Attitude Change to various DVDs

[whetherwax]

Do people find that their responses to ballets on DVD changes with continued viewing? I have just rewatched a few of mine and I find that I am a different watcher .

I found Prince of the Pagodas so full of longuers re the narrative when I first watched it but now I can enjoy the look and dancing and I dont see the ridiculous story.

So too the cinematographically awful Giselle, with Bruhn and Fracci. I loathed this when i first saw it because of the cameras intrusion, but I have become inured to the watery wilis. ( Bart, when they do the wilis' temps leve(?) and the camera zooms off into the water I thought that it might be a lost piece of your Swan Swamp!) I can now see so much more in this version.

Do attitudes change much? Have you hated something or liked it and found that you, or it ,has changed?

[Alexandra]

Absolutely! Just try moving tapes around, and putting people next to Maya Plisetskaya, and see how their technique changes the next time you watch!!

Seriously, yes, I remember being surprised when i had the same reaction -- we like to think that we have one opinion (the Right opinion and of course, that won't change. But WE change. We see more, we see other things, we have a broader basis of comparison. Something that looked too simple at first may seem very complex a few years later. A dancer whom we liked immensely and thought was top drawer may seem a little less exciting after we've seen other dancers. Or, alas, we might just have a bad day! They never do. It's frozen in time. They win this round

[bart]

I agree with both of you. My response to dvds is very much conditioned by (a) my purpose in watching and (b) the method by which I watch.

My first view tends to be rather passive -- getting a sense of the whole, the "look," the level of quality. Doing this, I'm quite conservative with the rewind, freeze, fast-forward, etc., functions.

Afterwards, when I re-visit, I watch again to study, compare, brood. i often do this with other dvds at hand, and with books and photos. That, for me, is the best part of dvd-ing.

Whetherwax, I never thought about it, but you're absolutely right about Prince of the Pagodas. A bore (to me) when watched as a whole. Fascinating, in many of its parts, when I'm in the re-visiting mode.

Does anyone else experience this?