Effects of movies
January 10th 2007 16:58
Another copy and paste...
Now, the experience of a good movie is being engrossed.
How does it keep you there?
There are answers to do with the nature of the medium, and the type of meditation.
And a much cruder answer is this: a good film gives you one interest after another, or one pleasure after another. And here the list of what can fascinate and/or pleasure is endless, just as the list of what people are curious about and what makes them react is endless. Surprise, tears, fear, laughter; sexual, aesthetic, psychological interests; morbid interests; interests of particular objects, events, activities; interests in seeing a story through to completion, in seeing justice done, in being supplied with useful information...
What of the afterwards? What does it mean to digest a movie?
A complete answer would be as manifold as the actual movie-watching, and the digestion would involve replaying scenes in your head, looking for plot holes, returning to mysteries, contemplating moments, objects, ideas...
But there's two aspects of the process I want particularly to mention.
One is that every movie has the potential to condition you. Movies can colour your experience of the world -- with feelings and thoughts, with reference. “I’ll never look at an x the same way again.” And this can happen whether you want it or not. And you can force this on other people. You’re supplied with material you can use, especially in conversation, especially to amuse, or to assist with difficult thoughts, or as shorthand for complex or extended thoughts.
The second is that there's a continual ethical element to watching films, and to the digestion. “Ethical” in a broad sense: how does this movie change your life, and how should you change your life? What is the best way for you to live? What do you think of the claims the movie is making -- about people, about what’s good and bad, about the consequences of a thing? And what were the best choices in the movie's particular situations?
It might even be the case that a religious upbringing prepares people to treat all texts as parables, with lessons to be learnt.
These ethical questions, throughout the film and afterwards, are answered -- consciously and unconsciously.
Perhaps one sign of the mode's prevalence is that people imitate what they see in movies, even in speech pattern or dress. And in the course of watching, they engage with the decisions the characters make, they actively think about the choices.
The fact that we have such a mode, and continually ask and think about choice, and ingest answers, can be taken to suggest three general features of human ethics:
-- that we don’t get all our rules of conduct and values from scripture or parents or any other authority: we get a lot of it, perhaps most of it, from the world generally, from conversation, from meetings of ideas, from the hypotheticals of art;
-- that broad ethical principles are founded on experience of many particulars (though some particulars will be more striking, more vivid in the memory, than others);
-- and that our natural inclination is unabstract -- that “Is it right to kill?” and “What haircut would suit me?” are the same sort of question -- that, when the time comes, all problems boil down to choice in particular situations, to real, practical, things.
***
Now, the experience of a good movie is being engrossed.
How does it keep you there?
There are answers to do with the nature of the medium, and the type of meditation.
And a much cruder answer is this: a good film gives you one interest after another, or one pleasure after another. And here the list of what can fascinate and/or pleasure is endless, just as the list of what people are curious about and what makes them react is endless. Surprise, tears, fear, laughter; sexual, aesthetic, psychological interests; morbid interests; interests of particular objects, events, activities; interests in seeing a story through to completion, in seeing justice done, in being supplied with useful information...
***
What of the afterwards? What does it mean to digest a movie?
A complete answer would be as manifold as the actual movie-watching, and the digestion would involve replaying scenes in your head, looking for plot holes, returning to mysteries, contemplating moments, objects, ideas...
But there's two aspects of the process I want particularly to mention.
One is that every movie has the potential to condition you. Movies can colour your experience of the world -- with feelings and thoughts, with reference. “I’ll never look at an x the same way again.” And this can happen whether you want it or not. And you can force this on other people. You’re supplied with material you can use, especially in conversation, especially to amuse, or to assist with difficult thoughts, or as shorthand for complex or extended thoughts.
The second is that there's a continual ethical element to watching films, and to the digestion. “Ethical” in a broad sense: how does this movie change your life, and how should you change your life? What is the best way for you to live? What do you think of the claims the movie is making -- about people, about what’s good and bad, about the consequences of a thing? And what were the best choices in the movie's particular situations?
It might even be the case that a religious upbringing prepares people to treat all texts as parables, with lessons to be learnt.
***
These ethical questions, throughout the film and afterwards, are answered -- consciously and unconsciously.
Perhaps one sign of the mode's prevalence is that people imitate what they see in movies, even in speech pattern or dress. And in the course of watching, they engage with the decisions the characters make, they actively think about the choices.
