The filmic emotion. A comparative analysis of the cinematographic theories

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4185/10.4185/RLCS-66-2011-936-326-349

Keywords:

filmic emotion, Psychoanalysis, cognitivism, Cultural Studies, reception theory, structural semiotic

Abstract

This text tries to explain the bases of filmic emotion. As we don’t share one same idea about the way the filmic texts play with the emotional world of the empiric spectator, the next pages look deep in the large kind of arguments and approaches through which filmic theory has tried to explain the catalog of emotions that a film raises in its spectator. This account reveals that one conflict exists between lector and context–oriented theories and these that looks directly to the text. We can choose, in fact, between two approaches in order to evaluate the emotional effects raised by the films. One, the Cultural Studies approach is based on pragmatics and gender oriented theories, focusing on social and subjective conditions through which cinema is always experienced. The other one, mostly oriented by a structural, cognitive and semiotic approach looks deep in the way the filmic text directs the spectatorial approach. In a no man’s land we can find the psychoanalytical theory thinking the filmic experience just as a simulation of daily life.

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Author Biography

Imanol Zumalde-Arregi, University of the Basque Country

Imanol Zumalde-Arregi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism (1990), and a Doctoral degree in Audiovisual Communication (1994). He is professor of Film Theory and Analysis at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), where he has also directed Doctoral programmes on Spanish Cinema for several years.

He is member of the Spanish Association of Film Historians (AEHC) and the Basque Association of Semiotics (AVS). His main lines of research are linked to the audiovisual phenomenon, both from the practical perspective of textual analysis and the theoretical reflection on the semiotic fundaments of film interpretation, and the historiography of the Spanish cinema.

He is one of the editors of several books, including: Antología Crítica del Cine Español 1905-1995 (Critical Anthology of Spanish Cinema 1905-1995) published in 1997 by Cátedra (Madrid); Imagen, memoria y fascinación notas sobre el documental en España (Image, memory and fascination with notes on documentary films in Spain), published in 2001 by Malaga Cinema Festival and Ocho y medio (2001); and La nueva memoria. Historia(s) del cine español. 1939-2000 (The new memory. The History(ies) of Spanish Cinema. 1939-2000), published in 2005 by Vía Láctea (A Coruña). He also wrote an article in Entre el exilio y el reino. María Casares, una actriz frente a la cámara (Between the exile and the Kingdom. Maria Casares, an actress in front of the camera) (Xunta de Galicia, 2002), which won the Best Article or Collaboration Award in 2002, which is presented by the Spanish Association of Film Historians (AEHC).

He is also the single author of several books, including: Deslizamientos progresivos del sentido (Progressive changes of meaning) published in 1997 by Episteme (Valencia); Los placeres de la vista. Mirar, escuchar, pensar (The pleasures of sight: Looking, listening, thinking) published in 2002 by Ediciones de la Filmoteca (Valencia); and La materialidad de la forma fílmica. Crítica de la (sin)razón posestructuralista (The materiality of the film form. Criticism of the post-structuralist (lack of) reason) published in 2006 by the Editorial Service of the University of the Basque Country, which received the AEHC’s Best Book Award in 2006.

His latest book, Imitación a la vida. Hacia una hermenéutica cabal de las emociones fílmicas (Imitation of life. Towards a proper hermeneutics of the filmic emotions), will be published this year by Cátedra (Madrid).

He has also published articles about film in most of the journals specialised in the audiovisual field, like Zer, Archivos de la Filmoteca, Análisi, Signa, Secuencias, Trama and Fondo, etc.

References

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Published

2011-04-15

How to Cite

Zumalde-Arregi, I. . (2011). The filmic emotion. A comparative analysis of the cinematographic theories. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, (66), 326–349. https://doi.org/10.4185/10.4185/RLCS-66-2011-936-326-349

Issue

No. 66 (2011)

Section

Miscellaneous
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