Films and Mass Media

Question 1

Marshall McLuhan

Answer 1

• notes that movies merge the mechanical and the organic in a special way. li
• film takes something that may not be organic and makes it seem so by presenting a sequential series of still images into a moving picture. (i.e. making a chair walk across a room)
• sees a correlation between the medium of print and the movies in their ability to generate fantasy in the viewer or the reader.
• appreciating movies requires a certain level of literacy.
• the introduction of sound to films limited the possibility of participation on the part of the viewers.

Question 2

Shirley Biagi

Answer 2

• the movie industry has been called “an industry based on dreams”. imaginative, creative medium.
• fusion融合 of reality and fantasy.

Question 3

Tom Gunning

Answer 3

• concept of “cinema of attractions”
• pointed out the reaction of cinema’s first audiences to ‘Arrival of a Train at the Station’ seems to have been exaggerated, becoming an example of urban legend.
• The initial reaction of movie-goers to the films they saw :

The myth of initial terror defines the film’s power as its unprecedented史无前例的 realism, its ability to convince spectators that the moving image, was, in fact, palpable真实感 and dangerous, bearing忍受 towards them with physical impact. The image had taken life, swallowing, in its relentless残酷的 force, any consideration of representation —-the imaginary perceived as real.

• the projection of the first moving images stands at the climax of a period of intense development in visual entertainments, a tradition in which realism was valued largely for its uncanny effects.
• situates the cinema of attractions within the context of urban life, which as specified by Kracauer and Walter Benjamin, had led to a drying up of experience and its replacement by a culture of distraction.

Question 4

cinema of attractions

Answer 4

• a concept by Tom Gunning
• relates the development of cinema to other discourses such a narratology and modern physics.
• a basic aesthetic of early cinema
• envisioned想像 cinema as a series of visual shocks.
  － a cinema of instants, rather than developing situations.

Question 5

trompe l’oeil 视觉陷阱

Answer 5

a genre of aesthetic illusion highlighting the problematic role perfect illusion plays within traditional aesthetic reception.

－ causes a disquiet in its audience. who, through knows that they are being subjected to illusion, yet, find themselves vacillating犹豫 between belief and incredulity不相信.

Question 6

Maxim Gorky

Answer 6

－ Russian author, not quite pleased with the impact ‘Arrival of a Train’ left on the early spectators.
- stressing the uncanny不可思议的 effect of the new attraction’s mix of realistic and non-realistic qualities, highlights the shadow-like quality of it all.

-“before you a life is surging, a life deprived除去 of words and shorn被修剪过，被剥夺的 of the living spectrum of colours –they grey, the soundless, the bleak and the dismal life.”

－ recognition that the film image combined realistic effects with a conscious awareness of artifice技巧，欺骗 may correspond more closely to general audience reaction than all the screaming that has been attributed to the initial audiences of early cinema.
－ what is displayed before the audience is less the impending逼近的 speed of the train than the force of the cinematic apparatus电影仪器.
－ the audience’s sense of shock comes less from a naive belief that they are threatened by an actual locomotive than from an unbelievable visual transformation occurring before their eyes, parallel to the greatest wonders of the magic theatre.
- the so-called terror of the early spectators ought to be read as a “conscious 自觉意识delectation享受 of shocks and thrills.”

Question 7

Curiositas

Answer 7

• concept raised by ancient philosophers including St.Augustine who viewed it within the context of “the lust of the eyes”.
• led not only to a fascination with seeing, but a desire for knowledge for its own sake, ending the perversions of magic and science.

Question 8

Man With a Movie Camera

Answer 8

• an experimental 1929 silent documentary film
• no story and no actors by Russian director Vertov.
• famouns for the range of its cinematic techniques including fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, split screens, double exposures and Dutch angles.
• Kinoks emphasized the importance of capturing life unawares. The camera lens was regarded as a device that could grasp the world in its entirety.