The fact that we have such a mode, and continually ask and think about choice, and ingest answers, can be taken to suggest three general features of human ethics:
-- that we don’t get all our rules of conduct and values from scripture or parents or any other authority: we get a lot of it, perhaps most of it, from the world generally, from conversation, from meetings of ideas, from the hypotheticals of art;
-- that broad ethical principles are founded on experience of many particulars (though some particulars will be more striking, more vivid in the memory, than others);
-- and that our natural inclination is unabstract -- that “Is it right to kill?” and “What haircut would suit me?” are the same sort of question -- that, when the time comes, all problems boil down to choice in particular situations, to real, practical, things.
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Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
On the other hand, people get pleasure out of movies with no message as well, don't they?
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
-- It's very true that you don't need message for pleasure.
-- Probably you don't need it for power either, though it helps.
-- I don't know how many movies actually are devoid of message. Can't message usually be interpreted in, even into something like the Borat movie, the Jackass movie, or a slice-of-life story like Clerks?
-- I've often been guilty of trying to work out, then to dissect, a movie's message. But the dissection will also apply to every aspect of a movie, not just what might be regarded as its message. And my mind dwells on moments and feelings more than theme. And I think every review that you, JD and Bryn write goes towards proving that I'm not alone.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
And most of all, I love the truly great movies where you can indulge in repeated viewings, and get something different from it each time ...
Great post Adrian!
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Films for better or worse are more accessable and a truly universal communicator that can be watched with the mind switched off.
Thats why i think most people reject challenging cinema that stimulates teh mind in favour of the same old story told in a lazier and lazier fashion.
What entices us to cinema is purely subjective and our own life experiences very much dictate what we see as truths.
Buying into any fiction depends greatly on how much care is taken in creating a framework that rings true both in story and pictures.
I am of a questioning nature, hence I constantly reevaluate what I am seeing, A filmmaker needs to be acutely aware of the language of cinema in order to maintain my interest.
Controlling this alternate reality so I can lose myself in the manufactured world.
Comment by MelissaA
Fun Facts
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Damo
Should we worry if a movie is changing our lives in some profound way or is that level of intensity too much for anyone to handle? You would not want to be constantly living on your ethical nerve.
Sometimes it is great to kick back and watch a completely stupid flick.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
I'm don't really look too deeply into things so I'm more drawn to fun movies rather than challenging ones (though a movie than can draw me in and have me watch it several times and find something new each time is a rare but great pleasure).
So in summary, I'm trashy and superficial.......well, shit!
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
To me most movies are an escape, pure escape from the reality of the world I live in, both natural and manufactured. I don't want gore I want action, thrills, excitement, romance, happy endings against impossible odds, superheros and tough ladies... entertainment - that kind of stuff... however there is another side to movie viewing too...
Generally, movies offer me a view of what is happening in the world through the eyes of someone who cares enough to research it [or live it - Like George Lucas] and have something to say about it, offering historical perspective which is so important if we are not to live in a vacuum and become disconnected from our history.
I am also aware that they are a form of powerful propaganda because unlike the written word they do not engage the inner eye - therefore possibly not the reasoning faculties? Since thoughts are real things and manifesting somewhere in the world, it is important to stay vigilant with what I am thinking about, and yet when I enter a theatre I give my thoughts over for the duration of the film...(?) I try to stay mindful of that because I believe that we subtly become the characters in the movies we watch, to a small degree. They shape our thoughts and perspectives, until we have extrapolated what we want from them.
There is another side of movie viewing for me personally though, besides escape...
In the movie trilogy, the Matrix, Trinity needed a quick download of information to pilot the helicopter - to me a movie is like that - a quick reference of information, whilst I am researching the greater picture. For example, I was researching an article on war and Rwanda and The Lord Of War Came out at the same time - I received so much information from that film - it offered me leads and opinions, and humanitarian perspectives, I could use to spring from.
United 93 is another movie that comes to mind as offering a great alternative opinion from another source on the Jihad and current beliefs, motives and possible truths - from the Inside, Munich in another.
The same can be said for romantic comedy, parody, the fact that being good is better than being lucky in the long run, good against evil, winners and losers - all that Jazz... Basically I agree with your view that they act as a conveyance for morals and our need for them, because when all is said and done, most of us do know right from wrong and wanting to emulate good is a good thing, because it feels good, no?
... well it used to be?
interesting question Adrian, sorry about the wordy response...
L.
ps there is another view : people have become too lazy to read and therefore use their imaginations constructively, prefering to take on psuedo realities to the realities around them, powerful stuff, movies.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Thanks for the comments. Too much to reply to!
Three questions could be distinguished:
Personally, I haven't really addressed the first question. The post on art was an attempt at addressing the second. And this post was an attempt at addressing the third.
