Film III - Film Theory

Week 2: Early Theories of Cinema-Going and Theatrical Space

Readings:

"Cult of Distraction " - Siegfried Kracauer

Kracauer: Frankfurter Schule (Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin) – Weimar Republic

■ Theorists for social change, critical of capitalism and Marxist-Leninism
■ Dialectic analysis: contradictions in society
■ Cultural hegemony: ruling-class dominant ideology
■ Class consciousness vs false consciousness

Key Concepts:
■ Picture Palaces
■ Masses
■ (Cult of) Distraction

Key Concept: Picture Palaces

● “Elegant surface splendor is the hallmark of these mass theaters.
● […] they are shrines to the cultivation of pleasure […] inspired by refined artisanal
fantasy.
● The major theaters have adopted the American style of a self-contained show which
integrates the film as part of a larger whole.”

Gesamtkunstwerk
● “This total artwork [Gesamtkunstwerk] of effects assaults every one of the senses using
every possible means.
● […] an optical and acoustic kaleidoscope which provides the setting for the physical
activity on stage, pantomime and ballet.
● Until finally the white surface [screen] descends and the events of the three-dimensional
stage blend into two-dimensional illusions.”

Key concept : Masses

● “These picture palace shows raise distraction to the level of culture; they are aimed at the
masses.
● […] There are four million people in Berlin. The sheer necessity of their circulation
transforms the life of the street into the ineluctable street of life, giving rise to
configurations which invade even domestic space.
● The masses in the industrial centers are so overburdened as workers that they are unable
to realize their own way of life.”

● “Working masses fill their days fully with work without the work being fulfilling. This
creates a lack, one that demands to be compensated.
● The form of entertainment necessarily corresponds to that of enterprise.

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 ● The fact that these shows lack any authentic and material motivated coherence, except
possibly the glue of sentimentality which covers up this lack but only in order to make it
all the more visible; these shows convey in a precise and undisguised manner to
thousands of eyes and ears the disorder of society.”
●
Key concept 3: Distraction
● “Here, in the picture palace, in pure externality, the masses encounter themselves.
● Distraction - which is meaningful only as improvisation, as a reflection of the
uncontrolled anarchy of our world - is festooned with drapes and forced back into a unity
that no longer exists
● The picture palace is meant to trigger the workers’ attention to the peripheral, so that
they will not sink into the abyss”

Anachronism
➔ “Literature, music, drama… They claim the status of high art while actually rehearsing
anachronistic forms which evade the pressing needs of our time […]
➔ The architectural setting emphasizes a dignity typical of institutions of high culture,
referencing the lofty and sacral.
➔ This thespian (relating to drama and the theater) objective of the semi-sacral movie
theater shows manifest reactionary tendencies.”

Distraction as Exposure
➔ “It is not externality that poses a threat to truth. Truth is threatened only by the naive
affirmation of cultural values that have become unreal.
➔ The social vocation of film is the aesthetic vocation of film as an art: to aim radically
towards a distraction which exposes disintegration instead of masking it.”

Kracauer: film is both an aesthetic and an sociological object

Must follow realism! (Melies is despicable)

"Why We Go To The Movies " - Hugo Münsterberg

Key Concepts:
■ Photoplay
■ Close-up

● Cinema used to be looked down upon compared to theater

● But Cinema: has Close-ups, non-linear editing, can thus express much more than theater,
it’s more realistic
● Cinema should not be seen as an attempt to imitate theater but as a separate art form with
its own characteristics and benefits
● Cinema also can explore human psychology much more efficiently
● The photoplay expresses the action of the mind as against the mere action of the
body.

Why do people go to the movies?

● “Because of the special power of the moving pictures”

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 ● Movies supplement the schoolroom, the newspaper, and the library…
● But their chief task is: bringing entertainment, enjoyment, happiness to the masses.”

FIlm as an original artform

1. The movies show the world to millions, relatively cheaply.
2. There is a rapid change of scenes: the limitations of space are overcome.
3. Movies allow a performance of actions which cannot be realized in nature: From humorous
tricks to rich artistic effects and illusions
4. And last but not least: the close-up

Key Concept : The Close-up

● The changes in the close-up take place not outside but inside our mind. It is a turning of
our attention.
● We withdraw our attention from all which is unimportant and concentrate it on that one
point on which the action is focused.
● “[…] our own inner actions become effective. Our own attention is projected into the life
around us.”

Key Concept :The Photo-play

● The order of the pictures is no longer the order of the events in nature, but rather that of
our own mental play (psyche).
● It is the only visual art in which the whole richness of our inner life, our perceptions, our
memory, and our imagination, our expectation and our attention can be made living in the
outer impressions themselves.
● The spectator’s mind is brought deeply under the spell of the emotions expressed
through what we now call shot-reverse editing and close-ups
● The photoplay tells us the human story by overcoming the forms of the outerworld,
namely, space, time, and causality, and by adjusting the events to the forms of the
inner world, namely, attention, memory, imagination, and emotion.

Conclusions:
● Earlier writers had seen a parallel between cinema and mental activity. The philosopher
Henri Bergson, had famously spoken of the “cinematographical mechanism of thought ”
(Bergson 1911,p. 306).
● Writing in 1907, Bergson already compared our sensory impressions to snapshots of
reality that our mind strings together like frames on a ribbon of film.

➔ Münsterberg, writing while Griffith and others were developing editing-driven technique,
concentrated on style, and he argues in the other direction. He noticed that you can use
the close up to guide the mind (although in this time it was still very early and films still
looked a lot like theatre)
➔ Our mind is NOT like a film - It is the other way round: film has been engineered by
filmmakers to engage our mind and they do so quite successfully by mimicking our
common activities of noticing things, remembering the past, investing emotion, and so
on.

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Week 3: APPARATUS THEORY & PSYCHOANALYSIS

● “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus” by Jean-Louis Baudry

● “Histoire/Discourse” and “The Passion for Perceiving” by Christian Metz

(Metz responds to Baudry)

➔ The texts focus not on film but on the “cinema” as an “apparatus”.

➔ This is the key concept put forward by Baudry.
➔ It implied a paradigm shift in the field of film: from a focus on films to an analysis of the
functioning of the cinema as an “apparatus” which in itself created all sorts of effects in
viewers, putting them under a “regime” that, Baudry argues, was ideology driven.

On the use of the term dispositif : Frank Kessler, Dominique Chateau and José Moure in Screens
- A Dialogue
They summarize the configuration that Baudry describes with the aid of the concept of dispositif
(arrangement) as follows:
• a) a material technology producing conditions that help to shape…
• b) a certain viewing position that is based upon unconscious desires to which corresponds…
•c) an institutionalized film form guaranteeing this viewing position (often characterized as
“voyeuristic”) functions in an optimal way.

Baudry:
➔ 1970 – focus on Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus (l’appareil
de base)
➔ Radically psychoanalytical (Freud, Lacan)
➔ An explicit socio-political and ideology-critical analysis of the cinema as an “apparatus”
putting viewers under an ideology-strained “viewing regime”. Baudry formulates a
radical critique of a so-called outmoded “idealist doctrine” - partly inspired by Althusser.

1. The Eye of the subject

➔ The subject is understood by Baudry, as he explains, in terms of the perceiving and

ordering self, as in the term “subjective” (not as topic / subject).
➔ So the question is: who is the film addressing, visually?
➔ Baudry: the construction of the perspective in the cinema goes back to the Renaissance
development of perspective in painting.

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 ➔ The principal point in perspective should be placed at eye level: this point is called fixed
or subject.
➔ Based on the principle of a fixed point by reference to which the visualized objects are
organized, this point specifies, in return, the position of the “subject”: the very spot it
must necessarily occupy.
➔ The subject is thus invited to identify (as an “I”) with the camera as an eye.

Film / Art typically provides a total vision which is produced by the camera eye and received by
the subject.
Furthermore, such a total vision is typically in line with the idealist idea of “being” - in as
far as it brings out the “fullness” and “homogeneity” of being.
This is a first ideological effect that simply comes with the cinema apparatus, inviting the
identification of the subject with the “camera eye”.

2. The Projection of Moving Images

➔ The projection restores continuity of movement and the temporal dimension to the static,
discontinuous images on the film reel.
➔ The meaning effect produced by film (“fullness”, “homogeneity” of being) does not
depend only on the content of the images but also on the material procedures of the
projection by which the illusion of continuity is restored.
➔ The projection’s success lives on the denial by viewers of the small differences between
the images projected. Viewers perceive a continuous flow of movement…
➔ Note, however, the disturbing effects which result during a projection from breakdowns
in the recreation of movement, when the spectator is abruptly brought back to
discontinuity – that is, to the technical apparatus which s/he had forgotten…

The projector is typically positioned behind the viewer, the perspective on the screen carved out
by the camera eye. This puts the viewer in the desired subject position and facilitates the double
identification of the viewer.

L’appareil de base

● With basic cinematographic apparatus, Baudry refers to the instruments or technological

base of film projection in the very specific cinema setup.
● This involves the projector and the screen, (“mirror-screen”), setup in a “darkened hall”,
a closed space, which typically creates a suspension of mobility [immature or regressive
immobility]; and a predominance of the visual function.

