which film: was the first to transcend for you?

[wanderlust]

i was flipping through the channels this weekend when i cam across dances with wolves. seeing the movie took my back to when it was released and i saw it on what was, at the time, the largest movie screen in the state. the expanse of the panoramic shots, the flat land with low hanging sky, the encompassing feeling you got making it seems as though you were fully inside the scene. the feeling that you were standing on the edge looking out into the reality of the landscapes.
now i was all of 11 when this was released... but i remember it being the first film to really transcend the idea of just being a story on a screen for me. it made me notice camera angles and the vibrancy of some colors verses the dullness of others. it was more than just a pretty way of telling a story... more than just pictures that got a basic message across... it showed me that there was an art to this thing called film. to photography, to placement, angles and timing.
since then there have more films, especially when i grew a bit older and started to delve more into photography and art, that have had such an impact on me, i consider a film a success on a whole new level when i can connect with it on this type of level instead of just entertaining me for an hour and a half. sure, there is a thread around here about visually stunning films ... but what was the first that lifted you up to this next level? that made your, perhaps, more than a casual watcher?

 

[undead]

i like this question, but i'll have to think on it to remember as, for me, it may have been more of a gradual process.

 

[Belisarius]

The overall winner: The Right Stuff

Though I first saw this movie when I was very young, I've loved it ever since, and the older I got the more I appreciated its subtlety, humor, and cinematography, and surreal touches (the beautiful bonfire scene in the Outback, the ominous man in black, etc.). It's all the more impressive when you realize that it doesn't really have a singular plot, favoring instead a series of glowing vignettes.


Honorable mention:
Toy Story: This was one of the first films I saw in the theater and remember being totally blown away by it, to the point where I thought of it for days afterward. The humor, the sensitivity, and the loving detail lavished on the seemingly most insignificant objects in every scene really brought the feeling of a virtual world alive to me.

Dick Tracy: I loved the simultaneously garish and generic visual style of this movie from the first, and thought it brilliantly illuminated a comic-book world.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: I completely disappear into this movie every time I watch it. It wasn't just the F/X, it was the way it presented Toontown and its inhabitants so seamlessly into "real" life that I could almost believe that they existed.

 

[L2R]

very hard to say. i don't remember a time when i wasn't aware of what constitutes a film. i remember being allowed to watch one film in a cinema per school holiday and relished going to the cinema, that is before i started to truent and go see every other thing. i was also renting heaps of VHS too.

Watching "The Silence of the Lambs" whilst on school suspension blew my mind significantly.

^roger rabbit is a good call too. it really pushed the envelope, didn't it!? i remember seeing it with my older brother at the drive in.

 

[Damien]

Wow, tough question. I'm going to have to say The Matrix. The only movie I've seen in a theater seven times.

Bah, re-reading the original question though I'm not sure. I took a film appreciation class in college so that is what really opened up my eyes to how films are made and to an extent what to look for. Every movie after that has kind of been looked at through that perspective. Before this class though I am going to have to say The Matrix

 

[undead]

ok... i'm still not 100% sure, but a couple of the earliest movies that i remember watching that made me think more about the "whole picture" rather than just the entertainment value would probably have to be one of the following:

natural born killers
a clockwork orange

natural born killers and a clockwork orange were (in that order) the first two that i remember being completely blown away by them in every aspect from the story, to the character development, to the soundtrack, to the way the camera panned, etc. they both kind of opened my eyes to a whole new world. i never knew a movie could pull me, chew me up, and spit me out the way those two did at the time.

 

[TheDeceased]

The Crying Game really messed with me.

 

[EJ]

My first viewing of two movies stand out in particular though.

I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey on a heavy dose of acid. It remains the most mind blowing movie watching experience i've had to date. It probably doesn't count though, because once I watched it sober again, I realised I was barely following it at all and was hallucinating much of what I thought I was seeing and especially hearing. Of course, I did go on to appreciate 2001 in a whole other way afterwards, but it was definitely different.

So I think my genuine nomination is for Picnic at Hanging Rock. It's powerful atmosphere took me by the scruff of the neck like no other. It delved deep into my emotions and psyche like never before or since. A truly transcending moment for me.

 

[JoeTheStoner]

edward scissorhands. without knowing it at the time. that shit is fucking magical! all those pastel colors and fantasy scenes.

 

[colors]

Godard's Breathless made me realize the extent to which a creative hand could shape film. it was the first 'art film' that resonated philosophically and aesthetically. later i saw examples of the Kuleshov Effect (link) and that really set the wheels in motion. then onto stuff like Bunuel and Bergman, later on Lynch and Von Trier, Haneke and Noe, etc. film school was probably the most enjoyable 3yrs of my life, and had i been thinking clearly upon graduation, i would have pursued a career in independent filmmaking/production.