The Audience Effect: On the Collective Cinema Experience

Julian Hanich

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2017

The Audience Effect

On the Collective Cinema Experience

Julian Hanich

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474414968

Overview
Contents

About this book

Explores the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema

Is the experience of watching a film with others in a cinema crucially different from watching a film alone? Does laughing together amplify our enjoyment, and when watching a film in communal rapt attention, does this intensify the whole experience?

Attending a film in a cinema implies being influenced by other people, an ‘audience effect’ that is particularly noticeable once affective responses like laughter, weeping, embarrassment, guilt, or anger play a role. In this innovative book, Julian Hanich explores the subjectively lived experience of watching films together, to discover a fuller understanding of cinema as an art form and a social institution that matters to millions of people worldwide. Combining recent scholarly interest in viewers’ emotions and affects with insights from the blossoming debate about collective emotions in philosophy and social psychology, this study makes viewers more aware of their own experience in the cinema, and simultaneously opens up a new line of research for film studies.

Key Features

Describes the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema
Provides detailed phenomenological descriptions of how it feels when viewers laugh, cry and get angry in the cinema
Investigates film theorists who have previously voiced ideas about the collective cinema experience such as Walter Benjamin, André Bazin, Edgar Morin, Roland Barthes and Roger Odin

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Part I Establishing Shot: Definition and History
CHAPTER 1 Introduction: What Is the Audience Effect? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER 2 Excavating the Audience Effect: Precursors in the History of Film Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
Part II Long Shot: Types of Collective Viewing
Introductory Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
CHAPTER 3 Quiet-attentive Viewing: Toward a Typology of Collective Spectatorship, Part I Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
CHAPTER 4 Expressive-diverted Viewing: Toward a Typology of Collective Spectatorship, Part II Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
Part III Medium Shot: On the Cinema’s Affective Audience Effects
CHAPTER 5 I, You, and We: Investigating the Cinema’s Affective Audience Interrelations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
CHAPTER 6 Feeling Close: Conceptualizing the Cinema’s Affective We-experiences Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
Part IV Close-up: Case Studies of Affective Audience Effects
CHAPTER 7 Chuckle, Chortle, Cackle: A Phenomenology of Cinematic Laughter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
CHAPTER 8 When Viewers Silently Weep: A Phenomenology of Cinematic Tears Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
CHAPTER 9 Trouble Every Day: A Phenomenology of Cinematic Anger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	248
Part V Fade-out: Conclusion
CHAPTER 10 The Audience Effect in the Cinema and Beyond Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	284
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Index of Names Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
Index of Subjects Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	320

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 336
Illustrations
- Other: 25 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Film, Media & Cultural Studies

eBook

Published: November 28, 2017
ISBN: 9781474414968