MovieChat Forums > Nightwatching (2007) Discussion > Weird Decision at the end

Weird Decision at the end

posted 15 years ago by badbro13
7 replies | jump to latest

After watching a film which takes place hundreds of years ago, and being pulled into the environment of the time period, we see the film fade out and IMMEDIATELY up pops an ad for the website www.nightwatching.com. AS SOON AS THE FILM ENDS!!!! I thought this was entirely out of place. For one why would you do this as soon as the film ends, and two wouldn't you realize that this is going to take the audience right out of the feeling of the film??? A bunch of hogwash and hootenanny I say!!

[–] pushnlacs 15 years ago

OK, while I may not dig the idea a website popping up, it has nothing to do with it taking "the audience right out of the feeling of the film".

You should know that Greenaway doesn't seem to care about putting them into said feeling. He acknowledges the fact that films are artificial and manufactured. He deliberately designs his films to make notice of this fact, instead of trying to hide it like most filmmakers.

So, complaining about any aspect of a Greenaway film taking you out of the film is rather ironic.

[–] life_is_like_water 15 years ago

It wouldn't bother me at all if that was an actual website. Maybe it was for a short period of time, but now the domain is up for sale. It kind of makes the "www.nightwatching.com" at the end of the film rather pointless.

[–] Gary_Allen 14 years ago

Didn't really occur to me. No stranger than the usual credits rolling.

[–] Krustallos 14 years ago

Greenaway is very keen on interactivity and non-traditional methods of accessing the moving image these days. He does a big spiel about it at his Q&A sessions. So I think it was a deliberate decision to foreground the website address.

I agree that it would have been better if the website actually existed. I wasted a whole two minutes looking for it when I got home.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

[–] Equinox23 13 years ago

Have you ever tried this address?! At least now, it doesn't work - wonder if it did once. Which is even weirder! Yet it would have been in line with the direction Peter Greenaway's thoughts about media were heading for at that time. In 2007 he was presented an art prize in Aachen, and as far as I do remember he was dreaming and propagating a medium that would be more thorough than painting or even movie, something digital computerised and certainly in 3D.

BTW my personal view is rather to trust the imagination of the audience, I believe when the work of the creative is done the work of the audience has to begin. And I would never like to take that away from them, because possibly we could end up with morons who totally depened on other people's imagination.

"If a man isn't inspired by his own death, he's beyond inspiration."

[–] Nerd_in_Norway 10 years ago

Haha, I had the exact same feeling. "WTF? Goodbye Rembrandt, hello cyberspace!" I've never seen any movie promote its website like this BEFORE the end credits, and when I do it's after THIS film???

[–] ThatSoapsALittleHard 9 years ago

And why would you want to go to the website right AFTER watching the movie?? Seems to me the whole point of the website would be for people who are curious about watching the movie...