Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150303
Jens Kjeldgaard‐Christiansen
Morally flawed antiheroes in TV and film, such as Dexter Morgan and Dirty Harry, often inspire sympathetic engagement from audiences. Media scholars have argued that it is these antiheroes’ status as fictional characters that allows audiences to flout their moral principles and side with the antiheroes. Against this view, I argue that these problematic sympathies can be explained without reference to a special fictional attitude. Human morality is sensitive not only to abstract moral principles but also to the concrete motives and situations of an individual moral agent, and the motives and situations of the sympathetic antihero very often seem exculpatory.
{"title":"Relatable Motives and Righteous Causes; or, Why the Sympathetic Antihero is Not a Moral Psychological Mystery","authors":"Jens Kjeldgaard‐Christiansen","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150303","url":null,"abstract":"Morally flawed antiheroes in TV and film, such as Dexter Morgan and Dirty Harry, often inspire sympathetic engagement from audiences. Media scholars have argued that it is these antiheroes’ status as fictional characters that allows audiences to flout their moral principles and side with the antiheroes. Against this view, I argue that these problematic sympathies can be explained without reference to a special fictional attitude. Human morality is sensitive not only to abstract moral principles but also to the concrete motives and situations of an individual moral agent, and the motives and situations of the sympathetic antihero very often seem exculpatory.","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83626695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150304
Johannes Riis
The work of Hollywood director William Wyler offers a rewarding case for studying the narrative purposes of rhythmic variations. Film critics have traditionally viewed Wyler’s scenes in terms of depth of field but by looking for elements that weaken his pace, we can explain his acclaimed work as the result of how performance and picture jointly serve rhythmic purposes. My study distinguishes between two kinds of narrative arrests in Wyler’s films, 1935–1970. The unfocused arrests are critical for Wyler’s art and depend on actors’ techniques for adding emphasis and Wyler’s techniques for creating pictorial diversions. By halting dramatic progression during key scenes, Wyler seemingly expands the characters’ worlds with meanings in the spectator’s eyes. Finally, I show how changing technologies and narrative norms constrained Wyler’s later work.
{"title":"The Richness of a Narrative Arrest","authors":"Johannes Riis","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150304","url":null,"abstract":"The work of Hollywood director William Wyler offers a rewarding case for studying the narrative purposes of rhythmic variations. Film critics have traditionally viewed Wyler’s scenes in terms of depth of field but by looking for elements that weaken his pace, we can explain his acclaimed work as the result of how performance and picture jointly serve rhythmic purposes. My study distinguishes between two kinds of narrative arrests in Wyler’s films, 1935–1970. The unfocused arrests are critical for Wyler’s art and depend on actors’ techniques for adding emphasis and Wyler’s techniques for creating pictorial diversions. By halting dramatic progression during key scenes, Wyler seemingly expands the characters’ worlds with meanings in the spectator’s eyes. Finally, I show how changing technologies and narrative norms constrained Wyler’s later work.","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83479066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150306
Nuno Piçarra, Níbia Silva, T. Chambel, Patrícia Arriaga
{"title":"What Movie Will I Watch Today? – Online Supplemental Material","authors":"Nuno Piçarra, Níbia Silva, T. Chambel, Patrícia Arriaga","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150306","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82446961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150302
Nuno Piçarra, Níbia Silva, T. Chambel, Patrícia Arriaga
Browsing online ratings and viewers’ comments is an integral part of the experience of choosing and watching a movie. Current theories have broadened the concept of entertainment beyond amusement (hedonic motives) to include experiences of meaning, value, and self-development (eudaimonic motives). With a between-subjects design, we examined the role of reviewers’ ratings (medium rating vs. high rating), comments (hedonic vs. eudaimonic) and participants’ gratification styles on their interest in watching a movie. Results showed that participants (N = 383) reported a higher preference for the high rating movie. Results also revealed a match between comment type and individual gratification style, with participants with hedonic motives reporting more interest for the movie with hedonic comments, and those reporting eudaimonic motives for the movie with eudaimonic comments.