The transcendental subject

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The eye-subject, the invisible base of artificial perspective, becomes absorbed in or elevated to a
vaster function [of the camera / eye], proportional to the movement which it can “perform”…
(and the displacements of the camera done during shooting are concealed during projection, as is
the camera itself)

There is a fantasmatization of an objective reality (with help of rich imagery, intensified sounds
and colors).
Simultaneously, there is an equally strong augmentation of the possibilities and power of the
subject.
As if it were omnipotent, the empowered subject transcends the normal limitations and
constraints in an almost hallucinatory way.

3. The “impression of reality”

Limited by the framing, lined up, put at the proper distance, the world offers itself to the eye as
an object, implied by and implying the action of the “subject” who (as a sovereign) only needs to
take a look at it…
The world is transferred to the subject as image.
This seems to accomplish a crucial phenomenological reduction: Putting into parentheses the
world’s real existence provides a basis for the apodicity of the ego (apodicy= irrefutable,
unquestionable nature of the ego).
It is a necessary suspension of the awareness of the real world as is: a suspension needed for the
formation of the “impression of reality” as created in the cinema.

Continuity as a prerequisite

➔ Formal / visual continuity and narrative continuity are cinema’s prerequisites.

➔ Continuity constitutes meaning as well as the subject which constitutes the meanings.
➔ Pudovkin defined montage as “the art of assembling pieces of film, shot separately, in
such a way as to give the spectator the impression of continuous movement.”
➔ This very impression is really difficult to obtain from the technical, material base of
cinema. Why, then, search for it so hard and for so long? -> Because it is a question of
preserving at any cost the synthetic unit of the locus where meaning originates (=the
subject): to constitute the transcendental function to which narrative continuity points
back as its natural secretion. (p. 44)

4. The screen mirror

Baudry stresses over and over again that not only the things on the film reel need attention, to
understand the ideological effects created in the cinema. Attention must also be paid to the

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cinema as a dark room, a closed space, with a screen – mirror, and the special arrangement of
the projector hidden at the back.

Parallel with Lacan’s “mirror-stage” - the young child’s shift from imaginary to symbolic,
articulated in the recognition of the self as subject -> child’s immature powers of mobility
combined with a maturation of visual organization

In the cinema, the scene could be repeated and reenacted in such a way that the imaginary order
fulfills its particular function of staging the split in the subject between imaginary and symbolic.

The “reality” mimed by the cinema is thus first of all the (imaginary) reality of the self.
● Primary identification: with the apparatus of the cinema – Eye = I .
● Secondary identification: with characters / story world.

CHRISTIAN METZ

Discourse – with traces of the narrator / maker / auteur

Story – a story world presents itself as if independent of a narrator (filmmaker), without traces of
“enunciation” -> typical for classical narrative Hollywood cinema.

E.g. Rear Window - Though the film is unaware of being watched (in a way), the viewer is a
voyeur nevertheless, but one under a special regime: that of the primal scene and the key hole.

➔ The traditional Hollywood film, as it abolishes all traces of the subject of enunciation,
succeeds in giving the spectator the impression that s/he is her/himself the subject.
➔ But the subject finds her/himself in a state of emptiness or absence, of pure visual
capacity…It is a subject who primarily identifies with the cinema apparatus…
➔ The “content” is to be found in what is seen … a spectacle - “caught unawares”, bearing
(as every dream and every hallucinatory satisfaction does) the stamp of the real external
reality.

● The regime of the “story” is that of a disembodied utterance, a story from nowhere, that
nobody tells (Benveniste).
● The primary (or preliminary) identification revolves around the camera (or camera –
eye), and it makes all further (secondary) identification with characters possible.

Double denial - The filmic voyeurism created in this way comes with a double denial: that which
is seen does not know it is seen, and its lack of awareness allows the spectator / voyeur to be
unaware that s/he is a voyeur. All that remains is the brute fact of seeing: the seeing of someone

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outside of the law, of an Id unrelated to any Ego (… dissolved into identification with the cinema
apparatus).

Passion for perceiving : The sexual drives, the drive to see (scopophilia, voyeurism) and the drive to
hear, depend on a lack and are more on the side of the imaginary. They differ from instinct (hunger,
thirst) in that the drives can be satisfied, up to a point, outside their objects, (e.g., with imaginary
fulfillments as in sublimation); and they can be suspended (e.g., repressed) without direct danger to the
organism.

➔ The needs of self-preservation can neither be repressed nor sublimated; the sexual drives
are more labile and more accommodating, more radically perverse (Lacan). Plus they
always remain more or less unsatisfied.
➔ These sexual drives are driven by desire and they pursue an imaginary object linked to
the desire (or drive) and they try to fulfil the lack identified by the desire…The lack is
what the drive wishes to fill … and at the same time what is is always careful to leave
gaping, in order to survive as desire.
➔ In the end, the drive has no real object: through objects, which are all substitutes (and as
such numerous and interchangeable!), it pursues an imaginary object, a “lost” object (it
was always lost, and always desired).

Senses at a distance vs. senses of contact: Can one say that the visual and auditory drives have
a stronger or more special relationship with the absence of their object? And also with the
infinite pursuit of the imaginary? Yes – Metz argues for this: because, as opposed to other sexual
drives, the “perceiving drive” (scopic drive, invocatory drive) concretely stages the absence of
its object: see the distance at which it maintains it and which is part of its very definition
(distance of the look, distance of listening).
But also Metz, on the film semiotic : film is not a closed system of language like a language,
because its symbols are non-arbitrary and shots aren’t words. A shot of a gun means, at the very
least, “here is a gun”. Also, while the word “tree”, as in the squiggles that represent the word tree
on a page are arbitrary (drawings and random sounds), a shot of a gun is not arbitrary, it’s
literally the logical representation.

The scopic regime of the cinema

● The spectacles and sounds cinema offers are particularly rich and varied.
● Plus there is an evidently strong connection between the cinematic signifier and the
imaginary. (Note that in theater and opera as many perceptual axes may be involved – but
here, spectacle and sound are really “given” to the spectator, physically present in the
same space …)

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 ● In the cinema, however, the spectacle is only “given” in between brackets; the spectacle
is only present in an inaccessible elsewhere, hence the seen is infinitely desirable … as it
is never possessable!
● What defines the specificity of the scopic regime is not so much the distance kept (first
figure of the lack, common to all voyeurism). It is the absence of the object seen.
● In the cinema, the actor / actress / exhibitionist is opposed to the viewer / voyeur: they are
never present together; they fail to meet. Note that the actors / actresses of classical
cinema are not supposed to ever look directly at the audience (= the camera). They never
acknowledge the situation they are in: being watched by voyeurs, being exhibitionists
themselves. There is no consent.
● The cinematic voyeurism and scopophilia are unauthorized (the film does not
acknowledge this situation and these drives, but the cinema as an institute does, of
course).
The cinema situation in terms of its voyeurism is more directly linked to the primal scene
(in the sense of Freud) and the keyhole effect than the theater situation

In this respect, Metz deems the cinematic signifier to be not only “psychoanalytic” (in terms of
the primal scene), but more precisely “Oedipal in type”.

Some of Metz’s political notes : After his psychoanalytic essays analyzing the scopic regimes of
cinema and theatre, Metz pointed (in passing) at the different socio ideological circumstances of the two
art forms:
➔ Cinema was born in the midst of the capitalist epoch in a largely antagonistic and fragmented
society, based on individualism and the restricted (father-mother child) family, in a “super-
egotistic bourgeois society, concerned with “elevation” (façade).
➔ The theatre, however, saw the light in ceremonial societies, with integrated groups of humans and
a civic tendency towards ludico liturgical “communion” (service).
➔ Cinematic voyeurism is much less accepted, much more “shamefaced”.
➔ The political and militant use of the theatrical come to the theatre more easily, thanks to the
“lesser degree of imaginariness” and the direct contact with audiences it allows.
➔ In contrast, the cinema, to most, represents a kind of enclosure which escapes the fully social
aspect of life. This place offers a “hole” in the social cloth, a loophole opening on to something
slightly more crazy, slightly less approved than what one does the rest of the time.

After thoughts on theatre versus cinema fiction: In 1965, Metz reflected on the “Impression of
Reality” produced by the two different art forms.He approached the problem in a purely
phenomenological way. His analyzes owed very little to psychoanalysis at that point in time.
He concluded that the two regimes of belief that the spectators are made to adopt are very different.
➔ In case of the theatre, the represented is of course imaginary, as in the cinema, but the
representation itself is fully real in the theatre, whereas in the cinema the representation, too, is
unreal or imaginary.
➔ Thus theatre fiction tends to depend more on the actor (representer), fictional cinema more on the
character (represented).

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 ➔ Once the cinematic signifier is recorded, it is no longer capable of change: the cinema star is now
eternally given to us as character, signifying an eternal elsewhere, forever present as image, yet
absent in real. The star becomes an ideal fetish.

Conclusion : The cinematographic “apparatus” and the identification of the spectator – four
factors
1. The technical equipment for shooting, projecting
2. The cinema / viewing situation: dark, with viewers softy seated in the dark, passive, silent,
unseen, swimming in sounds and music, forgetting one’s self, off guard, not very aware of one’s
surroundings, with a projector in the dark behind the audience, projecting a light beam on the
screen in front of everyone
3. the “film text” itself, the illusion of a world (note that Metz discusses the cinema of the 1950s
and 1960s and classical narrative cinema in particular).
4. the mental machinery of the viewer: the conscious and unconscious wishes and strivings of the
viewing subject.

