Sociology of film : studies and documents (1946)

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CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS AND THE CINEMA made a practical attempt to distinguish between the foreground use of the film for illustration, and the background use of the film for the direction of the imagination. Apart from the problem of 'seeing' and 'perceiving' — another important psychological problem of audience reactions is that of memory. Memory, as Buehler points out in The Intellectual Development of the Child, is not merely the presentation of something already experienced, but a definite placement in the history of our past. What we remember, therefore, is obviously related to our past — we remember the things in which we are interested and which bear a relation to our life. Sometimes memory involves no exact placing, but merely a vague recognition. As far as children are concerned, the length of memory depends on how much the child was impressed at the time. A study of memory, and of the things remembered in a film, will give interesting indications of the effects of films, and of the role the film plays in the life of the public. Examples can be given of some of the schoolgirls' essays; three girls chose Gone With the Wind as their favourite film, and the differences between the three accounts of the film are striking. One girl almost exclusively discussed the acting and casting of the main characters. The second girl recounted the story, picking out mainly the practical details of events, although Scarlett's personal history is also remembered, as far as practical details are concerned. The third girl mentions mainly the more profound implications of the personal relationships of the actors' characters — she describes not so much what the characters 'did', as what they thought, and relates the external events to the effect they have on, and the part they play in, the life of the characters. Here, then, are three different assimilations of the film. The main points of the story as remembered and reproduced, give three quite different attitudes to the same film. IV. EMOTIONAL RESPONSE From the point of view of behaviour, a most striking example of the difference between child and adult reactions was furnished by our visits to the Children's Cinema Clubs. The children's enthusiasm was expressed in an altogether unmistakable fashion. In the two serial pictures, booing of the villain reached an almost hysterical pitch, and catching of breaths was audible during situations of tension, also exclamations of 'Oh!' when some ill had befallen the hero. The excitement of the children was, in fact, quite 61