Film’s Changing Form: Presence Found, Presence Lost? Kimberly A. Neuendorf, Ph.D. School of Communication Cleveland State University November 5, 2004 Annual Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association

Presence and Film— A Simple Analysis  Physical Presence = related principally to form characteristics: Sensory Bandwidth Number of senses (e.g., sound, Aromarama, 4D) Level of sensory engagement (e.g., image resolution, color, widescreen, surround-sound) Editing style Invisible editing vs. obtrusive editing styles  Social Presence = related principally to content and context characteristics: Encapsulated narrative Availability of repeat viewing (Edison vs. Lumieres) Group viewing context

The Dilemma of Film & Presence  “Nonmediation” between the viewer... and what, exactly? – Gollin (1992) notes that “What matters is the reality we in fact experience.” The “real” (e.g., everyday events, critical events) Past forms of representation of the “real” (e.g., the proscenium, photography; Turvey, 2004) A new filmic reality—the diegesis Green’s (2004) concept of “transportation into a narrative world” The mind Much film scholarship that considers this notion Even invisible editing is dreamlike (Sitney, 2002) Luis Bunuel said Un Chien Andalou “profits by a mechanism analogous to that of dreams” Psychologist Hugo Munsterberg’s idea that film is a medium of the mind, not of the world; his 4-part hierarchy of mentality places emotion at the highest level, and is achieved when form mirrors mental activities

The Dilemma, Continued  The bottom line—an existential issue  And, part 2--presence to what end? (Marsh, 2003; Boorstin, 1995) VoyeuristicActualities Visceral“Cinema of Attractions” VicariousEarly narratives (e.g., Hepworth, Porter)

The Interweaving History of Film Form & Theory— the Centrality of Presence  Even Intro to Film teaches—”representation,” “perspective,” and of course “realism” MANY waves of “Realism”—e.g., silent, Italian, Soviet, Czech, Brazilian Cinema Novo Sigfried Kracauer insists that it is “the clear obligation and the special privilege of film to record and reveal, and thereby redeem, physical reality”  Andre Bazin’s “aesthetic paradox”—that the “faithful reproduction of reality is not art”  Waves of activity—both in terms of film practice and scholarship—related to presence, across film’s 109- year history

Some examples...

Magic Lantern Shows (1600s through 1800s)  The original “4D” experience

Eadweard Muybridge (1870s)  Did not wish to create a sensation of reality, but rather chose to dissect it

Cinema of Astonishment, or Simple Actualities? (1890s)  Lumieres’ Arrival of a Train  Lumieres’ travelogues

Sergei Eisenstein & Synesthesia (1920s)  A concerted attempt to use somewhat obtrusive techniques to generate cross-modal sensations cutting to extend and compress time thematic montage & non-diegetic inserts

The Machine Art of Dziga Vertov & Busby Berkeley (1920s/30s)  Creating “unreal” positions and juxtapositions

Pudovkin on Sound (1930s)  “Is sound more real than picture because it is the reproduction of an aural fact whereas an image is a representation in two dimensions of a visual fact?” (rephrased by Andrew, 1976)

Gimmicks of the 1950s— A Return to “4D” Attempts of Magic Lantern Shows?  William Castle’s “Ghost Vision” and “Percepto”  3D Movies  Cinerama  Aromarama

The French New Wave (1960s)  A sloppy eclecticism  “In your face” techniques: Breaking the 4 th wall Ironic ruptures Fake freeze frames

Contemporary Film Technique  “A cinema of narrative incoherence and stylistic fragmentation”—related to music video styles (Vernallis, 2001)  Bordwell (2002) calls the current dominant style of U.S. commercial films “intensified continuity,” a simple amplification of long-established techniques: rapid editing bipolar extremes of lens lengths closer framings in dialogue scenes free-ranging camera  I would add to the list: obtrusive sound design—extreme mickeymousing, non- sync sound

Given the Norms of Contemporary Film --  Is Presence Lost?  Or, do viewers become accustomed to the “obtrusive” techniques?  Or, is a heightened “reality” created?

Calls to Action  Presence scholars may learn much from film theory scholarship over the past 100 years May also consider a new type of presence, one of mental emulation  Film scholars need to collect data to test their highly developed notions Bordwell’s “intensified continuity” vs. Neuendorf’s “diegesis of insanity”  Content analysts could empirically chart the dominant stylistics relevant to presence

Film’s Changing Form: Presence Found, Presence Lost? Kimberly A. Neuendorf, Ph.D. School of Communication Cleveland State University November 5, 2004 Annual Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association