How is Cinema?

OR Cinema, Perception and ‘Reality’…

What do we see when we go to the cinema? What can we see when we go to the cinema? What distinguishes this from ‘reality’?

Firstly, we see a re-presentation of the real; this is a standard response, yet it assumes that what we see as the ‘real’ has points of comparison to a ‘real’. Using the latter in its singular sense posits a ‘real’ that exists independently of the human person, that objectively exists on its own terms, in its own time and space. Yet this is, when we consider the statement, an unsupportable assumption. My perception of a/the ‘real’ is mine and mine alone. I cannot share it with others as they cannot share theirs with me. So my ‘real’ is perceptually unique, a creation of my experiences, my spacio-temporal moment, a ‘real’ that is both present and past simultaneously (or that is always past if we agree with Russell). In the cinema, what I perceive onscreen is a version of a real that is, for the duration of the film, the real, but only to me. What I see is determined not only by the form of film and its techniques, but by the experiences I contain, my remembrances, the socio-historical circumstances of my present/past, the socio-cultural circumstances of my present/past, my present/past emotions, the feel of the cinema seat, the smells of the auditorium…in short a version of a real that exists only at that fleeting moment.

“The real”? A phrase we think we understand because we’ve said, and heard, it so often. Can the eye see the real? Isn’t the field of vision always the field of some-one, a field that transforms the connected into objects, severed from their original connectedness? My vision is a film, transforming the objects of perception into a narrative, unified in me (not by me). When I pass my gaze over ‘things’, their story becomes an instance of my own. I exist not in my mind but in the objects that form the content of my consciousness; I assimilate and am assimilated simultaneously. The objects of my consciousness, identified by my perception of them, have an artificial connectedness, an imposed Being, by which I convince myself that I exist – they are not just the objects of my existence, they ARE that existence. A fragmentary whole, that exists in my memory…yet that memory is inexact, selective (for reasons which I cannot know – particularly if one accepts Freud) and forgetful. I forget, or am unaware of, far more than I think that I have perceived.

Following from this, how much of a film do I actually perceive? I can watch a film repeatedly but still fail to see it all. One can say the same in regard to reading a novel or poem, seeing a play, examining a painting. The standard/usual explanation here is that perception is limited by knowledge and experience (this is not just the case for Art; a nurse, for example, might initially recognise X after qualifying, but in ten years’ time, recognises X, Y and Z). When I read Eliot at 14, or see Godard’s Passion, I see and read something that is, arguably, completely different to that I return to at 24 with more knowledge and a different experience. This is hardly a startling revelation; as our knowledge develops and our experience grows (?), our desire for complexity expands. The simplicity of fairy tales, nursery rhymes and disney films become of only nostalgic value (although, or because, we recognise their insidious messages). As we become older – for we have to link knowledge, experience and time – we reassess, examine both our experience and intellect for the effects and affects these items had. We try to identify, test and, in some cases, rectify the ideological ‘messages’ of our received culture: why is X considered to be “better than” Y? In what sense is A a ‘superior’ work to B? How has it come about that I have taken these cultural values as mine?

Simultaneously, we try to identify artefacts that express our selves, our arrived-at values, that protest the injustices that we see too. In the case of our selves, our choices change over time, yet we also keep returning to the same artefacts, those which, in effect, change as we change, whose meaning(s) alter as we alter – we map our developing selves onto such artefacts, identifying fluctuations, new or alternative meanings, and vestiges of previous selves. This is also true of the content of our knowledge and our experience, although this raises the question of the possibility of separating what we might refer to as “the elements” of our perception – and whether we can refer to “our perception”, which seems to imply an intentionality on our part which may be misplaced; the elements of my perception, past or present, can appear unbidden, kindled by everyday encounters: a spoken or overheard word; a fragment of music; a glance; a photograph; a meeting with another. In a minor key, what Freud called the return of the repressed (in comparison to the larger ‘repressions’ he discusses), or more accurately, the return of the ‘forgotten’ or “unremarked at the time”.

Our perception is formed by what our culture values, by familial contacts, by our peer group. Initially, obviously, we are unaware of this ‘formation’ (formulation?), “ideological currents” meet in us unopposed; we are, for a number of years anyway, unthinking recipients assaulted by the various systems into which we are born: we ‘learn’ the history of our nation (in a biased, uncritical form) as part of our ‘education’; we ‘learn’ what our culture values and, therefore, what we as persons should value; we ‘learn’ how to interact with others. An integral part of this ‘learning’ is the ideology which, put simply, dictates our perception and, by underhand means (the unspoken claim that “this is just the way things are” or “this is the way any decent person thinks”), our thinking.

