Is film art? We've now discussed a little bit about what makes film unique (acting, the use of space in relation to viewed objects and in relation to the audience), but there are two areas of formalism that I'd like to touch on before we put this matter to rest, the psychological miracle of the mind's eye and the montage. Maybe we should start with the psychological reaction that takes place when viewing a film.
This miracle occurs in the brain. It is what led Munsterberg to say that the raw material of the photoplay (cinema) is not camera, lens, nor celluloid, but is the mind. Two distinct things have to occur in order to actually perceive a moving image. One, the retention of visual stimuli. This is the brain holding on to the last image it sees for a split second longer (nearly 1/50th of a second) than the image is presented. This is the same thing that occurs during a strobe light or when we close our eyes, the image remains just a tiny bit longer. Why or how this exactly occurs, is still somewhat of a mystery.
The next is called the phi-phenomenon. This is the brain's ability to sense movement in disjointed stimuli. It will combine different images and transform them into what is perceived as a single movement. This is similar to how we see a row of blinking Christmas lights and see a movement down the line. Does that make sense? When the spectator views the slightly different images in quick succession, the mind combines them into a single moving image. This is a profound trick of the mind unique to cinema. (A rudimentary form of this is the flip book)
So what application does this have in relation to reading cinema?
Does this make film unique enough to be called art?
Is more needed to distinguish film, that is to ask, beyond just a unique way of perceiving, does film need a unique way of communicating ideas? And what might this be?
So if the mind is the raw material of film, and in fact the images on the screen only become perceivable because of the mind's trick on the senses, this places the existence of film only in the mind. Does this not suggest that the act of perceiving film is closer akin to psychological experience rather than a sensory one? That is to say, is film actually closer to something like memory, than visual stimulation?
ReplyDeletehmmmm ....
So if a film is shown in a theater but no one is there to perceive it, does it exist? =)
ReplyDeleteI think Munsterberg would say no. That it is indeed just a bunch of flashing images. It is our brain that puts all the pieces of the puzzle together to make it seem like one single image that talks.
ReplyDeleteAnd that discussion on sound as perceived from the lips of the image, will have to wait for when we start talking about sound's effect on cinema.
Fantastic post. What I find profoundly amazing is that the basic grammer of film editing exists in its most rudimentary form innately in the human mind. Image rendition and the combination of different but succeeding images into fluid "moving images" is, as Gilbert has pointed out, what makes film viewing possible. But it goes even deeper than that. These things make the grammar of cinema possible.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean is that because our minds are already accustomed to retaining an image for brief moment longer than we are actually looking at it, we can not only blink and feel we have missed nothing, we can in fact change our focus entirely, looking off as something else. And our minds seamlessly move from looking at one thing to looking at another. So as I write this post, I am looking at my screen, but I can dart my eyes up to my mug of tea with no though of the distance my eyes had to travel between my computer screen and my mug. This is exactly what make film cutting possible. The visual grammer of cutting from one shot to another is already a daily experience for most of us. Combine that with that the fact that our minds are able to focus on specific things we are looking at while ignoring what is in our peripheral vision, and we realize that we also daily experience the mental/visual equivalent of the close-up.
At its most basic level, film editing works because it mimics our daily experience of having sight and perceiving the world around us.
Gilbert, you also brings up a great question when you ask if film is primarily cognitive or experiential in nature. First I would caution that this question is possibly too tricky to really answer as many philosophers would argue that ALL OF LIFE is in fact nothing more than our cognitive interpretation of outside stimuli coming though our sense and being interpreted by our brains. Nonetheless, I would make the argument, based on Colin McGinn's excellent book, The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact, that in fact cinema is closer to being both. What I mean by this is that, according to McGinn, cinema is ultimately most like dreams. He makes a compelling case that while watching a movie, the mind behaves the most like the dreaming mind. And dreams are ultimately an EXPERIENCE had in the MIND. They are emotive, sensory, and powerful, yet they take place almost entirely within the mind.
Hope that makes sense. Now I need to drink that tea I've been staring at.
Excellent comment, Mikel. That is so true about how philosophers might argue this point on perception. I think formalists would say that it is a completely different experience, that in fact it is a boon to film if it becomes too realistic in how we perceive the moving images. While it does mimic this perception, as you pointed out, the black and white nature, the artistic editing in montage, and the wordlessness of the actors, make this perception unique to film. It sounds like you personally lean toward the realist camp where the act of perceiving film SHOULD be closer to how we perceive life (and I personally might agree with that too). But at the very least, formalists and realists would agree on one of your last statements wholeheartedly, "emotive, sensory, and powerful..." Like dreams.
ReplyDeleteThis power, especially applied to culture's absorption of the medium is what Munsterberg to discuss film in the first place. Very interesting.
One slight clarification on my part - Munsterberg would say that the film is not perceived at all as a film. That it only exists in the mind, where as a flower exists outside of the mind (though we may fully appreciate it in the mind) it is separate.
ReplyDeleteAnd Eisenstein would then comment that film's only unique trait is something else that Mikel commented on, montage, editing. That the juxtaposition of moving images is what truly separates film from another art form. This is displayed constantly in Eisenstein's own films like, Battleship Potemkin and October.
Does anyone else have film theorists having a dialog in their head?