Apparatus theory: what the apparatus does, how it works

1. The viewer is brought into a regressive state of being (dark, dreamlike, childlike)
2. The viewer is absorbed in an un-real, seemingly real world (=‘suspension of disbelief’)
3. The viewer is invited to identify with the “camera eye” – as if the viewer’s eyes direct the
camera (=identification with the look, primary identification). The viewer is subsequently
invited to identify with the characters & the narrative twists and developments in the plot
(=secondary identification).
4. Imaginary (phantasy) structures or imaginary ideal images of unconscious desires are
activated in or by the film’s narrative and they captivate the viewer
5. To enhance identification with the film world (story world), signs pointing in the direction of
an auteur / enunciator / creator of the film are concealed: the traces of the maker, the traces of
“enunciation” have been erased

Metz:

● Famous for his semiotic approach to cinema studies

● The Imaginary Signifier was his first incorporation of the psychoanalytic approach to
cinema studies
● deconstructs the cinematic image, and questions why an audience goes to a film. By
applying Freudian psychoanalysis to the film going experience, Metz illustrates how a

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 film satisfies three important desires: the desire for ego, the desire to desire, and the
desire for the object through fetishism.

The desire for ego

The cinema is a conglomeration of images and sounds that stimulate and are read by more senses
than most other art forms. (E.g literature -> sight and music -> auditory, cinema is perceived
through both sight and sound).
But: cinema vs theater, opera etc: stimulate the same senses as the cinema, AND also take place
in reality. That is, art forms such as theater also involve sight and sound sensory perceptions, and
additionally they take place within a real space and a real temporality. When you visit the
theater, the events take place directly in front of you within a real location and temporality.
Cinema, meanwhile, is made up of images recorded at a different time and place. The image you
see when you watch a film does not exist in the time and place that the image is being seen.
( “But the perceived is not really the object, it is its shade, its phantom, its double, its replica in a
new kind of mirror.”) This mirror, Metz argues, is entirely unique in the arts. The mirror that
is the cinema or the cinema screen lies within a sort of duality. On one end of the duality is the
fact that the cinema is an extremely perceptual art form because it stimulates sight and sound
simultaneously. However, the other aspect of this duality is that what is ultimately stimulating
the senses, is the lack of presence and the fact that what we perceive is not real. Therefore
we perceive the imaginary.
Though “film is like the mirror,” Metz states that it is different than the primordial mirror
of Lacan’s mirror stage because there is one thing that is never reflected in it: the spectator.
When the child is held up to the mirror, it perceives itself being held by the mother, who Metz
describes as “its object par excellence.” This form of primary identification of self leads the child
to form ego, and the mirror image becomes the idealized self. However, the cinema screen does
not reflect the spectator. So, the spectator identifies with something else during the projection of
a film. According to Metz, the spectator comes to identify with the camera himself. “Absent
from the screen, but certainly present in the auditorium, a great eye and ear without which the
perceived would have no one to perceive it, the instance, in other words, which constitutes the
cinema signifier (it is I who make the film).” As we perceive everything but ourselves when we
look into the cinema screen, ultimately we become the camera and identify with it. Its pans
and tracking shots become our head turns. Only through the use of uncommon camera angles
and movements are we suddenly jarred into realizing our own presence-absence within the filmic
image.

The desire to desire

Cinema satisfies the passion for perceiving. He argues that “the main socially acceptable arts
are based on the senses at a distance…”Painting, theater, music, and cinema…all are, in some
way, removed from the spectator. Fine art and painting is meant to be looked at from a distance

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in order to both appreciate the style and to be respectful of the artwork itself. Music is perceived
and enjoyed from a distance between those making the music and those perceiving it. Either the
musician is recording music in a location whereas the audience will listen to the music in an
entirely different location, or is performing on a stage similarly separate from the audience.
Likewise, theater sets up a specific boundary between audience and spectacle. The cinema sets
up similar audience-stage boundaries to the theater or live musical performance. However, it is
different in the aforementioned quality of lack. The images of the film are taken from real
objects, but since those objects existed in a different space and temporality, the audience is
doubly removed from them. - The LACK
Whereas the previously discussed features of the cinema are not specific to only the
cinema (as elements are similar to other art forms such as painting, sculpture, music, opera, etc.),
“what distinguishes the cinema is an extra reduplication, a supplementary and specific turn of
the screw bolting desire to lack.” It is, in fact, a kind of double withdrawal. Not only is the
spectator removed from the images and sounds they perceive while they are sitting within a
theater; they are also removed from the actual filmed or recorded object since it exists within its
own space and temporality outside of the spectator’s perception of it. Since the object is, in a
sense, not giving consent in being viewed (since it would break the illusory fourth wall), the
scopic regime of cinema becomes a sort of voyeurism. It is a sanctioned, and yet
unauthorized, scopophilia.

The desire for object through fetishism

Similar to how fetishism disavows the lack of the penis, the filmgoer disavows knowledge of the
lack of absence of the pro-filmic image. “It is understood that the audience is not duped by the
diegetic illusion…yet, it is of vital importance for the correct unfolding of the spectacle that this
make-believe be scrupulously respected…”This creates another binary within the spectator. The
spectator knows that the images that they see before them are not real.They realize that the story,
plot, characters, etc. are fictional. Yet in order to be enjoyed, these fictive elements must be
disavowed and instead fetishized as real. The spectator is both incredulous and credulous. In
describing this binary, Metz uses the example of the audiences at Le Grande Café in 1895 who
fled the theater when viewing Lumiere’s Arrival of a Train at a Station. The viewing audience is
distinctly aware that what is unfolding before them is indeed fictional and not taking place within
the same location or temporality. However, this knowledge must be sublimated (though never
entirely) in order for the cinema to “work

1. "Art as Technique" (Viktor Shklovsky)

A. What role do the "techniques" to "make strange" (ostrannenie in Russian) play in the so-
called art experience as understood by Viktor Shklovsky?

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 ● Russian Formalism - the text is autonomous and complete in itself- there is no point in
looking outside the text for meaning. Instead, we should just look at the form and
technique of the text.
● Shklovsky - make the familiar look different (defamiliarize) because when perception
becomes habitual it becomes unconsciously automatic -> fails to leave an impression
(apple, pen, writing, language, etc)
● Art exists to recover the sensation of life -> to show things as they are perceived, not
known -> to make objects UNFAMILIAR
● Ostranenie - defamiliarization - estrangement - “making it strange”
● What are some techniques? For example, Tolstoy defamiliarizes his writing by not
naming familiar objects (instead of a pen, he might say “wooden instrument used for
writing”). Pushkin uses regular, colloquial words in his poetry.

Viktor Shklovsky argues that art exists to make people feel things, and recover the sensations of
life as part of Avant-Garde poetics. ‘Ostranenie’ is a technique to amplify the experience of art
through making the objects strange or unfamiliar. The process of estranging art removes it from
the automatism of perception, thus requiring the viewers to focus on the artwork in a different
light, enabling an aesthetic perception of objects which are otherwise quite ordinary. This
technique allows the viewers to step outside of familiarity and impose a new quality on an art
object, creating a whole new way of experiencing said art object. Such a practice breaks the
habits of perception to create room for a formalist approach to art.

B. What is the relevance of this concept, ostrannenie, to early film studies? And to the study
of the (film) viewing experience today?

● When users become “used to” display technologies in routine use, perception becomes
automatized: the technology in use becomes habitual, even “natural” or “second nature”:
e.g. The screen of a TV set becomes transparent, a mere “window to the world”.

By breaking the general roles of perception, Shklovsky’s techniques of making strange went
against the canonical Symbolism theories as part of hermeneutic studies. Instead, he proposed a
focus on the study of the techniques, and the perceptual effects they create, as well as the
dynamic revolution of said techniques in the arts. Drawing from perception theory, he focused
less on the signs of art and more on the effects these signs could create, and how changing these
effects could influence the art experience. Ostranenie or de-automatisation in art experience
shows itself today in “transparence effects” emerging with the technological advancements
with new screens and media. As the viewers become used to display technologies, perception
then becomes automatised or like second nature. The technology, such as the television or phone
screen, becomes transparent, only a means to deliver content. Transparence effects lead to new
studies such as media affordances which allow for the technology to become strange for the sake
of art.

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2. “The Montage of (Film) Attractions” (Sergei Eisenstein)
A. What does the author mean by the key terms “attractions”; and “montage of film
attractions?”

For the Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, the key term attractions derives from theatre and
refers to cinematic moments which are deliberately selected for the specific purpose of
influencing the emotional, political or physical state of spectators, in a manipulative way of
production’s choice. In other words, the attractions are calculated in order to produce emotional
shocks. A sequence of these attractions refers to another key term, montage of film attractions.

The aim of this proposed montage is to elicit an emotional response from the audience by
assembling a series of shots that depict demonstrable actions (attractions). Typically, the
attractions would be depicted as violence, slaughter, and so on. The arrangement of the
attractions guides the audience to the ultimate conclusion of what meaning is conveyed in those
shots. That is due to the placement of different shots determining the meaning of the film,
because the relationship between the shots forms the story that is being told. Attractions to
Eisenstein function as a tool to deliver ideological reality to the viewers; he was not interested in
the psychologies of the film narratives.