{"title":"What Movie Will I Watch Today?","authors":"Nuno Piçarra, Níbia Silva, T. Chambel, Patrícia Arriaga","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150302","url":null,"abstract":"Browsing online ratings and viewers’ comments is an integral part of the experience of choosing and watching a movie. Current theories have broadened the concept of entertainment beyond amusement (hedonic motives) to include experiences of meaning, value, and self-development (eudaimonic motives). With a between-subjects design, we examined the role of reviewers’ ratings (medium rating vs. high rating), comments (hedonic vs. eudaimonic) and participants’ gratification styles on their interest in watching a movie. Results showed that participants (N = 383) reported a higher preference for the high rating movie. Results also revealed a match between comment type and individual gratification style, with participants with hedonic motives reporting more interest for the movie with hedonic comments, and those reporting eudaimonic motives for the movie with eudaimonic comments.","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84169691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150301
Bartosz Stopel
The article sets out to discuss disruptions of the embodied flow of movie perception triggered by foregrounded categorical-thematic patterns. First, categorical-thematic patterns are framed in a cognitive perspective and tied to categorical (or parallel) information processing as opposed schematic (sequential). I argue that the former are not prototypical of embodied movie perception and tend to be disruptive if foregrounded, as they are more prevalent in art cinema. Next, I indicate how categorical-thematic patterns may encourage a type of non-habitual pattern recognition producing a number of emotional and aesthetic effects: delight at pattern isolation, wonder emotions, emotional focus of a story theme, and intensification or modulation of global and empathetic emotions. Finally, I turn to illustrate these points using Pan’s Labyrinth, a film that systematically foregrounds categorical-thematic patterns yet naturalizes them, alleviating disruption of movie perception. This, I believe, marks an effective strategy of importing avant-garde film techniques into popular cinema.
{"title":"A Cognitive-Affective Approach to Foregrounding Categorical-Thematic Patterns in Popular Cinema","authors":"Bartosz Stopel","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150301","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150301","url":null,"abstract":"The article sets out to discuss disruptions of the embodied flow of movie perception triggered by foregrounded categorical-thematic patterns. First, categorical-thematic patterns are framed in a cognitive perspective and tied to categorical (or parallel) information processing as opposed schematic (sequential). I argue that the former are not prototypical of embodied movie perception and tend to be disruptive if foregrounded, as they are more prevalent in art cinema. Next, I indicate how categorical-thematic patterns may encourage a type of non-habitual pattern recognition producing a number of emotional and aesthetic effects: delight at pattern isolation, wonder emotions, emotional focus of a story theme, and intensification or modulation of global and empathetic emotions. Finally, I turn to illustrate these points using Pan’s Labyrinth, a film that systematically foregrounds categorical-thematic patterns yet naturalizes them, alleviating disruption of movie perception. This, I believe, marks an effective strategy of importing avant-garde film techniques into popular cinema.","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"21 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72570906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150203
Winnifred Wijnker, E. Tan, A. Bakker, T. Gog, P. Drijvers
Film has been used for education ever since educators recognized its powerful potential for learning. But its educational application has been criticized throughout the decades for underuse of the distinctive potential of film: to raise interest. To understand more fully film’s potential for learning, we propose a dynamic model of viewer interest and its underlying cognitive and emotional mechanisms (film’s interest raising mechanisms or FIRM model). In addition, we present an analysis method for assessing the interestingness of films in learning contexts. Our model marries interest theories from cognitive film theory and educational psychology and captures the dynamics of interestingness across a film as depending on a balance between challenge posed and coping potential provided.
{"title":"Film as the Engine for Learning","authors":"Winnifred Wijnker, E. Tan, A. Bakker, T. Gog, P. Drijvers","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150203","url":null,"abstract":"Film has been used for education ever since educators recognized its powerful potential for learning. But its educational application has been criticized throughout the decades for underuse of the distinctive potential of film: to raise interest. To understand more fully film’s potential for learning, we propose a dynamic model of viewer interest and its underlying cognitive and emotional mechanisms (film’s interest raising mechanisms or FIRM model). In addition, we present an analysis method for assessing the interestingness of films in learning contexts. Our model marries interest theories from cognitive film theory and educational psychology and captures the dynamics of interestingness across a film as depending on a balance between challenge posed and coping potential provided.","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82155639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150204
Julian Hanich
A look at current emotion research in film studies, a field that has been thriving for over three decades, reveals three limitations: (1) Film scholars concentrate strongly on a restricted set of garden-variety emotions—some emotions are therefore neglected. (2) Their understanding of standard emotions is often too monolithic—some subtypes of these emotions are consequently overlooked. (3) The range of existing emotion terms does not seem fine-grained enough to cover the wide range of affective experiences viewers undergo when watching films—a number of emotions might thus be missed. Against this background, the article proposes at least four benefits of introducing a more granular emotion lexicon in film studies. As a remedy, the article suggests paying closer attention to the subjective-experience component of emotions. Here the descriptive method of phenomenology—including its particular subfield phenomenology of emotions—might have useful things to tell film scholars.
