Theory of film : the redemption of physical reality (1960)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

THE SPECTATOR 163 of indifferent shots from UFA newsreels which had been exhibited before without annoying anyone. Only the arrangement of the shots was altered.20 All of which proves that our confidence in the veracity of documentary films rests on uncertain ground. But why, then, do we so easily surrender to the kind of evidence they offer? Our reliance on it is not entirely unjustified since documentaries do picture real things and happenings after all; and it is upheld and strengthened by the trance-like condition in which we find ourselves when looking at the screen. For the sake of completeness it might finally be mentioned that the effectiveness of screen propaganda must also be laid to the reproducibility of film. The cinema, says Rotha, possesses the 'Virtues of mechanized performances to a million persons, not once but countless times a day, tomorrow, and, if the quality is good enough, ten years hence/'21 Dreaming Lowered consciousness invites dreaming. Gabriel Marcel, for instance, has it that the moviegoer finds himself in a state between waking and sleeping which favors hypnagogic fantasies.22 Now it is fairly evident that the spectator's condition has something to do with the kind of spectacle he watches. In Lebovici's words: "Film is a dream . . . which makes [one] dream."23 This immediately raises the question as to what elements of film may be sufficiently dream-like to launch the audience into reveries and perhaps even influence their course. ABOUT THE DREAM CHARACTER OF FILMS Manufactured dreams To the extent that films are mass entertainment they are bound to cater to the alleged desires and daydreams of the public at large.24 Significantly, Hollywood has been called a "dream factory."25 Since most commercial films are produced for mass consumption, we are indeed entitled to assume that there exists a certain relationship between their intrigues and such daydreams as seem to be widespread among their patrons; otherwise expressed, the events on the screen can be supposed to bear, somehow, on actual dream patterns, thereby encouraging identifications. It should be noted in passing that this relationship is necessarily elusive. Because of their vagueness mass dispositions usually admit of diverse interpretations. People are quick to reject things that they do not agree with, while they feel much less sure about the true objects of their leanings and longings. There is, accordingly, a margin left for film producers who aim at satisfying existing mass desires. Pent-up escapist needs, for