Not sure how relevant this is, but I always kinda assumed that Tom
Gunning was led to this concept through his interest in non-narrative
avant-garde film. Nothing is more spectacle than some of the films of
Ernie Gehr's which Gunning has written about. In a way, the audience
member of Serene Velocity passively attends to it but the closeness of
the attention required seems to demand a kind of active viewer. Not sure
how to cash out the dimensions of the active-passive distinction, but it
doesn't seem to be a simple distinction.
j
Henry M. Taylor wrote:
> --Apple-Mail-5-1044849076
> Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset=WINDOWS-1252;
> format=flowed;
> delsp=yes
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> Two points:
>
> 1. I don't think narrative and a cinema of attractions should be =20
> thought of as necessarily mutually exclusive, viz. musicals or =20
> showbusiness biopics, for instance, in which you get both spectacle =20
> and narrative. Indeed, one plotline may be based more on numbers or =20
> attractions, as it were, while another - frequently romantic - =20
> plotline may be more strictly narrative, in the narrower and stronger =20=
>
> sense of the term.
>
> 2. It has been argued that current action cinema is all about =20
> spectacle - or attractions - and without story or plot. Yet I could =20
> not think of a type of film forcing greater 'passivity' on an audience =20=
>
> than your regular blockbuster (within the accepted parameters of =20
> cognitive/emotional spectator activity). There is a huge difference =20
> here between the term used in this sense and what e.g. Eisenstein (or, =20=
>
> for that matter, Brechtians) meant with the concept of attraction.
>
> Henry
*
*
Film-Philosophy salon
After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to.
To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask]
Or visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html
For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon.
*
Film-Philosophy online: http://www.film-philosophy.com
Contact: [log in to unmask]
**
|