Just watched 12 Monkeys (1996), and it's a little uncomfortable seeing Bruce Willis portray a character struggling mentally, know of his real-life problems with frontotemporal dementia. It's not the time of year yet, but I'm wondering if my enjoyment of Die Hard will be reduced, since the hearing loss he suffered on that film may have been a contributing factor.
The Crow (1994) - on which Brandon Lee died, and Rust (upcoming) - on which Halyna Hutchins died - aren't films I'd normally watch anyway, so I don't know how the deaths would have affected my decision to watch them. Conversely, Kevin Spacey is in a lot of films I like, but it's a bit queasy seeing his performances, with the suspicion that we all now know why he's so good at portraying creeps.
So do you just try to enjoy a film as a film, or does real-life events ever stop you re-watching them?
Those are two very different examples...
For Bruce Willis, yeah, watch the heck out of his films and celebrate his talent and the joy and entertainment that he brought to us. Everyone ends up dead, and it's rarely pretty, so perhaps we shouldn't let it ruin our past.
However... Lee died during the making of the crow and that's more complex. Was the film finished to honour his life and his skills, or was it finished purely for financial reasons?
I'd like to think it was the former, and that when we see a film it is never the work of one actor, not even a bunch of actors and a director, but hundreds of people all bringing themselves to the endeavour of making.
And that's how they live for ever. Scratching their name into the desk of the world by making something that will be here long after they have gone.
And I think that should be celebrated.
And then the spacey thing... First, let's not forget he just got found not guilty... Not saying he didn't do anything, but a jury of his peers didn't send him down.
Again though, should everyone that worked on those films lose their work because of him?
My original post is a loose collection of ideas that sort-of fit together and sort-of don't.
I think if properly examine why you should still see a film, you'll find lots of reasons to support doing so. I guess I'm mostly interested in what the instinctual reaction is, and whether anybody has to convince themselves to watch something, after initially finding something off-putting about it.