What a movie wants?

In this response I will try to answer the question why cinema tries to imitate reality. In the previous response I have argued that cinema is an art of modernity, and modernity always searched for complete picture of reality. Now, my claim is cinema tries to be real like because of the cognitive reasons. It tries to create stimulations in order to find a place to live.

Susan Sontag asks the question “What does a film want?” and her answer is, the film wants to become an object in the world. They want to exist for themselves. Two questions arises after this answer, that are, where is exactly is this space that the film wants to exist in? And what is the relation of the film with the spectator? The answer of the Sontag seems like a declaration of the wish of the film to simulate the world.

Film assumes a spectator to create stimulus while becoming the film, and the spectator gives response to different stimulus that created by body of the film. The same notion in Deluze(most probably in Bergson as well) come into scene like, “Of course Bergson … introduced a profound element of transformation: the brain was now only an interval, a void , nothing but a void, between stimulation and a response.”(p. 211) The very nature of the body of the film helps it to echo in the brain of the spectator. Visual and auditory systems of human perception gets movies into the human brain.




When we think of this two expression from MacDougall and Bergson, we can continue Susan Sontag’s answer to her own question; film wants to find a space to exist and this space is actually exactly stays between stimulation and the response of the body which is the brain of the spectator, a void in there. The spectators brain is the world of the films, therefore, one can claim that the aim of the movie is to find a way by which it can create its own existence in the spectators brain. MacDougal states that “by providing series of perceptual clues, films construct spaces analogous to those we experience in daily life, as we sample visual and other sensory information and construct a seemingly smooth and complete picture of surrounding”(p. 25).

The main aim of the movies, which is to find its existence in the void, brain of the spectator. Therefore, movies tries to increase their perceptibility, therefore we are able to see a the new 3D movies like Avatar.

Now another point I would like to discuss is if the only way of creating real like images is technology and simulation or not. David MacDougall distinguishes three different bodies in a movie: body of the film, body of the spectator and the body of the filmmaker. MacDougall while defining body of the spectator, states that “all films are designed to generate a continuous interplay of stimulus and bodily response between screen and the spectator.” (p. 20) Now, my claim is that, the body of the film maker is also a mean for making the movies real like. Of course not always but most of the times movies tries to be real like not through use of not only technology but also the kino-eye. When we think of all the rules about axis, camera movements, pan, first of all camera itself, the kino-eye acts like a person itself. More over all the developments in cut, editing and the film language also helps to create a more real like images(still of course not always). If we think of continuous narrative than this claim of mine can be grasp easily.

However I would like to quote from Ranciere while continuing the discussion: “the modern emergence of aesthetics as an autonomous discourse determining an
autonomous division of the perceptible is the emergence of an evaluation of the perceptible that is
distinct from any judgment about the use to which it is put; and which accordingly defines a world of
virtual community- of community demanded- superimposed on the world of commands and lots that
that gives everything a use.
” Ranciere states that after the beginning of 19th century art started to contain the signs, rather than images, that are trying to immitate the real world. Now it seems like kino-eye and technological developments are creating a dilemma. However, I believe that they are the two parts of same notion, wish of cinema, perceived my the spectator. The body of the director and his art, get shaped by different waves and through lets say zeitgest. And in many way his to go together for an aim of finding its place in the brain of the spectator.
Moreover, technological developments tries to be real like because of modernity as I have tried to discuss the previous review, but the body of the director can reflect the aim of modernity in a different realm.

Deluze, Cinema 2

David MacDougall, The Corporeal Image:Film, Ethnography, and the Senses, 2007

Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, Continuum, 2004

Ozan Kamiloğlu