FM4 - Popular Film and Emotional Response: Key Terms

Scopophilia - the pleasure of looking.  On several occasions in Psycho, Hitchcock indulges our desire to watch, e.g. Marion packing to leave town or Norman cleaning the bathroom of  blood. When Brody is watching the bathers on the beach, there is also a sense of scopophilia.
Voyeur (voyeurism or voyeuristic) - spying on someone, usually for sexual pleasure.  In Psycho, Norman spies on Marion through a peep hole.
Male Gaze - a theory that women are sexualised in the media for male pleasure.  We see Marion on two occasions in her underwear and also see her undress before showering, where once again we are privileged to see an intimate act.
Privileged - when the spectator experiences a view, feelings, emotions or knowledge that goes beyond simply observing or is allowed to see or hear things that makes the spectator more knowledgable than characters in the film.  For example,  in Psycho the spectator is privileged to hear Marion's thoughts when she is driving.
Positioned - where the spectator feels placed within the scene.  Often films 'distance' us from the action, but sometimes our positioning makes us feel physically involved.  For example in City of God, we feel part of the crowd during 'Benny's Farewell'.  When Marion lies dead on the bathroom floor in Psycho, the spectator is positioned  uncomfortably close to her, our eyes staring into hers as if our head is also resting on the tiled floor.  We can also be 'positioned' in terms of our feelings towards a character.  The film-makers manipulate our feelings so that they put us in in a particular emotional 'position'.
Aligned - Sometimes our relationship becomes so close to a character that we feel 'at one with them' - we see and feel things in the same way as the character.  A film-maker may achieve this by allowing us to experience things that the character does, e.g. Hitchcock allows us to hear Marion's thoughts and later we watch her through the peep hole as if we are Norman.  Alignment is a further development from identifying and/or empathising with the character.  Increasingly, we become aligned with Marion as circumstances threaten to uncover her crime; a crime that we want her to get away with.  Later, we feel the same way about Norman's crime (see below).  So, alignment also requires our emotional involvement with a character.
Interpellation - when we are interpellated by a film, we have submitted to its mechanisms and are effectively under its thrall (control).  This means that the ideological messages of the film will be absorbed freely and without critical resistance.  If we are interpellated with a character, we effectively become that character, our personal feelings and concerns from our own life being replaced with theirs.  So when Norman anxiously watches the semi-submerged pause on its journey to the bottom of the swamp, our heart rate increases and we feel 'butterflies' in our stomachs - effectively, in that moment, the character and spectator have become one.

Fight club - personality/identity disorders

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization_disorder

Some points for the exam...

• You have 3 questions to answer; one from section A, one from B and one from C.
• You have 50 mins for each question.  Don't forget to make a plan.
• In section A, you have a choice of two questions and there are separate sources for each.  Choose carefully!  Use ALL the sources and your own knowledge.
• For section B, you choose from the 2 questions in the British Film and Genre section.  Remember to state your films with year of release in brackets.
• For section C there is a choice of two questions.  Choose carefully.  State your theme, "Fallen Idols", and the names of the films and year in brackets.
• You can answer the questions in any order you like.  It might be better to do the American films first while you are fresh.  
• Spread your time equally between the questions.

AS Film - Urgent message

I forgot to give you a very useful essay on dystopian films today.  Come and see me tomorrow to get it.  Dobinson and Coutinho have left their books in class - don't you think it might come in useful for revision?

US Films Comparison - Natural Born KIllers (further reading)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Born_Killers
http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/mediaviolence/violence.php?pageID=nbk
http://www.kamera.co.uk/reviews_extra/natural_born_killers.php
http://noah.hearle.com/movies/
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/natural-born-killers/critic-reviews
http://www.craigerscinemacorner.com/Reviews/natural_born_killers.htm
http://www.cinepad.com/reviews/nbk.htm
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Natural_Born_Killers.PDF

Fight Club - possible question areas for the question which names the film

- Jack /Tyler Durden – the meaning and significance of this split person
- A progressive film or a deeply reactionary one?
- The representation of modern urban and corporate life
- The representation of masculinity and its threats
- Marla: women as object of scorn? Misogynistic?
- Managing the spectator’s identification and sympathies
- Distinctive stylistic features and the look of the film
- Motifs and their function
- The social and cultural context of production
- Critical and popular responses to the film

Single film critical study - Fight Club (further reading)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(film)
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/fight-club/critic-reviews
http://www.popmatters.com/film/fight-club.html
http://frimmin.com/movies/fightclub.php
http://criticalcommons.org/Members/adiab/clips/FF_FincherFightClub-possum.mp4/view
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/03/28/fight-club/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/movies/homevideo/08lim.html?_r=1
http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol11no2/ReedFightClub.htm
http://www.criticism.com/md/fightclub.html
http://www.metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=29_0_2_0
http://www.quotegarden.com/bk-fc.html
http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue8/fightclub.html
http://www.11points.com/Movies/11_Hidden_Secrets_in_Fight_Club
http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue8/fightclub.html
http://old.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id1497/pg1/index.html
http://metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=29_0_2_0/
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/trivia
http://www.moviemartyr.com/1999/fightclub.htm
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19991025/EDITOR/40828001/1023