B. How did Constructivism affect Eisenstein’s theory of attractions?

Constructivism is a poetics or philosophy of art introduced by Vladimir Tatlin, which emerged as

an extension of Russian Formalism and Russian Futurism. In constructivism, the notion of
autonomous art is replaced by the notion of the artist as an 'engineer', thus an art maker who
'constructs' art in a (collective and revolutionary) art practice. The propaganda film, for example,
uses art as a medium to deliver a message for social purposes. In this way, cinema became an
important medium to spread propaganda. Eisenstein based his theory of attractions on
constructivism, as his intellectual montage served as the tool to deliver the ideological frame
using the medium of film.

3. Why we go to the movies ( Hugo Munsterberg)

Answer to the question why we go to the movies, his approach and focal point and
characterize his approach in terms of his discipline.

In trying to investigate why we go to the movies, Munsterberg highlights the special power of
moving pictures and urges us to view cinema as an art form with impressive characteristics and
specifications (and not just as a mere expansion of theatre). As a pioneer of applied psychology,
he aims to study how films manage to engage our minds, particularly our attention, memory,
imagination, and emotion.
Firstly, he states that the main purpose of movies is entertainment and enjoyment. While being a
supplementary educational tool is another valuable purpose, bringing happiness and
entertainment to the masses is their “chief task”. As an original art form, film is cheap,
accessible, has the ability to overcome limitations of space (through the possibility of changing
scenes rapidly) and allows the performance of impossible events that couldn’t be realized in
nature (e.g. by using special effects and editing it can create humorous tricks and illusions).

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Two main qualities of the medium are the photoplay and the closeup. The close-up can be used
as a tool to guide the mind of the spectator and strip away all that is unimportant in order to
direct attention on a single thing. The actions of the close-up take place inside the mind.
The photoplay is another important concept introduced by Munsterberg. It expresses the action
of the mind against the mere action of the body. The sequence of pictures in a film is
constructed in a way that does not need to adhere to an order of events in nature, but to our own
mental play. Therefore, our perceptions, imagination, expectations, memory and attention are
outwardly projected for the first time. According to Münsterberg, film is the only visual art that
can do so, which explains why humanity returned to the movies long after the initial shock of
Lumiere’s cinema of attractions.

4. Cult of Distraction: On Berlin’s Picture Palaces (Siegfried Kracauer)

A.Describe the precise role Berlin’s picture palaces play in the cult of distraction.
B.Clarify why he speaks of a cult and simply not of distractions?

In his text “Cult of Distraction”, Siegfried Kracauer is very critical of the big picture palaces
emerging in 1920s Berlin. The film palaces were very popular with Berlin’s large working class
population, who, according to Kracauer, frequently visited them in order to escape a lack of
purpose and meaning in their own lives. With their pompous architecture, “elegant surface
splendor”, and an almost sacral appearance, the palaces projected an atmosphere of cultural
significance and the ability to provide a higher class experience, selling these perks as a
commodity to working class visitors. They were purposefully designed to be overly distracting
and highly stimulating, with film only being one part of a whole experience. He referred to this
as a “total artwork of effects” that “assaults every one of the senses”. Conceptually, they are built
to sell an illusion that workers happily engage with to distract themselves.
The “Cult Of Distraction” is a cult for this reason. Workers “fill their days fully with work
without the work being fulfilling”. The lack of such fulfillment needs to be compensated, hence
the popularity of the film palaces. According to Kracauer, the superficial and inauthentic nature
of the movies shown in these palaces make the underlying “disorder of society” “all the more
visible”. Once inside, the outside world would be temporarily forgotten, as the picture house
poses as a “distraction to the level of culture”.

5: "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus" (Jean-Louis Baudry)

A. What exactly does Jean-Louis Baudry mean by the basic cinematographic apparatus?
B. Which ideological effects does he ascribe to it?

A. Baudry puts forward an explicit socio-political and ideology-critical analysis of the

cinema as an “apparatus” where viewers are placed under an ideology-strained “viewing
regime”. In this new line of thinking, the focus is not necessarily on the content of the
films, but, rather, on the effect that cinema as an apparatus has on viewers. L’appareil de
base, or the basic cinematic apparatus, is the cumul of the instruments that make the
viewing experience of the subject or, in other words, the technological base of film

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 projection in the very specific cinema setup. This involves the projector and the screen,
(“mirror-screen”), setup in a “darkened hall”, a closed space, which typically creates a
suspension of mobility [immature or regressive immobility]; and a predominance of the
visual function. This allows the subject to transcend the normal limitations and
constraints and experience an impression of reality.
B. Building on the work of Althusser and Freud, Baudry aims to study the effect of the
apparatus on the “subject”, starting from the idea that perspective is not free from
ideology. Firstly, the linear perspective (eye leveled) found in films and inspired by
Renaissance paintings determines the position of the subject and forces it to identify (as
an “I”) to the Camera Eye. This brings out the homogeneity of being. Contributing to it is
the projection (always from behind the viewer and keeping the illusion of continuity of
otherwise static images) and the mirror-screen. As the subject transcends normal
limitations it reaches an impression of reality where the world offers itself to the eye as
an object. The subject reaches augmented possibilities and power, but a necessary
suspension of disbelief is required. However, cinema has been successful at aligning
itself with the dominant ideology, as films are identification machines. Therefore, the
apparatus is a lie, a falsehood, that gives the subjects the impression of individuality,
when, in actuality, they are determined by larger forces.

6. The theories by Jean-Louis Baudry and Christian Metz (who responds to Baudry's work)
are often simply referred to as "apparatus theory". Which key terms and (new) perspective(s)
did "Histoire/Discourse" and "The Passion for Perceiving" (by Christian Metz) bring to the
field of film/cinema studies?

Metz is famous for his semiotic approach to cinema studies and his incorporation of
psychoanalysis in this field. Through his essays, he deconstructs the cinematic image, and
questions why an audience goes to a film. By applying Freudian psychoanalysis to the film going
experience, Metz illustrates how a film satisfies three important desires: the desire for ego, the
desire to desire, and the desire for the object through fetishism. Unlike theater, that appeals to
“close senses” (sight and hearing) but happens in real time in front of the spectators, cinema is
removed from the spectators, unaware of being watched. This distance creates a desire for an
imagery, and part of the pleasure is that the desire is never fully satisfied (always a lack). Since,
when watching a film, the perception is not really there, in real time, cinema becomes a mirror
that does not reflect the spectator. We perceive the imagery, and we are urged to identify with
the camera, since we see everything but ourselves (Primary identification). In this position, we
are watching a film that did not consent to being watched and is unaware (actors don’t look at the
camera), therefore we experience scopophilia and voyeurism. Lastly, drawing from Freudian
theories on the fetishization of the lack, Metz argues that we as audience must suspend our
disbelief in order to enjoy cinema and, even if we are aware that the events on the screen are not
real, we must fetishize them as such. In typical Hollywood films, a story has continuity and
narration without enunciation from the auteur, abolishing all traces of the subject, therefore

16
giving the spectator the impression that they are the subject and allowing a form of secondary
identification, by identifying with the characters. When the traces of the auteur are evident and
the spectator becomes aware of his own voyeurism, this type of voyeurism is called discourse.

7: "Ten Frequently Asked Questions on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' " (Laura
Mulvey)
In her seminal essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975) Laura Mulvey argues
that there is a fundamentally different treatment of male and female characters in classical
Hollywood film, organized according to a system she theorized under the label of the "male
gaze". Discuss the main points of critique to which Mulvey responded in her "Ten Frequently
Asked Questions [...]".

In her essay “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema” Laura Mulvey builds on psychoanalysis to
explore the relation between fascination with film and pre-existing patterns of fascination,
particularly by examining male spectatorship and the pleasure of looking. However, “Ten
Frequently asked questions [...]” raises a few points of criticism that highlight Mulvey’s
limitations. Firstly, placing Freud’s ideology, largely labeled as a misogynistic one, at the basis
of a feminist theory, is brought up. However, Mulvey argues that Freud’s theories are
symptomatic of a patriarchal unconscious and that it gives us the opportunity to study the anxiety
of castration and analyze women’s oppression. Another critique raised is Mulvey’s use of male
pronouns when discussing the spectator. This can be seen as a lack of addressing female
representation in the audience. Mulvey intentionally uses this polarizing language to critique
Hollywood's mode of exclusively addressing male spectators and also to add an element of
shock. The next critique regards Mulvey’s inability to acknowledge race, further criticized and
expanded on by Bell Hooks. Though Mulvey admits the Hollywood industry is racist, she claims
the subject was out of her scope (critiquing the images of women in a patriarchal society). Lastly,
the interviewer questions the lack of nuance regarding queerness, and a gay/lesbian gaze.
Mulvey admits that she ‘missed’ addressing it, but did provide ideas on what roles queer
spectators play in Hollywood’s conformist nature and how it has changed over time. Female
spectator and female spectacle can be pleasurable but not dominating. Untroubled by the fear of
castration, women spectators are able to find visual pleasure in female characters on screen.
Mulvey ends her essay with a look towards the future of cinema, specifically that of Hollywood.
Modes of spectatorship shift and change as new technologies of film consumption emerge.

