Passionate views : film cognition and emotion / edited by Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Plantinga, Carl R.

Smith, Greg M., 1962-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion picture audiences--Psychology.

Motion picture audiences.

Motion pictures--Psychological aspects.

Motion pictures.

Physical Description:

301 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, [1999]

Summary:

The movie theater has always been a place where people come together to share powerful emotional experiences, from the fear generated by horror films and the anxiety induced by thrillers to the laughter elicited by screwball comedies and the tears precipitated by melodramas. Indeed, the dependability of movies to provide such experiences lies at the center of the medium's appeal and power. Yet cinema's ability to influence, even manipulate, the emotions of the spectator is one of the least-explored topics in film theory today.

In Passionate Views, editors Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith bring together thirteen leading and internationally recognized scholars from the disciplines of film studies, philosophy, and psychology to explore the emotional appeal of the cinema. Employing a novel cognitive perspective, this volume is divided into three sections: first, investigating the relationship between genre and emotion; second, studying how film narrative, music, and cinematic techniques such as the close-up are used to elicit emotion; and third, examining the spectator's identification with and response to film characters.

The impressive range of films and topics discussed in this volume include: the success of Stella Dallas and An Affair to Remember as "tearjerkers"; the power of Night of the Living Dead to inspire fear and disgust; evoking the sublime in The Passion of Joan of Arc, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and The Children of Paradise; the emotional basis of film comedy as seen in When Harry Met Sally; the use of cinematic cues in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Local Hero to arouse emotions; the relationship between narrative flow and emotion in Once Upon a Time in the West and E. T.;the emotive use of music in The Elephant Man and A Clockwork Orange; and, eliciting empathy through close-ups of actors' faces in Yankee Doodle Dandy and Blade Runner.

Contents:

I Kinds of Films, Kinds of Emotions

1 Film, Emotion, and Genre / Noel Carroll 21

2 Sentiment in Film Viewing / Ed S. H. Tan, Nico H. Frijda 48

3 The Sublime in Cinema / Cynthia A. Freeland 65

4 The Emotional Basis of Film Comedy / Dirk Eitzen 84

II Film Technique, Film Narrative, and Emotion

5 Local Emotions, Global Moods, and Film Structure / Greg M. Smith 103

6 Emotions, Cognitions, and Narrative Patterns in Film / Torben Grodal 127

7 Movie Music as Moving Music: Emotion, Cognition, and the Film Score / Jeff Smith 146

8 Time and Timing / Susan L. Feagin 168

III Desire, Identification, and Empathy

9 Narrative Desire / Gregory Currie 183

10 Identification and Emotion in Narrative Film / Berys Gaut 200

11 Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, or Apparently Perverse Allegiances / Murray Smith 217

12 The Scene of Empathy and the Human Face on Film / Carl Plantinga 239.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [257]-293) and index.

ISBN:

0801860105

0801860113

OCLC:

39810928