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- 21L.015 INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES
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- WORLDS OF WONDER: THE CINEMA OF ATTRACTIONS
- 24 April 1997
- Martin Roberts
- Back to class page
1. INTRODUCTION
CLIP: Lumière bros., Arrivée d'un train en gare
de La Ciotat (1895)
QUOTE: Gunning, "Aesthetic," 118.
Gunning's argument = a displacement of MYTH by HISTORY
"Aesthetic" 129: "Placed within a historical context and
tradition, the first spectators' experience reveals not a childlike belief,
but an undisguised awareness (and delight in) film's illusionistic capabilities."
- debunking the myth of credulous audience mistaking representation for
reality > audience were astonished by the animation of the still image,
the illusion of motion
- This image doesn't astonish us at all today
- - we neither mistake representation for reality nor are amazed at the
still image coming to life
- - technology has lost its "magic"
- This fact points to a problem with Gunning's historical argument: doesn't
include any account of how "astonishment" may change over time,
and how the "threshold of astonishment" clearly does change
- Leads to question: what DOES astonish us today? What is OUR cinema
of attractions?
CONTINUITIES
- Panoramas: Letter From an Unknown Woman (simulated travel)
- Vaudeville: until 1905 cinema was shown primarily in the context of
vaudeville (Gunning, "Cinema of Attractions" 60)
OVERVIEW
- The term "cinema of attractions" itself (Linda Williams quote)
- The word "attraction": Fr. parc d'attractions >
amusement park
- ORIGINS of cinema in the notion of attractions: amusement parks (Coney
Island) > world's fairs and the Midway > exhibitions of P.T. Barnum
> carnival
CLIP: Coney Island
- I won't be providing a historical overview of antecedents and descendants,
but exploring two theoretical questions relating to the cinema of attractions:
what exactly WAS the attraction; and the problematic relationship between
immersion and spectacle
- > PROBLEMS inherent in Gunning's concept:
- "the cinema of attractions stands at the antipode to the experiences
Michael Freed, in his discussion of eighteenth-century painting, calls
absorption" (123)
- "the very aesthetic of attraction runs counter to illusionistic
absorption" (127)
IF WHAT GUNNING SAYS IS TRUE HERE, THERE WOULDN'T *BE* AN ATTRACTION
2. WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE "ATTRACTION"?
CREDULITY vs. INCREDULITY
- Credulity: naive, even gullible belief in the reality of something
(e.g., that the film image of the train coming at you is a real train).
- Incredulity: NOT THE OPPOSITE OF CREDULITY: NOT DISBELIEF. Actually
revolves around a CONTRADICTION between KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION, knowing
and seeing, consciousness and the senses, mind and body
- you KNOW something isn't true, can't be real, etc. and yet it SEEMS
real: "I can't believe it"
- ALSO: the BODY responds as if it were real--reflexes of faster pulse
rate, sweating, etc.
- this is the basis of the pleasure of illusionism/magic > we KNOW
it can't be possible/true/real, and yet it SEEMS to be
QUOTE: Gunning, "Aesthetic" 117: "Méliès's
theater... only illusions."
- there's a whole history of popular entertainment which revolves around
this dialectic between simultaneously believing and disbelieving, "the
suspension of disbelief":
- the theater
- the novel
- trompe-l'oeil painting
- Ripley's "Believe it or Not" museums
The pleasure derived from the hesitation between belief and disbelief,
danger and safety > the TECHNOLOGICAL SUBLIME
3. FROM ATTRACTIONS TO SPECIAL EFFECTS
Gunning: "What happened to the cinema of attractions?" ("Cinema,"
60) > what DOES astonish us today?
- morphing: T2, Michael Jackson morphing into a panther; (poss. show
Mona Lisa)
- "the Spielberg-Lucas-Coppola cinema of effects" ("Cinema,"
61).
CLIP: Universal Studios's Earthquake simulator
> STAGED CATASTROPHE: Casson, Amusing the Million 71-72.
CONCLUSION: THE CULTURE OF DISTRACTION
Why do we want distraction?
- Gorky: the need for thrills in an increasingly industrialized urban
society
- Benjamin: impoverishment of experience in modern life
- QUOTE: Gunning: "attractions are a response to an experience
of alientation" ("Aesthetic" 126--read as final quote)
mroberts@mit.edu