.8: "Animating Film Theory"

In "Of Mice and Ducks" Miriam Hansen summarizes the Frankfurt School debate over
Disney cartoons.
A. How do Benjamin and Adorno contextualize Disney cartoons as a post-war
phenomenon?

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 ● In these films, mankind makes preparations to survive civilization. Mickey Mouse proves
that a creature can still survive even when it has thrown off all resemblance to a human
being. He disrupts the entire hierarchy of creatures that is supposed to culminate in
mankind.
● –Mickey Mouse non-anthropomorphic, post-human(ist) figure. disruption of hierarchy
and evolutionary path among animals (Benjamin)

Disney cartoons were a symptom of the rapidly developing technology, mass production and
mass consumerism that started to occur in post-war society. Benjamin argued that the public
recognised oneself in Disney cartoons and saw them as a catharsis for what was actually fear of
these developments, combined with the unthinkable damage that humans had caused during the
war. Mickey Mouse was a way for the public to deal with and diffuse the destructive potential of
post-war society through the catharsis of collective laughter. The cartoons often depicted in an
exaggerated manner the concerns people had at the time and made fun of them in a way that
soothed them. It made them “unthinkable” through exaggeration.
Adorno however felt that these cartoons were simply preparing the masses to become passive
against the cruelty and domination they are subjected to in post war society. By normalizing the
violence that is depicted in cartoons (he agreed with Benjamin that the public saw themselves in
the cartoons), that kind of violence would also grow to be normalized in real life. Often the
protagonist in these films was being abused and Adorno argued that humankind was turning into
this beaten protagonist. He also thought that individualism would decline through the
popularization of mass culture.

A. What are the main differences in Adorno and Benjamin's approaches?

While they both believe that the spectator in a way identifies with cartoon characters like Mickey
Mouse, and agree on the shift that society is making into mass culture, the difference boils down
to the light in which they view humankind. Adorno has a more pessimistic view while Benjamin
has a bit more faith in humanity. Benjamin believes in the positive effects of the collective
laughter caused by Disney cartoons - the catharsis of escapism and self-reflection of the people
in the media they consume - while Adorno believes it to be a sign of mass subjection and
domination. He argues that the normalization of violence in cartoons will normalize it in real life
as well, and that mass cinema will prevent people from developing an individualized thought
process (mass culture = mass opinion without thought).
In summary, Benjamin believes Disney cartoons can have a positive effect on humankind and
help us learn how to deal with this new society, while Adorno thinks it simply serves to make
people become passive to the mass domination of this society.

Table with differences

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Benjamin Adorno
technology and mass-cultural reception are seemingly progressive elements of
potentially productive, even revolutionary forces mass culture are in fact reactionary
cinema facilitates novel forms of imagination, cinema represses powers of
expression, and collectivity imagination and prevents spectators
from thinking
cinema is a training ground for modern cinema accustoms the masses to being
experience beaten
silent film comedy and cartoons provoke a laughter at silent film comedy and
therapeutic release of unconscious energies in cartoons is a sign of mass subjection
collective laughter and domination

9: The Close-Up: Scale and Detail in the cinema (Mary Ann Doane)
A. Why has the close-up provoked hysteric responses among Film theorists, according to
Mary Ann Doane, and in what ways is it linked to a modern sense of loss?
B. How might theories of the close-up Inform our understanding of contemporary screen
culture, and especially what Doane calls the “schizophrenia of scale"?

Doane gives an overview of how different film theorists thought of the close-up, specifically on
the issues of whether it defines the medium’s very essence and the paradoxical contradiction
between smallness and largeness. The close-up, together with an editing that penetrates space
and is at least partially rationalized by that close-up, seems to mark the moment of the very
emergence of film as a discourse, as an art.
Epstein considered the close-up to be the “soul of cinema” and saw a powerful potential as it
creates photogénie, an aesthetic transcendence effect evoked by cinematic magnification. Other
theorists include Balázs who was interested in how the close-up speaks to us subjectively and
how we make objects on the screen ‘expressive’, or Eisenstein who criticized Griffith’s purely
representational use of the close-up since he saw its function to produce abstract meaning
through montage, claiming that the close up should not be restricted to faces. Doane exposes
why theorists responded strongly, excessively, even “hysterically”: because the close-up
challenged our position toward the medium; whether we feel authority through intimate
miniature representation or subordination through overpowering enlargement. If the close-up can
be seen as detail of a whole (like Benjamin would argue) or as an unsupported entirety by itself
relates it to a modern sense of loss, alluding to the disembodied spectator in the cinema seat who
is confronted with separated body parts on the screen.
The close-up invokes two different binary oppositions—proximity vs. distance and the large vs.
the small. The scale of the close-up transforms the face into an instance of the gigantic, the
monstrous: it overwhelms. Mary Ann Doane talks about the confusion, the apparent collapse of

19
the oppositions between detail and totality, the miniature and the gigantic, that is crucial to the
ideological operation of the close-up.
The question whether the close-up provides us with the small or the gigantic, is further
exemplified by a terminological uncertainty: in English, the word close-up suggests proximity,
whereas in German the word ‘Großaufnahme’ relates to the idea of largeness. The debate about
detail or totality finds new relevance in the modern age, as exemplified by Doane’s elaboration
on ‘schizophrenia of scale’. This term relates to the multiplicity of screen sizes we can choose
from today and how both tendencies are reaffirmed. The private screens get smaller and present
the user with an “illusion of its possession,” whereas public screens, like cinema or
advertisement screens, get bigger and thus give a vision of an “impossible totality.”

B. When Doane is talking about the “schizophrenia of scale”, she specifically refers to the two
extremes of screen size that the culture of that time was headed towards: screens for personal use
(phones, tablets, and laptops) were getting smaller and smaller, while screens for public
consumption (television and cinema) were getting larger and larger. One theory that might
inform what we can do with this information is the French Impressionist concept of Photogénie.
This was linked to the “incomparable ecstasy” that one might experience when consuming film –
a feature that is unique to film. The ability of film to fully absorb the viewer into the experience
is aided and re-affirmed with the development of large, IMAX-screen cinema’s of today. The
other side of the coin – small personal screens – present another view of the success of
photogénie in modern cinema. When screens are everywhere in daily life, exaggeration is
apparently not needed to experience photogénie.

10: "Media Archaeology (Wanda Strauven)

Keeping in mind that Wanda Strauven wrote that “In media archaeological terms, history is
the study not only of the past, but also of the (potential) present and the possible futures" (pp.
67-68) what is meant by "possible futures" (Thomas Elsaesser) and the (Foucault-inspired)
concepts of "Ruptures" and "Discontinuities'"? Clarify their relevance to film studies with an
example.

Wanda Strauven, in her essay on Media archeology, researches the where, when and what of
cinema, referring to Elsaesser by using a quote of his: “cinema is still to be invented, or rather: it
is reinvented all the time”.
By asking the question where is cinema, she uses Elsaesser’s ontological approach, which is
focused more on the experience of the spectator as shaping the “where” aspect of cinema,
arguing that our perception and thinking have in fact become cinematic.
When is cinema is outlined by the distinction between early and narrative cinema, by also
referencing the Brighton Project, to which the distinction is owed.
Later in the essay, Strauven distinguishes between three branches of media archeology,stating
that it was Elsaesser who used the term Media Archeology as a way of “reading history against
the grain. Therefore, by “possible futures” Thomas Elsaesser highlights that aspect of
cinema as a medium, being influenced by its past and constantly changing. “Possible

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futures” is this aspect of media-archaeology that is aiming to seek the new in the old. This can be
done by for example exploring new fields of analysis such as digital waste or software studies, or
searching for the reoccuring and returning of media, the so-called topoi.
This also relates to its history as a medium, which Faucault sees as subjective and being
reinvented each time. Strauven, being influenced by Foucault, points out that there is no
objectivity in the past, only a recollection of multiple versions of the past that may have existed,
therefore the past is a construction. Elsaesser, points out that if one were to consistently revise its
historiography, there would be many discontinuities and ruptures, and this should be brought to
the foreground. Discontinuity is defined by Foucalt as the positioning of epistemic breaks. In
other words, there is no true past, just a construction of all the past’s we know. And in the
archeology of knowledge this means you have to deal with these disconutieen and ruptures,
opposed to historical discourse.
The relevance of media-archaeology can be seen in Singing in the rain (1952). Whereas this film
was considered unproblematic at the time, the changing values and notions of society show that
the way we view certain films over time changes.

BLOCK II

11: "An Aesthetics of Hunger" (Glauber Rocha) and "For an Imperfect Cinema"
(Julio Garcia Espinosa)
Please describe the characteristics of the Third Cinema movement, as described in Julian
Hanich's lecture, and support the claims with quotes from the three manifestoes discussed in
the lecture and the seminars.

