, an urge to see it again (talk about crazy  ).

So far the feeling about the movie is far from wearing out. It still has the same impact on me when I see it. In fact, the last time I saw it, it was as "bad" as it was after my second viewing: I couldn't shrug the sadness off for a couple of days and I ran through the world like numb.
So I decided to wait a little longer this time until I will see it again. And the next time I will do what I sometimes do, but did not at my last vieweing: after the end of the credits I'll replay the first 15 minutes.
For me it helps: Jack is there again, both of them so young and sweet and full of life and everything in front of them.

Sometimes I try to focus on things I've read on the board, but mostly I fail. Or I discover new (at least to me) things/details I want to discuss on the board, but by the end of the movie, I forgot most of them.

I checked the last box, too. I think I can recite every single sentence 

From Katherine:
for me watching it is like getting together with good friends

I know the feeling...

[belbbmfan]

Also, there are certain parts that I've seen a LOT more often on YouTube.

haven't we all? 

for me watching it is like getting together with good friends.

I've lost count of how many times i've seen the film in the cinema. I think it must have been 13 times. I just had a 'date' with Jack an Ennis once a week as long as the film was programmed, a very special time indeed.

[moremojo]

I saw the film five times in the theater, but on DVD, only once so far all the way through. I played around with the early scenes quite a bit, looking for the hand-holding in Tent Scene 1 (saw it) and Jack's soft "Fuck me" in same (heard it); I also caught Jack's "Give 'em hell" for the first time experimenting with the DVD.

It took me several weeks to work up the courage to watch the film up to the end on DVD, and I was emotionally devastated when the closing credits came up. It was one thing to watch the film in the theater, and take the memory of the experience home with you--it's quite something else to have the experience IN your home. I feel in no rush to repeat the experiment, though I would not hesitate to go see the film again in the theater were it available that way.

My DVD viewing is limited also because my sister, with whom I live, doesn't want to see the film again. She saw the film with me on February 18th (first viewing for both of us), and she was deeply moved by it, agreeing with me that it was the most important film she had experienced. But she found the sadness overwhelming, and doesn't want to expose herself to it again.

[nakymaton]

Never enough times, never enough.

Though, to be serious, I haven't seen it that many time. Six, maybe, in the theater? It was only in town for eight weeks, and I couldn't managed to carve out time to go every weekend. And then since the DVD came out, I've seen it, I don't know, maybe once every six weeks or so. Except I think I watched it a couple more times than that during the first week or so that I had it... though I stopped when they came down off of the mountain a few times, too.

So maybe twelve times? I'm not burned out on it, and so far every time I've watched it (usually on my tiny computer screen with headphones, too), it has just devastated me, still. I don't think I could watch it more frequently than I do... it's still just too emotionally draining.

[Lynne]

I can only keep track of theatre viewings (21 now!), but I checked the 'recite word for word option.'  I've seen it many, many more times since the DVD release.  And I've ordered it twice on hotel PPV on general principle  !

But I admit that sometimes I'm guilty of stopping my DVD after the post-reunion camping scene...I have to be in just the right mood to see Brokeback Mountain through to the end these days.

-Lynne

Edit:  Incremented viewings to 21 thanks to Boston screening!

[SFEnnisSF]

45 in the theatre (including our Boston screening)

about 8 on DVD

[serious crayons]

I notice that at the moment there are zero votes in the over-100 category, even though I happen to know there are some people who can claim that distinction. Maybe they just haven't visited this poll yet. But those of you to whom this applies, in the interest of scientific research, please vote (anonymously, if you choose  )!

The count in the 51 to 100 category ain't what I'd hoped for, neither.

[Daniel]

I own the DVD (actually three copies of it.), but I have yet to watch it completely on any of them, it is still a raw and deeply emotional experience for me (every moment of it), but it is even more meaningful when it is watched with other Brokies... I have seen the film a total of 28 times, counting seeing it in Atlanta, and at a Dallas Brokie get-together.

[JT]

Well all right.  I'll vote "more than 100".  I was still visiting the "old version" and have not seen this one yet.  But to be honest, I lost count after 90.  I still can't recite it word-for-word but I know what they will say next. 

[welliwont]

Well hell, am I the only who will report being de-sentsitized by over-watching?       Much to my dismay, that is the feeling I have, and I think I *only* watched it 30 or 40 times, (I wasn't counting).  I saw it only one time on the big screen, and then I bought the DVD two days later.  The second viewing clinched it for me, and I became an instant Brokaholic.  I then watched it almost every night for about month, give or take.  By the time I was warned not to desensitize myself, (by Amanda or Katherine, I forget who) it was already too late.  And now I have weaned myself from watching it, but the overexposure has not dimmed.  And I won't watch YouTube either, for that is a sure-fire way to kill the wonder of those captivating scenes.  Anyway, not much I can do about it now....

Just for a treat I watched it again last week, after about a month of not seeing it, and it is still way to over-familiar to me.  I don't know how I am ever gonna fix this problem....  Does anyone else feel this way about over-exposure, or am I the only one??   

J

[serious crayons]

Does anyone else feel this way about over-exposure, or am I the only one??   

I'm on the edge of it, Jane, so I'm trying to be really careful. And I've seen it "only" about 17 times (if you don't count bits and pieces on YouTube -- I'm not going to say how many of those ). I don't own it, I rent it, and watch it just once or twice while I have it. But I noticed that the past couple of times, I was feeling ever so slightly less engaged, a bit less emotional, and it scared me. So I am going to wait for a while before I rent it again.

It ain't all the movie's fault, though -- I think discussing the most minute nuances and details of every moment of the film for seven hours a day for the past nine months may have played a part. Not to mention thinking about it constantly over the same period.

[Ellemeno]

I think discussing the most minute nuances and details of every moment of the film for seven hours a day for the past nine months may have played a part.

I go weeks without partaking of the yummy, yummy yumminess in the Open Forum analysis threads.  I visit the list of them nearly every day, and look to see which ones are growing, but don't dive in.  And then one day, I'm ready for a BBMfest, and I read 4 or 5 long threads full of insight all the way through.  By the time I get to them, so much has been said that there isn't usually too much for me to add except to express my praise and gratitude for the wisdom and humor therein.

So I thank you stolid hardworking, industrious ants who trudge on through the observation and analysis day after day, so that I, a silly grasshopper, can infrequently savor and chow down on your glorious, impressive gleanings.

[RouxB]

My theater viewings are at about 18 or so-I'd have to check with Nipith  and my home viewings no more than 3 from beginning to end. I feel "guilty" just watching the first half hour but I confess to doing just that. I loved the theater experience-the anticipation was just plain joyful. Somewhere along the line, though, the movie became too emeshed with the stressful time taking care of my father and it just made me sad.

I got home, got the DVD-okay, the DVDs, watched a couple of times and got incredibly sad about a week later. Lately I've felt the fellas calling (could be all the anniversary celebrating) so took a chance and watched the first half hour. Yep, I got sad about a week later but I'm now okay with that.

The excitement has certainly mellowed but my connection has not. I have never felt this way about a movie for Pete Tannen's sake! Nor have I ever fallen in love with fictional characters! I watch and am just transported by the beauty of the cinematography, the perfection of Gustavo's score and the melancholy of the boy's relationship. It still fills me with wonder-every time.