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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
PhD Thesis Project - How Do We Experience Different Films?
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
14
Projects & Abstracts
2014-10-01
2021-09-10
2014-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Maria A. Baldissera
2014/10/01
Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage (CRAL), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
2036-461X
22-23
en
PhD Thesis Project - How Do We Experience Different Films?
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16348/17028
14
How Do We Experience Different Films?
Márcia A. Baldissera / Ph.D. Thesis Project1
Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage (CRAL)
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)




   The objective of this research is to demonstrate that there are cognitive differ-
ences in the spectators’ experience due to the temporal structure of films, that is,
the technical organisation and development of the audio, visual, and linguistic
events. Cognitive, in this sense, means the processes involved in the acquisition
and use of knowledge, be it sensible, practical or propositional. This work is
a reflection founded on Kant’s aesthetics, along with the film theory of Gilles
Deleuze; the analytical approach in aesthetics and the cognitive theory of fiction
from Jean-Marie Schaeffer; the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal
time of Edmund Husserl; and an integrated approach in cognitive sciences that
presupposes the whole organism in relation to the environment, in a specific
circumstance, within its own dynamics. To give empirical evidence to this theo-
retical thesis, it compares neuropsychological experiments about mainstream
film reception2 to some representative films of different styles, genres, countries,
released on screen during the 2000s;3 with the support of experiments that are
analogical to some extent to a film experience, such as looking at paintings, lis-
tening to music and reading. Besides its current relevance, this theoretical model
for film analysis and critique will apply to cinema in its integrity.
   The cinema of this new century seems to represent a tendency to radicalise the
rhythm of the films, that is, the intensified rhythm of the continuity editing on the
one hand, and “slow cinema” on the other. This tendency appears to be a histori-
cal development of the Deleuze paradigms movement-image and time-image. This
study interprets these deleuzian concepts as two theoretical models conceived in
relation to the differences in the temporal structure of films. The movement-image
and the time-image are the manifestation of two intentional and constructive tem-



1
  Ph.D. thesis supervised by Professor Jean-Marie Schaeffer. For information: marciabaldissera@
gmail.com.
2
  I am referring here to some important experiments carried out by James Cutting, Uri Hasson and
Jeffrey Zacks, among others.
3
  These films were selected based on the top 10 lists of the best films of the decade published by
Cahiers du Cinéma, Cinequanon and Sight & Sound.

                                             Cinéma & Cie, vol. XIV, no. 22/23, Spring/Fall 2014
                                 Márcia A. Baldissera


poral principles, that distinguish the performance of any film in a scale of degrees,
ranging from the extreme of physical time to the extreme of subjective time.
   The film structure has a causal relation to the spectator’s perception. Thus,
this technical structure is the link between the film and the spectator. Neverthe-
less, this configuration does not represent a language. Each film creates its own
system of signs, be it more or less well known by the public. The meaning of the
audiovisual flux is constructed by the singular reception of each spectator, with
her/his own feelings, desires, beliefs, knowledge, and so on, who re-actives these
signs, since the film is the semiotic support of derived Intentional signs. So, the
technical structure of the films is intentional as well. That is, the structure can
be seen as the content of the author’s intentionality, as every human artefact is
constructed by a specific point of view, from a determined perspective, which
represents certain functions and principles. Then, the film structure is the link
between the author(s) and the spectator.
   Films are cognitive structures as well, in the sense that the relationship with
this representation involves the same mechanisms and affects of the cognitive re-
lationship with the real world. So, the film structure has a relation to the modes of
inflexion of our attention and, consequently, with the development of the cogni-
tive processes correlated to comprehension and consciousness. Films are also an
interaction between the diegetic world (fictional or not) and the spectator. For this
reason, the film structure is also related to the modes of immersion and simulation
of the spectators, configuring a specific characteristic of the narrative objects.
   The most important property of the object film is time. To differentiate the
perceptual temporality of a fixed and unchanged object from the temporality of
music, Husserl uses the concept of time-object (Zeitobjekte): an object that lasts
and changes within its unity and, thus, on this temporal relation of durations
and changes, orients the perceptive acts of the subject. Therefore, the film is a
time-object if (i) it has temporal properties, that is, events that last and change
within their unity, in succession and/or in simultaneity; (ii) the temporal percep-
tion of the spectator is oriented by the temporal properties of the object; and (iii)
it represents time by time, that is, it gives the perception of time and the repre-
sentation of time since the time-objects are temporally extended (Zeitextension).
Films are temporally extended and structured, as is our consciousness.
   Our knowledge is also accomplished by its proper temporal structure. Tempo-
ral organisation is the key structure for both film and knowledge. If film is made
by and perceived as a succession and/or simultaneity of single events, knowledge
is constructed by mental schemas that are structured in sequence by the regulari-
ties and/or by the differences we experience in our relationship with the objects
of the world, with the others and with ourselves.
   In consequence of the role of time in the perception of films, how does the rela-
tion between the temporal properties of the film and attention work? Or, how does
the interaction film/spectator take place? What about the aesthetic attention?
   The subjective quality of this experience is the cause of its indetermination
and then, the source of the richness of this affective and cognitive relationship.

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                        How Do We Experience Different Films?


As it is a relation between an object and a subject, and following the assump-
tions of the perceptual realism, the analysis will be based objectively on the
most fundamental level of every film: its temporal structure. This research will
concentrate on the processes of the cinematographic reception, regardless of
its result or final judgement. It will be carried out on the development of these
three levels of experience – perception, attention and comprehension – in rela-
tion to the film’s temporal properties. The aim is to search for the conditions of
possibility of the aesthetic attention.
   Despite the growing importance of the studies in film cognition, they also
present a disparity either in their concepts of the cognitive processes, or in their
knowledge about cinema. The purpose of this research is to present cinema as a
worthy interdisciplinary scientific object, to demonstrate the cognitive differenc-
es in its reception and their implications. In brief, it is a question of the knowl-
edge of people and of the meaning of Aesthetics.




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