Glauber Rocha, Julio Gracia Espinosa as well as Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, are key
figures in the Third Cinema movement. This cinema movement is opposed to the First Cinema
(mainstream commercial cinema - Hollywood) as well as to the Second Cinema (the art-cinema,
arthouse cinema and the auteur cinema), which both depict stereotypical representations of the
Third World. Because of the leftist-socialist political influence, the Third Cinema, emergent in
the colonized Latin American countries, aims to fuse art with politics. The movement was
founded on the aesthetic influence from Soviet montage cinema, Brechian epic theatre,
Surrealism, Italian neo-realism and Political inspiration from Karl Marx and Marxist thinkers.
The Third Cinema theorists believe that the medium of cinema is powerful as it can raise
awareness of social and political issues. They do not aim to satisfy the so-called “cultured
elite”’s desire and taste, but to awaken the masses regarding the socio-political issues that they
face. Third Cinema and its aesthetics are against Colonialism and Imperialism. As Solanas and
Getino underline, “the birth of a third cinema means, at least for us, the most important
revolutionary artistic event of our times”. Third Cinema does not strive for a stylized cinema, on
the contrary, it aims for scarcity and imperfection, making a virtue out of necessity (e.g.

21
Mimics the economic undernourishment of the “Third World”). As Rocha claims, “our
originality is our hunger”. It puts emphasis on the masses and their struggles. Furthermore, the
filmmaking procedure is not an individual action, but a collective one. Moreover, Third Cinema
wants its viewers to be aggressive and awake and not passive. For the Third Cinema Theorists,
the camera operates as a “rifle” and “a gun that can shoot 24 frames per second”. Also,
cinema is considered as “the most valuable tool of communication of our times”. Overall, the
Third Cinema movement targets the masses and it wants to raise their awareness. It is opposed to
the First and Second cinema and their stereotypical representations of the Third Word, and by
fusing art with politics, it aims to incite the masses to stand up and rebel.

12: Postcolonial Film Theory

Following Julian Hanich's lecture, please define the term “postcolonial film theory”, mention
the non-film scholars who have influenced it most and discuss what Gautam Basu Thakur
considers the problems of postcolonial film theory.

According to Julian Hanich’s lecture, postcolonial film theory can be defined as an attempt to
use postcolonial theory to critically examine film, by discussing the impact of European
colonialism on society, and its repercussions as cinematically presented. It is especially
important to apply postcolonial ideas and theories from non-film scholars, in order to recognize
the complexities behind postcolonial film theory. The lecture specifically references theories
from Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak. Bhabha argues about deconstructing binary
oppositions between the West and the Others, and the effect of the engagements between the
colonized and the colonizers. Spivak however, focuses on the excluded and the Subaltern. This
differs from simply being oppressed, as the Subaltern are also socially and politically excluded
from the hegemonic power structure of a colonial society.

The lecture also references Gautam Basu Thakur’s 2016 work, titled Postcolonial Theory and
Avatar, to further define the complexities in discussing and addressing postcolonial theory in
film. Using Avatar as an example, Thakur claims that the film diminishes indigenous voices, and
continues to enforce the idea of European subjects (or humans in Avatar’s case) at the helm. And
when the indigenous resist it is regarded as terrorism. In addition, by allowing virtual
participation, instead of encouraging real engagement, Avatar is just another consumer product
that facilitates our indulgence in anti-capitalist thoughts without having any repercussions in
actual society.

13: "The Ontology of the Photographic Image" (Andre Bazin)

André Bazin likens photography and film to a fingerprint and the Holy Shroud of Turin
A. Please explain why Bazin uses these comparisons and connect them to Charles
Sanders Peirce's theory of signs.
B. Please give the names of at least two other photography theorists who have used
comparable similes and mention what comparisons they used.

Peirce’s Three Categories of Signs:

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Icon: physical resemblance to the thing being represented, e.g. a figurative painting
Index: shows evidence for the existence of what it refers to, e.g. footprint, fingerprint, bullet
hole, a sign that something was there in the world, it testifies the existence of a thing or a person
Symbol: has no resemblance between the signifier and the signified. The connection between
them must be culturally learned (language, words, traffic signs), the word dog has no actual
resemblance to a dog itself, arbitrary relationship to the thing
● -if the image lacks iconic value, it still can have indexical value
● -a photograph connects iconic and indexical elements
● -how do we keep the indexical means in mind when we watch a fictional film?? Which
do not try to document actual reality …

“Peirce identifies three different ways in which we grasp the way a sign stands for an object. He
calls these three types of interpretant: the immediate interpretant, the dynamic interpretant and
the final interpretant or icon, index and symbol and describes them like this;
● An Icon has a physical resemblance to the signified, the thing being represented. A
photograph is a good example as it certainly resembles whatever it depicts.
● An Index shows evidence of what’s being represented. A good example is using an
image of smoke to indicate fire.
● A Symbol has no resemblance between the signifier and the signified. The connection
between them must be culturally learned. Numbers and alphabets are good examples.
There’s nothing inherent in the number 9 to indicate what it represents. It must be
culturally learned.”

➔ Visual arts - pictures - preserve bodies like mummies

➔ Psychological desire to preserve combined with aesthetic desire
➔ Abstract art was able to exist because photography appeared and met the need for
preservation
➔ Human agency is not the sole means of achieving - it’s mechanic, it’s a device that uses
light and film -> we are not the sole authors. We can even say Light is the author -> the
first time when the only thing to come between an object and its representation is another
object
➔ Photography helps to preserve words independent of time

Bazin argues that photography and film are records of reality, or present traces of the real to its
spectator. To make his argument, he links this notion to the Holy Shroud of Turin, which is
imprinted with an image resembling Jesus Christ, believed to originate from his blood and sweat
as he wore it. This could be interpreted as “the original photograph”, and, because the input of
the author had nothing to do with it (it is a natural phenomenon, and “accident”, where the blood
and sweat were the authors much like light is in a photograph) it can be seen as a mechanical
reproduction. Bazin relates this to Pierce’s semiotic categorization of signs. According to Bazin,
photography and film are examples of an index in that there exists a causal connection between

23
the filmed object and the sign, i.e. produced photograph or film frame. We capture something
and due to a chemical reaction inside the machine, the trace of reality becomes imprinted on the
photograph. Photography describes an indexical process because the concept is based on
causality. The Holy Shroud of Turin is also an index - a fingerprint, a trace. Other theorists
expand on this: Sontag agrees that a photograph shows a trace of the real and thus compares it to
a footprint or a death mask. Barthes compares photography with resurrection and
philosophically foregrounds the intermingling of the past and present that photography can
evoke. He further addresses that photography is indeed a proof of reality since, unlike for
painting, the represented object had to be physically there in order to be captured and
represented. Manovich, on the other hand, is interested in the medium’s current state and claims
that film has become a subgenre of painting rather than photography in the digital age because it
does not represent our reality anymore but fictional realities are painted with the tools of
computer generated imagery.

14: Theory of Film (Siegfried Kracauer)

A. Why was Siegfried Kracauer denounced as the "ayatollah of realism"? For your
answer, please also take into consideration his "basic aesthetic principle."
B. What does Kracauer mean by "the redemption of physical reality"?

Siegfried Kracauer is considered to be the “ayatollah of realism” for his aim to free cinema from
photography.
Kracauer considers film as a realistic medium because of its photographic nature. He provides
valuable insight into realism in film that is still relevant. He argues that film can only obey the
basic aesthetic principle when it is filming movement, and showing a sequence of reality. For
him, if any medium is “imitating effects more ‘natural’ to another medium (it) will hardly prove
acceptable…” because it will fall in between the two mediums.
Secondly, Kracauer points out the pure objectivity of the film camera to capture reality. The
automatism of the camera, in turn “strips ” film from the human hand, thus making the footage
completely objective. Going back to his “basic aesthetic principle”, Kracauer outlines that Film
should have a specific relation to the physical world, and thus claiming “aesthetic validity”.
Lastly, he argues that the camera has the possibility of capturing and storing an (unstaged)
moment in time, that is externalizing the footage it produces. The redemption of physical reality
relates to Deleuze’s notion of the movement-image as a characteristic specific only to the
medium of film. For Deleuze, film gives us a moving image, and not an image to which a
movement is added. This is relevant to Kracauer’s approach, because it relates to the ability of
the camera to capture “ moments of everyday life” that in turn makes us appreciate our given
material environment or change our perception of reality.

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Kracauer considers film to have a photographic nature, since it originates from that medium.
Therefore he believes film to be a realistic medium, just as photography is. Within his texts
though, Kracauer actively tries to make a clear distinction between film and photography, in
order to make people perceive film as an individual art form. For this reason he is considered to
be the ‘ayatollah of realism’, as he is trying to free the medium of film from that of photography.
He distinguishes film from photography by its ‘movement-showing’ capabilities, and goes on to
write about the medium's affordances. Here his ‘basic aesthetic principle’ comes in. Kracauer
argues that a certain medium’s achievements become more aesthetically solid when that
medium exercises its own affordances, instead of trying to imitate other media. So,
according to him, a film that attempts to imitate the affordances of e.g. photography or theatre is
unacceptable because it does not build onto film-specific properties. With ‘the redemption of
reality’ Kracauer refers to film’s ability to capture and store unpredictable moments and
fragments of reality.

