What is Cinema? Critical Approaches Cognitivism

What inferences are we encouraged to make? On the basis of what prior knowledge? What emotions do we feel?

Cognitive theory aims to make studying film more rigorous and scientific critiques psychoanalytic models

Rough periodisation of film theory ( s) ‘Classic’ film theory: Munsterberg, Arnheim, Eisenstein, Epstein, Bazin, Balazs, the Frankfurt School (1960s-1980s) ‘Contemporary’ film theory: structuralism, semiotics (the ‘linguistic turn’), psychoanalysis, ideology critique, feminism (sometimes called ‘Screen theory’; Bordwell talks disparagingly of ‘SLAB’ theory) (1990s-present) Post-theory?: cognitivism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, queer theory, phenomenology, ethics, posthumanism

1. What is cognitivism? To do with cognition, mental processes such as beliefs, desires, intentions, how we perceive the world and make sense of it, how we process information and solve problems

2. How is cognitivism useful to film studies? Cognitivism tends ‘to look for alternative answers to many of the questions addressed by or raised by psychoanalytic film theories, especially with respect to film reception in terms of cognitive and rational processes rather than irrational or unconscious ones’ (Carroll, in Post-Theory, p. 62)

how spectators typically make sense of films evolutionary ‘hardwiring’ more important than viewer’s ‘location’ spectatorship as rational, conscious activity

‘The cognitive and perceptual resources we deploy in this project of making sense of film are, to a significant degree, those that we deploy in the project of making sense of the real world. Thus, there is a strong realist tendency in cognitivism – a tendency to emphasize ways in which our experience of cinematic images and cinematic narrative resemble our experiences of seeing and comprehending events and processes in reality.’ (Currie, in A Companion to Film Theory, p. 106)

Unconscious vs conscious

When ‘the Theory’ is applied to films by ‘Interpretation Inc.’, ‘every film comes out of the standard-issue sausage machine, looking and smelling the same’ (Carroll, in Post-Theory, p. 43)

3. Cognitivism and perceptual psychology we perceive objects and figures in space and react to physiological stimuli similarly in film and in the everyday world

4. Cognitive theories of narrative ‘Perception is not a passive recording of sensory stimulation; the sensory input is filtered, transformed, filled in, and joined to other inputs to build a consistent, stable world’ (Bordwell, ‘A Case for Cognitivism’, p. 4)

gaps schemata mental representations inference or hypothesis generation

Rear Window thematises processes of perception and cognition; explores link between seeing and understanding

‘the fabula embodies the action as a chronological, cause-and-effect chain of events occurring within a given duration and spatial field’ (Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film, p. 49) ‘the syuzhet (usually translated as ‘plot’) is the actual arrangement and presentation of the fabula in the film, the fragments or episodes which we see and are encouraged to make sense of, to connect up’ (ibid)

Canonical story format followed or subverted? Curiosity / suspense hypothesis Gaps: Temporary or permanent? Flaunted or suppressed? Diffused or focused?