FM4: Varieties Of Film Experience – Issues and Debates Section B: Spectatorship Topics Popular Film and Emotional Response

Popular Film and Emotional Response Aims: Consider the relationship between the film on the screen and the audience in terms of the communication process Consider the idea that spectators will find that particular films and particular sequences within films draw out from them certain, often strong, emotional responses Use a psychoanalytical approach to help decode the films of study and understand the relationship between spectator and the film.

Starter What is a film that you have watched that has provoked an emotional response in you? How? Make a mind map for your chosen film, explaining how that film provoked an emotional response for you as an individual. Character begins as a fun loving, adventure seeking adrenalin junky- hard to love. A series of shots in which James Franco is isolated- created empathy and sympathy for the situation the character was in. 127 hours Performance from James Franco brought the real life story conviction.

Case Study Films The Fighter The Wrestler The Blind Side Rocky You can also watch your own sports drama’s and include them in the comparison.

Film as a communication process First perspective: Film is a form of communication, transmission of messages (single intended meaning). Senders encoding and receivers decoding those messages, an attempt by the sender of the message to influence in some way the state of mind of another person. A certain meaning has been placed in the text by the author, the reader has to discover that meaning Second perspective: Film is a form of communication – meaning making is an interactive process (a variety of possible meanings) texts interact with readers (spectators) to provide a variety of possible meanings, in this case the readers becomes a factor in the production of meaning. Meaning is no longer singular and clearly defined by the authorial intention, but is plural and created in the relationship between the individual reader and the text. Senders encoding and receivers decoding those messages, an attempt by the sender of the message to influence in some way the state of mind of another person. A certain meaning has been placed in the text by the author, the reader has to discover that meaning texts interact with readers (spectators) to provide a variety of possible meanings, in this case the readers becomes a factor in the production of meaning. Meaning is no longer singular and clearly defined by the authorial intention, but is plural and created in the relationship between the individual reader and the text. visual indicators and carefully arranged shots combined with spoken word, sound effects and musical soundtracks we can attempt to suggest reasons why choices have been made, explore possible meanings, this is how we interact

Film as a communication process First perspective: Film is a form of communication, transmission of messages (single intended meaning). Second perspective: Film is a form of communication – meaning making is an interactive process (a variety of possible meanings) texts interact with readers (spectators) to provide a variety of possible meanings, in this case the readers becomes a factor in the production of meaning. How would we analyse both perspectives within this section of the exam? Senders encoding and receivers decoding those messages, an attempt by the sender of the message to influence in some way the state of mind of another person. A certain meaning has been placed in the text by the author, the reader has to discover that meaning texts interact with readers (spectators) to provide a variety of possible meanings, in this case the readers becomes a factor in the production of meaning. Meaning is no longer singular and clearly defined by the authorial intention, but is plural and created in the relationship between the individual reader and the text. visual indicators and carefully arranged shots combined with spoken word, sound effects and musical soundtracks we can attempt to suggest reasons why choices have been made, explore possible meanings, this is how we interact

Film as a communication process Film ‘Language’: Film operates as a language; it communicates with the spectator through the use of images and sound. Visual indicators and carefully arranged shots combined with spoken word, sound effects and musical soundtracks Films as ‘constructs’: Films are built by filmmakers from a series of component parts that we can identify, and since they have been constructed we can take them apart and see how they have been put together. We can attempt to suggest reasons why choices have been made, explore possible meanings, this is how we interact Senders encoding and receivers decoding those messages, an attempt by the sender of the message to influence in some way the state of mind of another person. A certain meaning has been placed in the text by the author, the reader has to discover that meaning texts interact with readers (spectators) to provide a variety of possible meanings, in this case the readers becomes a factor in the production of meaning. Meaning is no longer singular and clearly defined by the authorial intention, but is plural and created in the relationship between the individual reader and the text. visual indicators and carefully arranged shots combined with spoken word, sound effects and musical soundtracks we can attempt to suggest reasons why choices have been made, explore possible meanings, this is how we interact

Film as a communication process Film ‘Language’: Film operates as a language; it communicates with the spectator through the use of images and sound. Visual indicators and carefully arranged shots combined with spoken word, sound effects and musical soundtracks Think about the films we have watched so far. How is film ‘language’ used within them? Give specific examples, identifying key scenes. Senders encoding and receivers decoding those messages, an attempt by the sender of the message to influence in some way the state of mind of another person. A certain meaning has been placed in the text by the author, the reader has to discover that meaning texts interact with readers (spectators) to provide a variety of possible meanings, in this case the readers becomes a factor in the production of meaning. Meaning is no longer singular and clearly defined by the authorial intention, but is plural and created in the relationship between the individual reader and the text. visual indicators and carefully arranged shots combined with spoken word, sound effects and musical soundtracks we can attempt to suggest reasons why choices have been made, explore possible meanings, this is how we interact

Spectator and Audience? Spectator – individual, personal connection Audience – a group, group experience, shared meaning What are the different micro and macro aspects of the films we would consider, when looking at the Spectator/audience? Discuss on your tables and compile a list.

What is emotion? What exactly is emotion, or emotional response? To what extent should emotions be seen to be linked to thought? As we watch films we can each experience fear, and pleasure, and desire, and surprise, and shock and a whole array of possible emotions, but we will not all experience these emotions equally at the same moments in a film What is that determines our individual predisposition to respond in particular emotional ways at certain points in certain films? Think carefully about this but don’t worry about a right answer, this is the debate. Your job is to recognise that there is an intense interaction with the sounds and images occurring as we watch films, and that film makers are deliberately setting out to engender (give rise to) emotional responses. Through your observation of the use of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound you are able to explore the ways in which emotional response is created

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) Laura Mulvey

Fascination and film Film fascinates us (engages our emotions), through images and spectacle Mulvey uses psychoanalysis ‘to discover where and how the fascination of film is reinforced by pre-existing patterns of fascination already at work within the individual subject’ (= spectator) What does Mulvey mean by ‘pre-existing patterns of fascination’? How will this help with our analysis?

Cinema and pleasure Hollywood/mainstream/narrative cinema manipulates visual pleasure. It ‘codes the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order’. In what ways have the films we’ve watched manipulated visual pleasure from it audiences?

Scopophilia Scopophilia = pleasure in looking (Sigmund Freud 1905, in ‘Three Essays’) Examples of the private and curious gaze: children’s voyeurism, cinematic looking The most pleasurable looking = looking at the human form and the human face, figural looking (corresponds to psychic patterns)

‘Woman as image, man as bearer of the look’ Pleasure in looking: split between active/male and passive/female Women connote ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ the visual presence of women ‘works against the development of a story-line, freezes the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation’. How far would you agree with this in the films we have watched?

‘Woman as image, man as bearer of the look’ II The woman functions as both erotic object for the characters within the screen story and erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium (object of fantasy) The spectator is led to identify with the main male protagonist ‘the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look’ Compile a list of examples that expresses this within the films we have watched.

Fetishistic scopophilia The image of the woman also carries a threat There are two avenues of escape from fear of femininity for the male spectator investigate the woman, demystify her mystery disavow (deny) castration by turning the woman into a reassuring fetish. The image of the woman > overvalued: this is the cult of the (beautiful) female star How are women ‘demystified’ within the films we have studied so far?