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," thirteen internationally recognized
scholars of film studies, philosophy, and psychology explore the
emotional appeal of the cinema. Employing a novel cognitive
perspective, the volume investigates the relationship between genre
and emotion; explores how film narrative, music, and cinematic
techniques such as the close-up are used to elicit emotion; and
examines the spectator's identification with and response to film
characters.
An impressive range of films and topics is brought together by
Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith, including: 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; the sublime
evoked 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;" "Stranger than Paradise"'s
sense of timing; desire and resolution in "Casablanca"; audience
identification with the main characters in "Groundhog Day" and "The
Crying Game;" portrayal of perversity in "The Silence of the
Lambs," "Flaming Creatures," and "Shivers;" and empathy elicited
through closeups of actors' faces in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and
"Blade Runner."
"Passionate Views" offers a new approach to our understanding
of film and will be of interest to anyone fascinated by the
emotional power of motion pictures and their relationship to the
central concerns of our lives, as well as by the techniques
filmmakers use to move an audience.
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