Film Consciousness: a phenomenological approach to the reciprocal perception of spectator and film

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Advanced Studies of Art, School of Visual Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Objective: “This article examines the dynamic, reciprocal relationship between spectator and film, arguing that viewing is not a passive reception but a mutual perceptual interaction rooted in Merleau-Ponty’s concept of “intentionality.” The study explores how cinematic structures activate cognitive-emotional processes, while the viewer’s lived experiences simultaneously reconstruct the film’s meaning.”
Methods: Utilizing a phenomenological approach, this research analyzes the experiential encounter between viewer and screen. By drawing on phenomenological film theory specifically the works of Merleau-Ponty and Vivian Sobchack the study investigates how perception, embodiment, and intentionality function within the cinematic experience.
Results: The findings demonstrate that intentionality is bidirectional. Beyond the viewer’s gaze, the film acts as a “living body” that actively perceives the spectator. This interaction creates a “perceptual-experiential loop,” where cinematic form invites engagement, and the viewer, through mindfulness and empathy, generates meaning.
Conclusions: The study concludes that cinematic meaning emerges in an intersubjective space at the intersection of the filmic text and the spectator’s consciousness. In this encounter, the spectator is not merely an observer but is also perceived by the film, resulting in a shared, reflexive field of awareness between the viewer and the cinematic experience.

Graphical Abstract

Film Consciousness: a phenomenological approach to the reciprocal perception of spectator and film

Keywords

Main Subjects


Abel, R. (1988). French Film: Theory and Criticism 1907-1939, 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Abolghasemi, M. R. (2016). The Ontology of Music and the Literary Work from Roman Ingarden’s Perspective. Wisdom and Philosophy Journal, 12(4), 7–22.  https://doi.org/10.22054/wph.2017.7505
Allen, R. (2004). Psychoanalytic Film Theory, in The Blackwell companion to film theory, Ed. T. Miller & R. Stam, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Arnheim, R. (1933[1958]). Film. Reprinted as Film as Art. London: Faber.
Barker, J. M. (2009). The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press).
Baudry, J. L. (1974). Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus, Film Quarterly, 28 (2): 39–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/1211632
Bordwell, D. (1985). Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: University of Wisconnsin Press.
Bordwell, D & Carroll, N. (eds) (1996). Post- Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. Madison: University of Wesconsin Press.
Bordwell, D. (1989b). A Case for Congitivism, Iris, No. 9.
Branigan, E. (2017). Narrative Comprehension and Film. Trans. S. Jalil Shahri Langaroudi. Siahrood Publishing. (in persian)
Brown, W. (2019). Supercinema: Film Philosophy in the Digital Age. trans  A. Varshochi Fard and Payam Zinalabedini. Parseh Books. (in persian)
Brooks, P. (1987). The Idea of a Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. The University of Chicago Press Jurnal. 13(2), 334- 348.
Carroll, N. (1992). Some Unresolved Problems in Film Theory. trans  H. Ahmadi-Lari. Farabi Journal, 1(17) 74-99. (in persian)
Chamarette, J. (2012). Phenomenology and the Future of Film. Rethinking Subjectivity beyond French Cinema, Palgrave Macmillan, Queen Mary, University of London, London, UK.
Carroll, N. (1996). Theorizig Moving Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Casebier, A. (2013). Phenomenology and Cinema. trans A. Tabatabaei. Hermes Publishing.
Chateau, D. (2012). Subjectivity: Filmic Representation and the Spectator's Experience (Amsterdam University Press - European Film Studies - Key Deb).
Ellis, J. (1992). Visiblle Fictions: cinema, Television, video, Routledge.
Falzon, C. (2003). Philosophy Goes to the Movies. trans N. A. Taghavian. Qasideh-Sara Publishing. (in persian)
Frampton, D. (2006). Filmosophy. London: Wallflower Press.
Hughes, W. (1976). The Evaluation of Film as Evidence, The Historian and Film, Paul Smith ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Idhe, D. (2009). Phenomenology of Technology. trans S. Nafi & M. Farhadpour. Information: Wisdom and Knowledge Journal, 4(8). 15-20 (in persian)
Ingarden, R. (1973). The Literary Work of Art. An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology, Logic, and Theory of Literature, trans G. G. Grabowicz, Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
Khalilian, M., Amin, Olia, M., Mostafavi, Sh. (2018). The relationship of schematization and concreteization in Ingarden's phenomenological aesthetics. Metaphysics, 11(28), 1-12 https://doi.org/10.22108/mph.2019.115699.1146. (in persian)
Lacan, J. (1978). The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, trans. A. Sheridan, New York: Norton.
Marks, L. U. (2000). The Skin of   the Film, Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Dunham and London: Duke University Press.
Merleau-P. M. (1945). Phenomenology of Perception. Trans C. Smith, London: Routledge.
Metz, C. (2000). The Imaginary Signifier’ in Film and Theory: An Anthology, ed. by Robert Stam and Toby Miller. Oxford: Blackwell.
Metz, C. (1982). The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema, trans. C. Britton, et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Metz, C. (1992). The Imaginary Signifier, Film Theory and Criticism, Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen, Leo.
Metz, C. (1982 [1977]). Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The Imaginary Signifier London: Macmillan.
Plantinga, C. & Smith, M.  (1999). Passionate views, film, cognition and emotion. JHU.
Prince, G. (1983). Narrative pragmatics, Message, and Point, poetics 12(6), 489-590.
Prince, S. (1996). Psychoanalytic Film Theory and the Problem of the Missing Spectator/ Post-Theory Reconstructing Film Studies, Edited by David Bordwell and Noel Carroll the University of Wisconsin Press.
Quiroga, P. C. (2013). Embodiment and the Senses in Travelogue Filmmaking. Perla Carrillo Quiroga. University of Westminster.
Smit, M. (1995b). Film Spectatorship and the Institution of fiction. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 53(2), 13-27.
Smith, M. (1996). Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion and Cinema, Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Sobchack, V. (1992). The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Sobchack, V. (2004). Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, Berkeley; London: University of California Press.
Sobchack, V. (2017). From The Philosophy of Film series / Embodying the Image: Phenomenology, Pedagogy, and Derek Jarman’s Blue. Trans. S. Norouzi. Shavand Publishing. (in persian)
Stam, R. (2004). Phenomenology of Realism / Introduction to Film Theory. tranc E. Norouzi. Sooreh Mehr Publishing. (in presian)
Szczepańska, A. (1989). The Structure of Artworks. In: Dziemidok, B., McCormick, P. (eds) On the Aesthetics of Roman Ingarden. Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, Springer, Dordrecht. 1(27), 21–54. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2257-0_2
Thomas, S. (2004). Film and Culture: Cinema and Its Social Context. Trans. M. Akhgar. SAMT (Organization for Researching and Composing University Humanities Textbooks). First edition. (in persian)
Turner, G. (2016). Film as Social Practice. tranc A Sayyah. Donya-ye Eqtesad Publishing. (in persian)
Wollen, P. (1982). On Gaze Theory. New left review. 2(44):91-106. https://doi.org/10.64590/l59.
Wright, E. (2000). Post Modern Encounters: Lacan and Post Feminism. Icon Books, Duxford Cambridge.
Yacavone, D. (2016a). Review of Film Worlds: A Philosophical Aesthetics of Cinema, The British Journal of Aesthetics. 56(1), https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayv010
Yacavone, D. (2016b). Film and the Phenomenology of Art: Reappraising Merleau-Ponty on Cinema as Form, Medium, and Expression. New Literary History. 47 (1), 159-185. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2016.0001.
CAPTCHA Image