Notes
The second viewing
There is a category of film that cannot be judged on a first watch, and it is not the category people assume.
Difficult films are usually fine on one viewing. If a film is dense, you notice the density immediately and can write about it honestly. The films that defeat a single viewing are the smooth ones — the ones whose construction is hidden well enough that you experience the effect without seeing the cause.
A first viewing tells you what a film did to you. A second tells you how. The gap between the two is where criticism lives, and it is why a review filed the night of a premiere is a report on a sensation rather than an account of a film.
This is not an argument for delay in every case. Some films are exactly what they appear to be, and a second pass adds nothing but a sense of duty. But when a first viewing leaves an effect you cannot explain, that is the signal: the mechanism is working and you have not seen it yet.