Spectatorship Flashcards
(25 cards)
What is spectatorship?
How a spectator/individual is impacted by a film. How the director does this and the meaning that is created
What is an active spectator?
Considering the spectator in context and undertstanding they have control of their viewing of the film
What is a passive spectator?
Emphasis on the directors impact on a spectator through techniques
What is the reception theory and who created it?
Stuart Hall- How we as spectators understand a film
What is a negotiated reading?
A spectator doesn’t understand the meaning of the film
What is a preferred reading?
The reading the director intended the spectator to take
What is an oppositional reading?
The spectator understands the meaning of the film but disproves it and is in opposition to it
What is cultural experience?
Our knowledge of the World, how we our brought up, our knowledge and past experiences that impact how we view a film
What is situated culture?
The conditions we are in when we watch a film- this could include who we are with, where we watched it, the environment
What are characteristics in relation to the active spectator?
Gender, age, sexual orientation and race- factors of a person that may impact their reading of the film and characters
What are factors that affect the power of cinema?
The idea of ‘brainwashing’, reinforced stereotypes that are racist, misogynist, copy-cat behaviour
What is the Uses and Gratifications Theory and who is it by?
Blumler and Katz- The idea that spectators are in control of why they watch a film, for a specific purpose and they may be wanting a visceral experience. It may be for pleasure, comedy or if sad
What is alignment in reference to a passive spectator?
How the director connects the spectator to a character through positioning like proxemics
What are examples of alignment through positioning?
Uses of close ups, POV shots, associated POV shots, breaking the fourth wall. The Frankfurt School studied the dangers of cinema as it may be deceptive in its use of proximity
What is allegiance?
A specific response or feeling towards a character which is caused by alignment
What is the Male Gaze in Spectatorship? (passive spectator)
The film or meaning created by the film being centred towards the pleasure of men, framing women in a way that is pleasing for men. Created by Laura Mulvey- ‘made by men, for men’
What is the Psychoanalytic Theory in Spectatorship? (passive spectator)- who stemmed its ideas?
Metz believed that the spectator is constructed by the film itself as we are able to immerse ourselves into a film with an idealised sense of self . He believed there is a subconscious and subtext of a film and spectators enjoy the idealised version of a character as it allows them to associate themself this way also
What ‘selfs’ are involved with the Uses and Gratifications Theory?
Social- gains satisfaction from having a similar response to other spectators
Cultural- gets references and meanings generated through other films and media
Private- generates personal memories and meanings
Desiring- brings unconscious energies that have little to do with the surface content
What is the idea of gaze as a spectator and who developed it?
Chandler- some films challenge the spectator to reflect on their own spectatorship
What is an intra-diegetic gaze?
Characters look at eachother
What is an extra-diegetic gaze?
Character looks directly at the camera
What is the cameras gaze?
The film reveals the mechanics of the gaze, reminding us we are watching a film
What is a text within a text?
The characters are also watching or making a film
What is the spectators gaze?
The viewpoint of the camera, perhaps offering voyeuristic pleasure