15: "Four and a Half Fallacies" (Rick Altman)

A. Please place Rick Altman's text in the context of the re-evaluation of sound and the
general role sound has played in film theory (as established in Julian Hanich's lecture
on "Theories of sound")

A. Julian Hanich mentioned two main approaches in film history where the role of sound has
been discussed; in formalism and realism. Hence, In the 1920s and 30s many formalist film
scholars like Rudolf Arnheim, Bela Balazs and the work by Eisenstein, Pudovkin and
Alexandrow titled “A statement” (1928) suggest a rejection of sound. According to them, film
should be an artform where the visual experience is superior rather than a realistic representation
of reality. On the other hand, realism scholars like Siegfried Kracauer and Andre Bazin, who
believe that sound is a crucial part of film in creating an illusion of realism. That being said,
sound has had a history of being seen as a supporting element to the moving image (much like an
add on) rather than equally part of discourse, and an image-sound hierarchy prevailed in film
studies. Rick Altman pushes against this long-lasting rejection of film sound in theories and
sheds light on film sound from a theoretical scope in “Four and A Half Fallacies”.

B. Explain as detailed as possible what Altman means by "ontological fallacy" and

"reproductive fallacy."

B. In his “Introduction: Four and A Half Film Fallacies” Rick Altman investigates the theory of
sound. “The Ontological Fallacy” is based on the works of Rudolf Arnheim and Bela Balazs
from late twenties and thirties where the visual is seen superior to sound. According to Altman
“the ontological argument seeks to disenfranchise sound, to prove that sound has (or should
have) little effect on overall film structure” (p.37). He criticizes these claims since they suggest

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that cinema is firm in its form, immune to history and a fundamentally image-orientated
medium. Hence, according to Altman these claims are based on an unrealistic attitude
where rather than discussing the structures of existing films, they oppose a change in the
overall film structure.
According to Altman, the reproductive fallacy refers to the way that sound is “literally
reproduced by a high quality recording and playback system” (p. 39). However, he explains how
sounds recorded are never the same and how “recordings do not reproduce sound, they represent
sound” (p. 40) Indeed, this seems to be the most fascinating aspect for Altman in his theory; the
material differences between two sounds and spatial configuration. In conclusion, sound is
always an interpretation of the sound represented.
Reproductive Fallacy - “sound creates three-dimensiality ” “recordings cannot faithfully
reproduce reality, it is always an interpresentation of the sound” “sound is not a servant to the
image” “Although, the sound is reproduced by the high-quality sound recording - two sounds
will be different because of their spatial configuration” “no recording can reproduce original
sound”

16: Film, a Sound Art (Michel Chion)

Please explain what Chion means by "spatial magnetization" and give a real or hypothetical
film example that illustrates it. Take into consideration also what changes with the
introduction of Dolby Atmos.

Michael Chion is considered one of the most influential figures in theories of sound in film.
Among other terms that he presented, the term ‘spatial magnetization’ is highly important
regarding the interplay between sound and image. By spatial magnetization, Chion refers to a
universal psycho-physiological phenomenon, which is the viewer’s mistaken perception of the
sound source. In other words, the spectator, automatically, locates the sound in its source that
they see on the screen. The viewer’s brain attributes the sound to a source either on-screen or off-
screen. To cite an example, when we watch a dog barking on-screen, we follow its movement,
and we perceive that the sound of its barking is also moving. In reality, sound is not emitted by
an on-screen or off-screen source, but the emitter is the loudspeaker which is placed either
behind or below the cinematic screen. Hence, the viewer’s brain is magnetized by the screen and
mentally locates the sound in the screen, even though the sound is emitted by the static
loudspeaker. However, Chion’s spatial magnetization refers to the classical movie theaters where
the screens are equipped with one or two loudspeakers. Nowadays, movie theaters are equipped
with more advanced sound systems such as the Dolby Atmos, which is constituted by several
loudspeakers to create a more immersive environment for the viewer. Thus, spatial
magnetization and the sound source is more blur and more difficult to be identified.
Nevertheless, spatial magnetization is still relevant as there are still monaural movie theaters.

An important term we encounter in Michel Chion's text Film: A Sound Art is spatial
magnetization. This is, as he puts it, a psycho-physiological phenomenon that makes us attribute
a sound's location to what we see on the screen as its real or supposed source. When we see a

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speaking character move from one place to another, we perceive the source of the sound to be
moving along with them, while the actual emitter of the audio is the stationary loudspeaker next
to the screen. This is because visuals attract sounds magnetically, so we mentally locate the
source of the sound to where we see it come from on the screen. The effect is greatly enhanced
by the new technology of Dolby Atmos, where the sounds literally move through the cinema due
to the placement of the many speakers throughout the room. Even when a supposed source of
sound exits the screen, spatial magnetisation lets our brain create a three dimensional space in
which the source keeps existing in the same space-time as what is seen within the frame. This
can be done by, for example, decreasing the volume when the camera moves away from the
sound source.

Michel Chion coined the term spatial magnetization in his book Film, a Sound Art, with which
he describes the phenomena of the distinction of the source of the sound and the emitter of the
sound, in an audio-viewing experience. For instance, when a dog is moving around on-screen,
even though the perceiver receives the sound of the dog from a static loudspeaker, an illusion is
created and it seems as if the sound was changing its location parallel to the dog. Since Chion
mainly relies on quantitative methods throughout his research, he claims that spatial
magnetization is a universal phenomenon which stems from the ordinary audio-viewer’s
psychological reaction/process when audio-viewing a film. He believes that the auditory and the
visual are inseparable, to the extent that the visual can even alter the perception of the audio via
the mental work of the audio-viewer, especially considering that sound does not have an emitting
origin, only a source, on an image. Hence, the placement of a sound (dog) is defined by the
accompanying image, although it actually is emitted by a speaker, usually from behind the
screen. Therefore, Chion suggests a double movement of sound, which, on the one hand, exists
in collaboration with the image, yet, on the other hand, always transgresses that. The introduction
of the Dolby Atmos (1970s) allows for the 3D depth of sound systems and enhances the feeling
of spatial magnetization, owing to the ability of such systems tracking the movement of the
source on-screen. Consequently, in case a dog runs across the screen from left to right, speakers
are able to follow this movement and emit sound accordingly.

In Michel Chion’s book Film, a Sound Art, he coins the term “spatial magnetization.” As he
explains it, it is a universal psycho-physiological phenomenon that deals with the question of the
placement of sound in film. For example, the spectator will mentally place a sound, even though
in a monaural movie theatre the sound comes from a speaker behind the screen. An example of a
spatial magnetization can be felt for instance, when a character is walking across the screen, the
sound of the footsteps seems to follow his image, even though in real space the sound comes
from the same stationary loudspeaker. Thus, with the help of the visual image, spectators are able
to attribute the sound to the onscreen actions even though in real space they continue to listen to
it from a loudspeaker. Spatial magnetization is more effective when sounds are synchronized
with the image and the stability of sound in the space of the movie theatre. Around the mid-
1970s, Dolby Atmos was introduced to the film world. It is a surround technology where there

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are a lot of speakers around the movie theatre, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-
dimensional objects. This changes the theorization of sound in film as sound literally travels
through space. Thus, if we take the previous example of a character that is walking across the
screen, the sound is going to be heard from the direction that he is walking to and then follow
him across the screen.

17: "Cognitive Film Theory: An Insider's Appraisal" (Carl Plantinga)

1. What is the shared objective of cognitive film scholars and what defines their approach
from a methodological perspective?

‘One might say that cognitive film theorists tend to be committed to the study of human psy-
chology using the methods of contemporary psychology and analytic philosophy.’
‘At the broadest level, cognitive theorists are committed to clarity of exposition and argument
and to the relevance of empirical evidence and the standards of science (where appropriate).’
‘The cognitive approach is committed to middle-level research about film and film spectatorship’
Cognitive film theorists tend to be committed to the study of human psychology using the
methods of contemporary psychology and analytic philosophy. In short, cognitive film theory
focuses on film spectatorship and the universal cognitive qualities that film activates in
spectators. By researching the interaction between film and the human brain, through empirical
evidence, cognitivist film theorists attempt to gain clarity on the experience and meaning-making
process of watching a film.

The shared objective of film scholars is one that focuses on the mental activity of a subject
throughout the viewing of a movie and how that contributes to the viewing experience. This
process begins with the first perceptual input through visual and auditory reception to this
processing in the human brain into the meaning-making process of the viewing stimulus and
experience. It is based on empirical methods of research which tries to set objective standards
and categorizations of effects from the receptive observation of a film. This approach is different
from a methodological approach as it dedicates to the highest standards of reasoning and
evidence on the mental activity of viewers for which they are susceptible to subjectivity.

2. What is the psycho-semiotic approach that cognitive scholars such as David Bordwell and
Noel Carroll criticize, and what is wrong with film theory based on this approach?

In the psycho-semiotic approach film is mostly viewed as a product of a (sick) society. It

revealed the systematically repressed desires by the ruling elite when looked at film through this
scope. It exposed the social disease. The film became the patient and the film theorist was the
psychoanalytic. Example the feminist film theory was based on psychoanalytic theory, film was
an instrument of oppression and victimisation. To expose the hidden agendas of power embodied

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in film themselves became the role of the film theorist. It was merely seen as a vehicle for
revealing problems of social conflict and authority.
The approach was rejected by Carroll and Bordwell because they claimed it was not fruitful to
the grand scheme of the cognitive approach. Moreover, psychoanalysis seems ill-suited to
account for normative behavior such as perception, narrative comprehension, social cognition
and the experience of garden-variety emotions such as fear and pity.
‘Noel Carrol noted in Mystifying Movies argued in detail that existing film theories served more
to mystify than to explain the workings of motion Pictures.'