{"title":"How Many Emotions Does Film Studies Need?","authors":"Julian Hanich","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150204","url":null,"abstract":"A look at current emotion research in film studies, a field that has been thriving for over three decades, reveals three limitations: (1) Film scholars concentrate strongly on a restricted set of garden-variety emotions—some emotions are therefore neglected. (2) Their understanding of standard emotions is often too monolithic—some subtypes of these emotions are consequently overlooked. (3) The range of existing emotion terms does not seem fine-grained enough to cover the wide range of affective experiences viewers\u0000undergo when watching films—a number of emotions might thus be missed. Against this background, the article proposes at least four benefits of introducing a more granular emotion lexicon in film studies. As a remedy, the article suggests paying closer attention to the subjective-experience component\u0000of emotions. Here the descriptive method of phenomenology—including its particular subfield phenomenology of emotions—might have useful things to tell film scholars.","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75469170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150202
Gary Bettinson
This article provides a stylistic examination of Sidney Lumet’s thriller Deathtrap (1982), analyzing how its strategies of staging and performance generate narrational effects of suspense and surprise. It argues that Lumet anchors these performative strategies to a broad authorial program grounded in expressive subtlety; as such, Lumet’s film reminds us of a waning tradition of US filmmaking in which stylistic ingenuity resides at the denotative and expressive (rather than the decorative or parametric) levels of stylistic discourse. The article treats Lumet’s stylistic choices as creative solutions to a distinctive set of aesthetic problems. It canvasses—and identifies the functions of—the motivic staging schemas patterned throughout Deathtrap; and it illuminates how these schemas, actuated by star players, shape the viewer’s cognitive uptake in substantive ways.
{"title":"Staging and Performance in Sidney Lumet’s Deathtrap","authors":"Gary Bettinson","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150202","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides a stylistic examination of Sidney Lumet’s thriller Deathtrap (1982), analyzing how its strategies of staging and performance generate narrational effects of suspense and surprise. It argues that Lumet anchors these performative strategies to a broad authorial program grounded in expressive subtlety; as such, Lumet’s film reminds us of a waning tradition of US filmmaking in which stylistic ingenuity resides at the denotative and expressive (rather than the decorative or parametric) levels of stylistic discourse. The article treats Lumet’s stylistic choices as creative solutions to a distinctive set of aesthetic problems. It canvasses—and identifies the functions of—the motivic staging schemas patterned throughout Deathtrap; and it illuminates how these schemas, actuated by star players, shape the viewer’s cognitive uptake in substantive ways.","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91215738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.3167/proj.2021.150201
Eric Faden, Aaron D. Mitchel, Alexander C. Murph, Taylor Myers, Nathan C. Ryan
This article examines the work of mid-century French filmmaker Jacques Tati. Tati suggested that his films allow more visual freedom to audiences and that audiences discover new material upon multiple viewings of his films. We review the scholarship on Tati, especially in relation to critic André Bazin’s theories of realism, and then propose another model for understanding Tati’s films: the psychological concept of inattentional blindness. The article then discusses our experiment using eye tracking technology to study how subjects watch Tati’s films versus other types of cinema and also how they re-watch films. Finally, we applied several statistical and mathematical tests to the eye tracking data to understand key differences between Tati’s films and other filmmaking practices.
{"title":"Mr. Hulot’s Invisible Gorilla","authors":"Eric Faden, Aaron D. Mitchel, Alexander C. Murph, Taylor Myers, Nathan C. Ryan","doi":"10.3167/proj.2021.150201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2021.150201","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the work of mid-century French filmmaker Jacques Tati. Tati suggested that his films allow more visual freedom to audiences and that audiences discover new material upon multiple viewings of his films. We review the scholarship on Tati, especially in relation to critic André Bazin’s theories of realism, and then propose another model for understanding Tati’s films: the psychological concept of inattentional blindness. The article then discusses our experiment using eye tracking technology to study how subjects watch Tati’s films versus other types of cinema and also how they re-watch films. Finally, we applied several statistical and mathematical tests to the eye tracking data to understand key differences between Tati’s films and other filmmaking practices.","PeriodicalId":93495,"journal":{"name":"Projections (New York, N.Y.)","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83912806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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