Re why people do it at all, I'd agree with JD -- "What entices us to cinema is purely subjective".
Re good reasons for doing it, I'd agree with Damo, Bryn, and Kylie that a kick back can count. Whether a kick back is a better, worse, or same-value reason as anything else, I don't know. I'm wary of purporting to speak objectively about such things. Damo writes, "Should we worry if a movie is changing our lives in some profound way or is that level of intensity too much for anyone to handle?" -- Well, it's difficult for me to find a basis on which one can state a "should"...
Lilla offers a lot of interesting thoughts, which touch on all three questions -- why people do watch, what good they get, what the lasting effects might be.
The most striking issue (I thought) was "unlike the written word they do not engage the inner eye - therefore possibly not the reasoning faculties... when I enter a theatre I give my thoughts over for the duration of the film".
There's a lot to be said in discussion of this idea. But I do think it's true that films are a lot less "mediated" than words -- when you read a novel, you're constantly decoding, whereas there's a sense in which films give you raw experience.
Comment by Anonymous
It looks real enough
You see a car
A stranger
Maybe a tree
How can you consider complex thoughts when the reality is so clear around you?
Have you ever heard this:
“I feel just like a movie star!”
the weird thing is, you’ve probably heard it before in a movie
exclaimed in some southern accent
think about recognition
think about how powerful this concept is
when you see a car it can’t possibly make any sense
if not by recognition
we’ve seen cars, dealt with cars, all our lives
growing up, my family was always without a car
and any car we had was an investment as substantial as a large bag of potato chips
countless memories of being that family on the side of the road
the kids inside
the parents looking under the hood
the kinda family your family helped
It was depressing growing up without a car
The simplest things, like going to a grocery store
Were constantly being weighed out as favors amongst family contacts
I could write a book about my relation with cars, I really could
But what I'm trying to say is
This book I have
It’s all there when I look at a car
This is a permanent book installment
And it comes immediately as a part of recognition
What this means for the car is that it doesn’t have a chance
What it means for us is that the reality around us is blotted out by our own conception of it
But this is not our enemy
This distortion or rather
intangibly specific mapping
makes us who we are
and the way I feel towards a car
comes from unending moments in my life
now consider a representation of an image
lets say someone painted a car
we see this car and we recognize it
and that book opens up
but consciously we know this is not a car
it’s paint on a canvas
and this representation allows us to inspect our reality
and the inspection is guided by the artist
maybe we’ll see that what a car is
is a blur of red and white lights in an abstract
or a smooth contour in a line drawing
when the photograph came along it did nothing for this process
it showed vacantly
we were sucked in to the reality of the photograph
and the content only steered us all off path
the painters saw the photograph as a threat
and it was
but not because it cheapened their job
not because they needed to top it
but because it shaped the minds of the public in a way that the painters had a responsibility to combat
think about the Lumiere Brothers and the films they made
audiences couldn’t get enough
dead pan cameras filming ordinary occurrences
it drove people nuts
legend has it at the screening of the Lumiere Borthers’ Train Arrival
which was a film featuring a train pulling into a station
people ran out of the theatres
a train was coming towards them.
And so they panicked and ran
think about how ridiculous this seems
but think again about this idea of recognition
they had no recognition when it came to cinema
but they did have the “big train moving towards you” recognition
and they responded accordingly
film has this gifted quality
that is an assumption of authenticity
and we get sucked into it
we also get to experience farther reaches of life than would be normally achieved
for example I know New York
but I’ve never been
I have a file though
when you mention New York I pull this file out
open it up
and I can achieve recognition
without ever having had a real experience
so if the reality of something is blotted out by our own conception of it
and our conception of something is sourced inauthentically
then our reality is inauthentic
and we lose ourselves
because the process of distortion that makes us who we are has been given up to an unreal media
and when this happens
you’ll feel just like a movie star
the important part about all of this is that its already past imminence
its is a recent prevalence
and in no way was it sneaky
we saw it coming
that’s why Pop Art was chosen by a generation
this cheap reproduction, void of meaning or self
they saw it coming and it represented the drama of their generation
the problem with our generation
is that we are so entirely involved in it
that we can’t see it
we can’t see it, because the it’s seeing itself
and its hard to see sight
but what can we do against media and technology?
we aren’t anarchists
we don’t have the time for that kind of thing
and really it’s asking us to reject human progress
let the world happen
the combating wont be so physical
it will be artistic
so you better pray that there are some damn good artists out there
to get back all of your souls for you
I'm not joking
At any given moment
You’re a photograph