Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Cinema of Attraction

It’s cool to learn about early cinema and the form of presentation that it took on. As not being quite a theatrical performance it was very interested in not keeping to a narrative story line but to a watch an event occur. To capture the viewer by showing an elephant be executed or women undress. It was this type of voyeuristic, watching of events that people came to watch. The cinema of attraction was a movement that showed audiences’ events rather than telling them about them. It was a neat experience and interaction that went on between the two parties. On one-side filmmakers wanted to dazzle the audience and engage them by acknowledging them while the audiences gave their eyes to the filmmaker and presenter in trusting them to be wowed. It was a mutual understanding, I feel, that these two parties didn’t mind being involved in. Whereas now, audiences may react negatively to being acknowledged when the self-contained screen world is broken and their suspension of disbelief is intruded upon. Films back then were different in their aims because they aimed to create amusements for people not through their narrative but through events. It seemed like a great atmosphere where the audience participated with the films by reacting be it yelling at the screen or jumping in their seats. It reminds me of the cult movies, for example The Rocky Horror Picture show, wear audiences see this as a social event, recite lines together, bring props, etc. all while watching a narrative film. This is a cool aspect of films now, but to my knowledge has not been utilized too often. I think there is a great opportunity for audience participation to occur in theaters once again and very well may bring people to the theater not only to be passive participants but active in their involvement with the material presented.

No comments:

Post a Comment