Making Sense of Cinema
Empirical Studies into Film Spectators and Spectatorship
Published on 25. February 2016
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-1-5013-0294-7 (ISBN)
Description
There are a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to researching how film spectators make sense of film texts, from the film text itself, the psychological traits and sociocultural group memberships of the viewer, or even the location and surroundings of the viewer. However, we can only understand the agency of film spectators in situations of film spectatorship by studying actual spectators' interactions with specific film texts in specific contexts of engagement.
Making Sense of Cinema: Empirical Studies into Film Spectators and Spectatorship uses a number of empirical approaches (ethnography, focus groups, interviews, historical, qualitative experiment and physiological experiment) to consider how the film spectator makes sense of the text itself or the ways in which the text fits into his or her everyday life. With case studies ranging from preoccupations of queer and ageing men in Spanish and French cinema and comparative eye-tracking studies based on the two completely different soundscapes of Monsters Inc. and Saving Private Ryan to cult fanbase of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and attachment theory to its fictional characters, Making Sense of Cinema aligns this subset of film studies with the larger fields of media reception studies, allowing for dialogue with the broader audience and reception studies field.
Making Sense of Cinema: Empirical Studies into Film Spectators and Spectatorship uses a number of empirical approaches (ethnography, focus groups, interviews, historical, qualitative experiment and physiological experiment) to consider how the film spectator makes sense of the text itself or the ways in which the text fits into his or her everyday life. With case studies ranging from preoccupations of queer and ageing men in Spanish and French cinema and comparative eye-tracking studies based on the two completely different soundscapes of Monsters Inc. and Saving Private Ryan to cult fanbase of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and attachment theory to its fictional characters, Making Sense of Cinema aligns this subset of film studies with the larger fields of media reception studies, allowing for dialogue with the broader audience and reception studies field.
Reviews / Votes
An important contribution to film spectatorship studies. What is unique about this collection is the focus on empirical analysis to analyze how actual (as opposed to implied) spectators construct meaning from their viewing experience. The essays included here employ a variety of methodologies and cover a broad array of genres and geographical areas, both past and present. A fascinating work of scholarship of interest to anyone seeking to understand better the global spectator's viewing experience. * David N. Coury, Professor of Humanistic Studies and Global Studies, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, USA * Reading Making Sense of Cinema I was totally baffled to see the film spectator arise brightly, high-res and three-dimensional, from the dark, cross-lit by manifold complementary color spots cast by specialists in disciplines as diverse as linguistics, acoustics, art history, cultural studies, cultural analysis, audience research, communication research, cinematography, critical (genre) studies, visual perception, neuroinformatics, cognitive film studies, and screen writing. And all it seemed to take is a shared conviction that direct observation makes for the brighter picture. * Ed Tan, Professor of Media Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
25 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
608 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5013-0294-7 (9781501302947)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
CarrieLynn D. Reinhard | Christopher J. Olson
Making Sense of Cinema
Empirical Studies into Film Spectators and Spectatorship
E-Book
02/2016
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic USA
€43.49
Available for download
Persons
CarrieLynn D. Reinhard is an Associate Professor in Communication Arts and Sciences at Dominican University, Illinois, USA, where her research focuses on sense-making in media reception. She completed her Ph.D. in Communication at Ohio State University, USA, and was a post-doctoral research fellow for the Virtual World Research Group at Roskilde University in Denmark.
Christopher J. Olson is a PhD student enrolled in the Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies program of the English Department at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, USA.
Christopher J. Olson is a PhD student enrolled in the Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies program of the English Department at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, USA.
Content
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction: Empirical approaches to film spectators and spectatorship
-CarrieLynn D. Reinhard and Christopher J. Olson
Chapter 2: Spectatorship in public space: The moving image in public art
-Annie Dell'Aria
Chapter 3: The festival collective: Cult audience and Japanese Extreme Cinema
-Jessica Hughes
Chapter 4: Transnational investments: Aging in Les Invisibles (Sebastien Lifshitz, 2013) and its reception
-Darren Waldron
Chapter 5: Preferred readings and dissociative appropriations: Group discussions following and challenging the tradition of cultural studies
-Alexander Geimer
Chapter 6: "Legolas, he's cool ... and he's hot!": The meanings and implications of audiences' favorite characters
-Martin Barker
Chapter 7: In search of the child spectator in the late silent era
-Amanda C. Fleming
Chapter 8: Seeing, sensing sound: Eye tracking soundscapes in Saving Private Ryan and Monsters, Inc.
-Andrea Rassell, Sean Redmond, Jenny Robinson, Jane Stadler, Darrin Verhagen, and Sarah Pink
Chapter 9: Seeing animated worlds: Eye tracking and the spectator's experience of narrative
-Craig Batty, Adrian Dyer, Claire Perkins, and Jodi Sita
Chapter 10: Focalization, attachment, and film viewers' responses to film characters: Experimental design with qualitative data collection
-Katalin Balint and Andras Balint Kovacs
Chapter 11: Making sense of the American superhero film: Experiences of entanglement and detachment
-CarrieLynn D. Reinhard
Chapter 12: Indexing the events of an art film by audiences with different viewing backgrounds
-Sermin Ildirar
Chapter 13: Exploring the role of narrative contextualization in film interpretation: Issues and challenges for eye tracking methodology
-Thorsten Kluss, John Bateman, Heinz-Peter Preusser and Kerstin Schill
Chapter 14: Conclusion: A methodological toolbox for film reception studies
-Christopher J. Olson
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction: Empirical approaches to film spectators and spectatorship
-CarrieLynn D. Reinhard and Christopher J. Olson
Chapter 2: Spectatorship in public space: The moving image in public art
-Annie Dell'Aria
Chapter 3: The festival collective: Cult audience and Japanese Extreme Cinema
-Jessica Hughes
Chapter 4: Transnational investments: Aging in Les Invisibles (Sebastien Lifshitz, 2013) and its reception
-Darren Waldron
Chapter 5: Preferred readings and dissociative appropriations: Group discussions following and challenging the tradition of cultural studies
-Alexander Geimer
Chapter 6: "Legolas, he's cool ... and he's hot!": The meanings and implications of audiences' favorite characters
-Martin Barker
Chapter 7: In search of the child spectator in the late silent era
-Amanda C. Fleming
Chapter 8: Seeing, sensing sound: Eye tracking soundscapes in Saving Private Ryan and Monsters, Inc.
-Andrea Rassell, Sean Redmond, Jenny Robinson, Jane Stadler, Darrin Verhagen, and Sarah Pink
Chapter 9: Seeing animated worlds: Eye tracking and the spectator's experience of narrative
-Craig Batty, Adrian Dyer, Claire Perkins, and Jodi Sita
Chapter 10: Focalization, attachment, and film viewers' responses to film characters: Experimental design with qualitative data collection
-Katalin Balint and Andras Balint Kovacs
Chapter 11: Making sense of the American superhero film: Experiences of entanglement and detachment
-CarrieLynn D. Reinhard
Chapter 12: Indexing the events of an art film by audiences with different viewing backgrounds
-Sermin Ildirar
Chapter 13: Exploring the role of narrative contextualization in film interpretation: Issues and challenges for eye tracking methodology
-Thorsten Kluss, John Bateman, Heinz-Peter Preusser and Kerstin Schill
Chapter 14: Conclusion: A methodological toolbox for film reception studies
-Christopher J. Olson