I have been thinking about emotions a lot lately. I think we all have emotional reactions to films/TV/books etc. that matter to us. It's not really a secret that I am a very emotional person and things that I love are often the things that affect me deeply. I guess this explains why, even after getting a degree in film, I don't focus on the technical side of films or TV shows. For me the story and the characters are more important than editing, sound or camera work. Don't get me wrong, the technical side does matter and when it works, I will notice it. Hannibal is one of the best TV shows ever and while writing and acting are suberb in the show, the sound design and cinematography are also breathtaking. Also Fool for Love is my favourite Buffy episode for many reasons, one of them being the editing in the sequence where Spike demonstrates to Buffy how he killed Nikki. It creates the mood perfectly and is fascinating to watch.
Anyway, back to the point, my focus when watching films and TV has always been the characters and the story they are telling me. When these characters make me feel for them, that is when I feel like I'm watching something good. I judge everything by the emotions it makes me feel. The stronger my reaction, the better it is. This usually means that if something can make me cry, then I will love it. Watching The Lord of the Rings is usually a very clensing experience because I will spend hours crying and just getting all my emotions out. I understand that other people might find that very weird but for me, sometimes that is exactly what I need. Hannibal, on the other hand, brings out different kind of emotions. Yes, the show has made me cry, but mostly because it made me so tense (that was a weird experience). I'm very invested in the characters and the story so I usually watch it on the edge of my seat while yelling at the screen because characters are doing things that are not good.
And then there is Supernatural... I started watching this show after seeing one episode of season 6 that caught my attention and made want to see more. So I went back to the pilot. I didn't think much of the first season. There where few scary episodes (Bloody Mary, Provenance), some bad ones (we all know which ones those are) and some really good ones (Faith, Home etc.). By season 2 I was already invested in the characters and In My Time of Dying made me fall in love with the show. I could relate to the characters, the mythology is great, adding angels to the show worked really well and it broke my heart on several occasions.
I went through some difficult times last year and I have noticed that I am emotionally much more vulnerable now. It is a lot easier for films to make me cry which made me realise this is not always a good thing. On my rewatch of SPN I have noticed how much more devastating I find the show and it has made a a bit wary. My emotions have been going up and down a lot for the last few weeks which has resulted in me avoiding watching season 9 of Supernatural because I know it will give me all sort of feelings. I'm also currently rewatching season 5 because of Mark Watches and I was avoding that too. I spend days postponing watching the next episode because that episode was Abandon All Hope (*sobs*). So I watched Bones and when I got bored of that I decided to rewatch season 1 of SPN. I figured it would be light on the emotions while giving me my daily dose of Jensen Ackles. I haven't seen the first season in ages and it really surprised me by how good it was. It was also a lot more emotional than I thought it would be. It reawakened my hatred for John Winchester, it made me see how broken Dean has always been and how he never got the thanks he deserved for taking care of his family. Thank you John Winchester for being the worst father ever and bless you Bobby Singer for being the best ever and for threathening to shoot John.
I guess what I'm really trying to get to here is that I may need to start selecting my watches the same way I select my music. Certain moods require certain music. When down I need to go back to my list of feel good films and not go anywhere near stuff that is sad. Which in my case means watching Pitch Perfect over and over again. But I'm actually starting to get back into the place where I can watch something and be okay with the fact that it breaks my heart to pieces. I made it through Abandon All Hope, while crying like a baby, but I have to say, I don't want to see that episode for a really long time. I've also started season 9 (three episodes in) and I'm confident that I'll finish it before season 10 begins.
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