However…this can change (N.B. ‘can’ not ‘does’ – privilege breeds complacency, unquestioned acceptance of an ascendant position in society). We could look here at Max Stirner’s “pendulum theory” of self-creation. On one side we have ‘society’, on the other ‘self’. Initially, the pendulum swings from one side to the other equally yet, as we become older (when we become, say, teenagers), the pendulum begins to swing more to what we designate as ‘self’ – not in an egocentric sense, but in the sense that we begin to question, to interrogate, the assumptions of the society into which we are born, socio-politically and socio-culturally. What we had previously accepted becomes unsatisfactory, simplistic and, most importantly, unjust. We begin to analyse the actual using our ever-developing ideas of abstract concepts – justice; fairness; morality. Such concepts are drawn from our previous, unthinking lives, but changed (utterly) by our experience(s) and our developing intellects. This, in turn, alters our perception.

In terms of Art, we seek out artefacts which engage with the complexity of Being (in-the-world), that refract our dissatisfactions, echo our desire to protest against injustice (as Eisenstein says, all Art is borne of conflict). Artefacts that refuse to accept that “this is just the way things are”, that challenge and debunk (ruling class) ideology. Whether this is in the films of Resnais, Godard and Greenway the novels of Austen, Dickens and Amis, the theatre of Brecht, Pinter and Churchill, the painting of Rothko, Pollock and Emin, or the poetry of Marlowe, Plath and Carson. I’m using these as examples of those who fired my imagination, who encouraged me to think differently…and still do. They, to me, are examples of artists to whom one can return again and again, whose work shifts as my perception changes and whose work shifts my perception. Obviously, when my perception changes, so do my experiences, both past and present. As Heidegger argues, we are involved in a constant process of becoming, a continual fluidity, rather than series of static points.

When we engage with Art, we are forced to reflect, to refine and to rethink – anything else is simple laziness. Cinema is not ‘entertainment’, but a way of ‘doing’ philosophy, of encountering the world outwith our selves but, simultaneously, encountering our selves in that world as ideological constructs.

In cinema, we meet others who are similar to us; insofar as we are able to extrapolate that any other person can be similar to us – we involve ourselves in a constant series of everyday assumptions that “because X does/says Y, and I do/say Y, then X is similar to me” or “I am similar to them”. The latter would seem to be a ‘better’ way of thinking because it gives the lie to the idea that “I am (in some sense or other) special/unique”. Cinema shatters this illusion by (re)presenting those who appear to think, feel, be as confused as we ourselves are (N.B. Is ‘confused’ an ideological term here? Confusion suits who?). It provides intellectual and emotional ‘markers’ in a world that is increasingly self-obsessed, engulfed by an ideological individualism which, politically, denies the connectedness between human persons in virtue of their being human persons, a world in which ‘relationships’ are becoming transactional and/or contractual.

Even the poorest cinema (badly shot; badly lit; badly scripted; reliance on special effects etc.) gives the active spectator pause for thought. For example, the Marvel franchise post-9/11 can be read as articulating the desire for heroes, patriotism and American exceptionalism. For some though, the comic book superheroes of previous years are given a ‘reality’ in these films: they move from being fictional to aspirational, an extreme example of the original problem. This leads back to the original question: how are we to separate what we perceive in film from our everyday perception? Are there ‘clues’ or ‘markers’, or have these become assimilated into our media-saturated environment? Is there any difference between our contemporary present and the oral stories of Odysseus or Beowulf? The novels of the 18th and 19th century?

The obvious ‘answer’ is that these – films, tales, novels – are fictional, whereas we live in ‘reality’. However, our ability to define reality is informed/defined by the fictional. Our concepts, our ideas, of what reality is like are built by comparison with the (apparently) fictional. Yet these fictions are seen as the representation of potential “real life” situations that involve actual emotions: when we watch/hear/read we are, as the expression has it, “emotion testing”: we are discovering which emotion is which; acceptable ways of expressing emotions; if others have similar emotions (which they apparently do – I discover myself in the being of the other); how emotion can be created and manipulated.

This is a central process: we liken ourselves to “the other” through fictions.

What we need to ask is does cinema (and, by extension, other forms of screen media) play a unique role here? The fictional embedded in a ‘real’ landscape…