Description
Book SynopsisIntroduced one hundred years ago, film has since become part of our lives. For the past century, however, the experience offered by fiction films has remained a mystery. Questions such as why adult viewers cry and shiver, and why they care at all about fictional characters -- while aware that they contemplate an entirely staged scene -- are still unresolved. In addition, it is unknown why spectators find some film experiences entertaining that have a clearly aversive nature outside the cinema. These and other questions make the psychological status of
emotions allegedly induced by the fiction film highly problematic.
Earlier attempts to answer these questions have been limited to a few genre studies. In recent years, film criticism and the theory of film structure have made use of psychoanalytic concepts which have proven insufficient in accounting for the diversity of film induced affect. In contrast, academic psychology -- during the century of its existence -- has m
Trade Review"Tan offers this book as 'a contribution to the psychology of film' by trying 'to further our understanding of the emotional experience that films constitute for the viewer'...to describe what an emotion produced by film is, and to open strands for empirical research into its determinants."
—CRT Vol. 16, #3-39
..."This may limit the book's impact among scholars in the humanities, but it also makes the book invaluable as a kind of handbook for anyone who is interested in the subject of emotions and film."
—Journal of Communication, Winter 1997
Table of ContentsContents: Preface. Introduction. The Psychological Functions of Film Viewing. Film and Emotion: Theoretical Background. The Structure of Interest. Thematic Structures and Interest. Character Structure, Empathy, and Interest. The Psychological Affect Structure of the Feature Film. Conclusion: The Feature Film as an Emotion Machine.