The psycho-semiotic approach is defined by conventional methodologies, ‘a combination of

Lacanian psychoanalysis, Althusserian Marxism, and Barthesian semiotics.’ Carroll critiqued the
then-reigning paradigm of film theory for becoming speculative and mystifying films rather than
explaining them. The psycho-semiotic approach is mostly seeking to study cinema with the tools
of psychology and sociology, and thereby reading the film as a reflection of inner psychological
debates.

The psycho semiotic approach that Carroll and Bordwell criticize is based on a lot of
psychoanalytic aspects of human psychology and some methods of sociology which resulted in
the overdoing of the process of interpretation (rather than perception) ultimately reaching the
impediment of research and “reduced film to the repetition of fashionable slogans and
unexamined assumptions” (Carroll). Based on this approach, film theory would be reduced to a
mere nonobjective limited set of approaches. These statements from Carroll exemplify how it
threatens the foundation of film theory, arguing this must be completely discarded and a new
beginning needed to take place.

18: Describe what is meant by the ecological aspect of Anderson film theory and
how it influences his approach to the study of film.

Anderson builds upon the theories of cognitive film theory in trying to understand the illusion of
reality in film. Thus it approaches film studies in a scientific way. The ecological aspect of his
film theory attempts to place film production and spectatorship in a natural context.
“That is, the perception and comprehension of motion pictures is regarded as a subset of
perception and comprehension in general, and the workings of the perceptual systems and the
mind of the spectator are viewed in the context of their evolutionary development.”
A number of rules of thumb emerged in film to make it more accessible and understandable for
the wider audience. These rules are based on the fundamental matters of perception. He
compares the viewer to a computer that processes audio/video information. The filmmakers are
seen as programmers who design programs to run on these computers. They do not know exactly
how the computers work, but they find ways to create a working program for the computer
through trial and error.
An example is how the human brain has developed the ability to locate items even when not
visible. If a person runs at a certain pace but disappears behind an ending wall we know

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somewhat the time he will appear on the other side. Understanding this can help to make a film
more accessible.
He also mentions errors in perception such as hallucinations are worth investigating because it
can help us better understand the way we perceive things. Through a better understanding of
perception we gain a greater understanding of how the human mind interacts with a motion
picture. The motion picture, or the phenomenon of cinema, can best be understood by utilizing
the methods of science within an ecological context.

An ecological approach seeks to uncover the perception and control of behavior that occurs
naturally. In his essay “the reality of illusion: an ecological approach” Joseph P. Andersson
seeks to explain the cognitive nature of cinema viewing and the illusion of reality
constructed. Furthermore, he writes “I call this metatheory ecological because it attempts to
place film production and spectatorship in a natural context”. Hence, he is intrigued by the
psychological and physiological changes that happen in the human mind and body when viewing
a film. In fact, he bases his writing on cognitive film theorists and cognitive scientists, making it
more scientific in its nature.
Anderson writes that “the viewer can be thought of as a standard biological audio/video
processor” suggesting a universal basic operating system for all individual film viewers. He
makes an analogy between the human mind and a computer to understand the relationship
between cinematic apparatus, the filmmaker, and the viewer's processing system. He takes into
consideration the evolution of the human mind and the complexity of our perceptual systems.
Hence, according to Anderson there is a perceptual “error” when the viewer has an illusion of
reality. Furthermore, he thinks that the ecological context is crucial in understanding this illusion
of cinema.
In his introduction he writes “in the postmodernist era, there is no need to ask what film is or
how it works” and suggests an alternative approach. This places him in a different position than
many other film scholars, since instead of looking at the medium of film or its context he wants
to uncover the science of cinema. However, in doing so Andersson might find himself
disregarding the art of cinema, suggesting a superior approach to film theory. This makes his
ecological approach a topic of debate in the field of cinema.

19: "Toward a Phenomenology of Nonfictional Film Experience" (Vivian Sobchack)

Please explain the major differences between the three modes of spectatorial consciousness
Sobchack takes over from Jean-Pierre Meunier and give examples that illustrate them.

Vivian Sobchack explores three modes of spectatorial consciousness that were initially outlined
by Jean-Pierre Meunier. These three modes each correspond to a type of cinematic object,
namely the film-souvenir (commonly known as the “home movie”), the documentary, and the

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fiction film. Sobchack details the relation between the viewer’s specific knowledge and their
propensity to look beyond the screen and into their own real-life experiences; the less one knows,
the less one reaches into one’s own life.
When engaging with the film-souvenir, the intentional objective is less related to the specificity
of the film, but instead to a recovery of personal memories of the content. An example of which
is a wedding video, which primarily serves as an evocation of the personal feelings and
memories of its subjects, rather than a film demanding deep engagement. The experience of the
documentary film is related more heavily to the specificity of the film image but still (in most
cases) draws upon the viewer’s general knowledge, thus requiring more attention. A
documentary depicting scenes from a war is an apt example, as the viewer often possesses
historical knowledge accumulated through news, literature, etc. but often lacks a personal
engagement with the depicted events which then drives their attention with it. Finally, the fiction
film demands the highest degree of attention from the viewer as the film image is almost entirely
specific to the world of the film and requires what Meunier describes as a “submission” in order
to have a specific experience. Sobchack uses the example of the fictional dog Lassie; she only
knows Lassie from her presence in a narrative and her relation to that film world, in contrast to
the widely-known Fala (the dog of Franklin D. Roosevelt), and her own dog who provokes
feelings in the film-souvenir.

20. "Cinema 1: The Movement-Image" and "Cinema 2: The Time-Image" (Gilles

Deleuze)
Please discuss the reasons for the appeal of Gilles Deleuze's film-philosophy as presented in
the lecture by Julian Hanich. With regard to the third appeal, take into consideration also
what Deleuze says about the creation of concepts, both in the passages from Cinema I &
Cinema II and in the clip shown in Hanich's lecture.

The appeal of Deleuze's film-philosophy to film scholars today, as explained by Julian Hanich,
is:
1. The fact that they dignify the medium of film with philosophical attention, in contrast
with many of the philosophers of his time, he seems to be a true connoisseur of film
history and he takes the art of cinema very seriously. He was one of the first to really
devote his time on film philosophy and the merit of film as an artistic medium and filmic
auteurs as artists. Film scholars today take him very seriously, because he took his object
of study (film) very seriously.
2. The strange pleasure people get out of deciphering his texts which are complex for
two reasons:
- Firstly they require a lot of prior knowledge of a. the history of philosophy (like
Bergson, Pierce and Nietszche); b. Deleuze's own philosophy; c. film theory and d. the
history of cinema and the films he mentions in the texts.
- Secondly, because his writing style is complex. He wants us to think in fresh ways. Like
art, his way of writing means to defamiliarize our automotized concepts, categories and

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 way of thinking. People who enjoy reading Deleuze feel like it is an aesthetic and
satisfying experience to decipher his texts.
3. One of the foremost goals of Deleuze's philosophy is to create new concepts to change
our encrusted way of thinking. View of films from a very different angle or lens.
- He states that "philosophy is a practice of concepts and cinema itself is a new practice of
images and signs, with theory, philosophy must produce as conceptual practice, for no
technical determination whether applied (psychoanalysis, linguistics) or reflexive, is
efficient to constitute to the concepts of cinema itself."
- Film theory of the time was heavily infused with psychoanalytic theory and linguistics,
which he rejected.
- He respected the partnership between philosophy and art, that philosophy can inspire
ideas in art just as much as art evoking philosophers to create concepts.
- What do these newly created concepts consist of?: Deleuze begins his books with "this
study is not a history of cinema but a taxonomy, an attempt at the classification of images
and signs"
- From a philosophical perspective he looks at the cinema and discovers different types of
images which he groups and classifies, most innovatively he discusses new types of
entirely cinematic images that had never existed before.
- (In the clip) He explains to a group of filmmakers the task of philosophy vis a vis the
cinema: to provide us with new ways of thinking about the cinema.
- The creation of a number of thought-provoking concepts.

As detailed in the lecture, there are three main reasons for appeals for Gilles Deleuze’s text. The
first reason, his philosophical attention to the medium of film, arises through Deleuze’s
dignification of the medium, his vast knowledge of the canon of film history, and his
differing and novel ideas to most other 20th century philosophers. Secondly, his writing is
very complex and presents a difficult yet satisfying challenge for readers that draws from an
assumed prior knowledge that encompasses the history of philosophy, film theory and history,
and Deleuze’s own ideas. His writing style deliberately estranges readers from traditional
ways of thinking, all culminating in a pleasurable experience from being able to grasp his
writing. The final reason for the appeal is found in his presentation of new ways in which to
think about film. New perspectives, types of images, and open questions raised, and newfound
inspiration for filmmakers all form part of this appeal. In the clip shown in the lecture, Deleuze
says that the philosopher “creates concepts,” which is further detailed in his writing in which he
argues that philosophy is “a practice of concepts.” “A theory of cinema is not about cinema, but
about the concepts that cinema gives rise to,” he writes. Deleuze, in his film philosophy, is not
interested in answering questions and giving solutions relating to cinema, but in opening up
cinema through asking open questions and making propositions - creating concepts. This
openness of his writings invites active engagement and thinking from readers, which is a key
aspect to their appeal.

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