I can’t read clocks in movies. Or on TV shows for that matter. I don’t mean the flipping ones like in Groundhog Day, or digital clocks, I mean yer bog standard analogue ticky tock type clock.
(Not sure I ever noticed that picture of a man hanging from the clock hand before. Good foreshadowing is that.)
I think the reason I find it so hard to read clocks on screen is that they’re out of context. When I look at one in real life, I know roughly that it’s half three, so I’m primed to see the hand shapes and go from there.
When it’s on screen, my sense of time is gone. I might know the movie is currently in a night time scene, but that’s about it. And by the time I’ve tried to discern the hand positions and work it out, the clock has gone.
I guess the only way to confirm this is to get an analogue clock and go to sleep all night, then wake up not knowing the time and seeing how long it takes to read it. But I can’t sleep with a ticking clock in the room. Not sure what that says about me.
