Work by Laura Marks and Vivian Sobchack has triggered a rethinking of the way film evokes sensory experience, and existing models of the spectator have been shattered in favour of a responsive, bodily, film viewer, for whom sensation is overwhelmingly affective. This thesis seeks to balance this work with an appraisal of how relationship between and among senses colour the spectator’s engagement with the narrative dimension of cinema. This exploration is conducted in the light of audio-visual film’s status as the first synaesthetic mass-medium. Consequently, the analysis looks beyond film studies and film theory, extending particularly into cognitive psychology, cultural studies, art, literature, and film history. Cinema’s consistently audio-visual nature suggests the peculiar strengths of this pairing and their interrelation is the focus of the first half of the thesis. As well as the mutually reinforcing quality foreseen in early visions of a synaesthesia machine, the tension produced by combining these two ‘distance senses’ is seen to lend depth and piquancy to the scenarios they describe. The second half of the thesis considers the ways sensations beyond the audio-visual can be invoked, arguing that smell and touch are significant strands in inter-personal relationships, which demand a role in meaningful human narrative. These questions are advanced through close study of six post-1990 films: Krzysztof Kieślowski’s <i>Trois Couleurs </i>trilogy, <i>Bleu, Blanc </i>and <i>Rouge, </i>and Claire Denis’ <i>Nénette et Boni, Trouble Every Day</i> and <i>L’Intrus</i>. While the two directors might be considered to be quite different in their approach to film-making, they share a mutual concern with highly crafted narrative, characterised by extreme sensitivity to questions of humanity and by economy of dialogue.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:598872 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Evans, G. L. |
| Publisher | University of Cambridge |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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