The Collective Conscience and Coincidence of Movie Watching
Filed under: Fandom
The notion of a collective conscience has been in my head ever since Ethan Hawke's Jesse and Julie Delpy's Celine discussed life and death in Waking Life. Jesse referred to innovative leaps, getting the answers, and solving an old crossword puzzle: "It's like once the answers are out there, people can pick up on 'em. It's like we're all telepathically sharing our experiences."
But what about media and moviegoing? I've been in the middle of reading one book, happen to pick up another at the store, and then turned the page of my current read to see mention of the new book I just purchased. With moviegoing it seems to be even more prevalent. Within days of watching Synecdoche, New York, I watched Heaven & Hell: North & South, Book III. I'd seen neither before, and both had Tom Noonan. Just the other day, in the middle of my Soap marathon, I threw in Janeanne Garofalo's Matchmaker for a little romcom fluff. Robert Mandan, who played Chester Tate in the former, played McGlory Senior in the latter. I'd had no idea.
These aren't cases of watching two new movies and seeing the same actors in them (like Anton Yelchin in Star Trek and Terminator Salvation), but moments when quite random actors pop up as if the subconscience had planned a double feature. It happens so often that I wonder: Do we all have a photographic memory that we just don't have the ability to access? Is there a collective conscience? How many times does it have to happen before it stops being coincidence?
I turn the question over to you, movie fans: Does this sort of thing happen with your movie watching, and why do you think it is?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-05-2009 @ 1:39PM
thomas said...
This happened to me last nigh! I was watching Return of the King for the millionth time (because it was on tv) and I realized that the actor from the tv series Fringe has a huge role in that movie. But I never realized it until I saw Return of the King again.
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6-05-2009 @ 7:18PM
Kumar said...
It happened with Cinematical just the other day!
The other night I watched Guilty By Suspicion and saw Tom Sizemore in a small, but prominent, role. I'd seen this movie several times, but never realized he was in it.
The next day I navigate to Cinematical to see the post about Sizemore and Dr. Drew!
I will say that some things that seem coincidental really aren't. For example, if I'd watched Saving Private Ryan the day before, then seen Guilty by Suspicion and realized that Sizemore was in it, that wouldn't be a cosmic coincidence. That would be more a function of not knowing who Sizemore was when I first saw Guilty, and then on a later viewing realizing he was in it.
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6-05-2009 @ 10:39PM
EatingPie said...
Could it be because there are really fewer prominent actors than we think? Or could it be the result of actually seeing the actors mentioned on, say IMDB, without registering? like just glancing at the cast list, not reading it, but your mind absorbs what it says.
Or maybe Jung was right.
-Pie
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6-06-2009 @ 3:14AM
Lee said...
Ouch. Really?
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6-08-2009 @ 1:51PM
Marc said...
Funny you write this post Monika - this happens to me quite a lot. Collective conscience...um, I don't know, but I'd just always thought that as movie fans, the more we watch, the more perceptive we become, therefore making it easier to recognize these little coincidences.
Although it's a good topic you've started, anyone want to attempt to elaborate or spin it? Anyone ever seen movies in succession that happen to have the same casting directors, producers or the same composer?
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6-08-2009 @ 9:21PM
Gamer18548 said...
Maybe Jung was right.
OR...
Kurtzman and Orci first worked on Hercules and I remember reading somewhere (or maybe it was JJ yapping about it on a Lost DVD commentary) that they initially had trouble breaking out of that genre! I guess you'd call that 'slightly campy fantasy TV?'
See, everyone likes to typecast in good ol' Hollywood, to pigeonhole an actor or writer or director into whatever was their first genre. Even being a writing "team" is dangerous, back to my Kurtzman and Orci example - it'll be very hard for Kurtzman to get hired on his own if he and Orci were ever to part ways. So, it is possible that if you like one thing and venture into another film or book or TV show in that genre, you'll probably find that actor or writer or producer behind that project, too.
Also you'll notice that a lot of producers end up with the same actors - Joss loves Eliza Dushku, Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion, amongst others. JJ always throws his buddy Greg Gumberg into his shows, if even to get eaten in Episode 1. Hitchcock loved Jimmy Stewart - "Vertigo" and "Rear Window" are 2 right away I think of.
So I think what we may perceive as random is really just a combination of these 2 phenomenons.
Eh?
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6-08-2009 @ 9:22PM
Monika said...
Ok.. Then apply that to me seeing Robert Mandan in Soap and Matchmaker.. :)