My relationship with film
The relationship between a viewer and a film is a complex one. Films can have huge effects on audiences and as every person is an individual it’s impossible to say that a film will have the same impact on every single viewer. Audiences can affect a film and its popularity at any moment, as well as its status in our culture.
I choose films to watch through a number of ways: IMDB ratings (if it’s fewer than 7 it’s a no go), recommendations from family/friends, or films with a similar theme to those I have enjoyed. I take notice of trailers if there is hype around a film, or if it is a big blockbuster (Captain America etc.)
Films have an effect on audiences but also audiences can have an effect on films, with fandom it can go both ways. Fans are people who love a particular film, genre, character or star and they share camaraderie with other fans. There are a huge range of ‘fan’ activities such as attending conventions, dressing up (Cosplay), writing fan fiction, blogging, starting a website, attending premieres, collecting merchandise, writing fan mail or even getting into film production and referencing the films you are a fan of. Films have clearly had an effect on the fans by making them get obsessed and turning the film into a hobby, fans also have an impact on the film, turning it into more than a film, making it a cultural phenomenon (e.g. Star Wars). Some fans become filmmakers, Kevin Smith references Star Wars in most of his movies and J.J. Abrams is now making a Star Wars movie after being a huge fan of the original. Fans have expanded the Star Wars universe by writing their own fan fiction and their continuing love for the franchise has led to more and more sequels.
Some fans have even gone as far as to call the Jedi their religion and some Trekkies have learned the (fictional) language Klingon from Star Trek. Some Avatar fans were even reported to be feeling depressed or suicidal as they could not visit the fictional planet Pandora. There is no doubt that fans take films very seriously and films can have a big impact on people’s lives.
The enjoyment of a film can be affected by the pre and post-viewing experiences of the person who watches it and where and how they watch it e.g. if a viewer watched all the trailers, promotional clips, interviews with the stars etc. before a film is released, they may have extremely high expectations of the film - the film might fail to meet these expectations. Batman vs. Superman (2016) is a perfect example of a disappointing film. More than a few fans are really not happy with how Zack Snyder handled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. They’ve now created two petitions to have him removed from ever playing in the DC Universe again. The two petitions launched in response to the aforementioned movie, which, despite its pretty darn solid box office take of $500 million worldwide, stands at a pretty bad 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. Comedies often have many of the best jokes in the trailers of the films and these jokes will not be as funny when they are in the final film if you have seen the trailer a few times. Similarly many trailers give a great deal of the story away and show many of the best stunts. Prometheus (2012) was also a victim of its excellent marketing because people had huge expectations but the film was not as good as many had hoped. Reading reviews (before or after) a film might also affect your enjoyment of a film. If you read a review it can be hard get the words of the writer out of your head and can end up affecting your opinion, many wait until after they have seen a film to read reviews. Also discussing a film after it has finished can potentially change your opinion of it
I won’t read reviews until after watching a film. I’m always interested to see what other people thought, especially if there a number of theories to an open ending. Watching a film at an IMAX cinema with state of the art sound is a very different experience to watching a film on a mobile phone or tablet. My preferred method of watching films is at the cinema. If an audience is laughing in a comedy or screaming in a horror, it will have an effect on other viewers. Watching a film with mates is different to watching it with parents or on a first date and watching it alone is very different to watching it with a large audience. There you get the full experience, all your senses are heightened due to the size of the screen, darkness, sound etc. With the ease of downloading films at home I think in some ways the real ‘film experience’ is lost, especially if the film relies on atmosphere and sound. Unless the consumer owns a cinema sound system they may be losing out. This is common within the horror genre, the darkness and quiet is needed to increase the tension and keep the audience on the edge of their seat.
Active spectatorship suggests each viewer is different and many people in the audience will question the film and react to it in different ways. Active spectators do not just consume what they are told to watch but instead choose different films to watch for different reasons. It can be argued some films encourage active spectatorship by making their films more open to individual interpretation and making it easier for people to read the film differently and respond to it in different ways. For example Pulp Fiction is told in a non-linear fashion and so the audience has to construct the real chronology of the story in their own head. The film does not have heroes or villains and there is very little that tells the audience how to feel at certain times or what to feel about certain characters. Spectators think for themselves about whom to be sad about if they die or even who is the main character of the story. The film Trance, a psychological thriller starring James McAvoy, is another example. It keeps viewers guessing all the way through the film, the intricate editing shifts perspectives, chronology and the like.
The passive spectatorship suggests we are all the same and our intelligence, life experiences and everything else that makes us individuals does not affect our reception of the film. Some filmmakers try to turn the audience into passive spectators by filling their films with very obvious, unambiguous preferred readings. A preferred reading is where the producers of the text encode it with meaning using various codes such as music, lighting and cinematography in order to try and get as many people agreeing over the meaning of the text as possible. Blockbusters generally have a clear preferred reading for example, in Titanic when the protagonist Jack dies there is sad music playing as the soundtrack and the lighting is pale. Not only that, but the character is played by Leonardo DiCaprio who audiences are very familiar with. It is made very clear how the filmmaker wants the audience to think and feel about the characters, story and event in the film. The way the scene is shot and edited makes the majority of the audience agree it’s sad that Jack has died.
The Uses and Gratifications theory suggested by Blumler and Katz indicates that there are four main pleasures that audiences gain from films; diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance.
Diversion is the most common reason people choose to watch films, viewers will watch a film to get away from their life problems in reality. Most Hollywood blockbusters offer escapism to the audience. An example of this is Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. They include easy understanding stories where good triumphs against evil, leaving people feeling happy with the film’s result and going home cheerful; emotions people may not always feel in the routine of their everyday lives. Many films are set in fantasy lands, like the far off planets in Star Wars, allowing people to completely escape.
Some people may use films as a substitute for personal relationships e.g. films that are about groups of friends may help a person to feel like part of a group. For people who watch The Inbetweeners they may find characters they would like to be friends with and watching them is like being in their company. This applies more to TV shows like soap operas rather than films.
Many people may watch a film for reasons of personal identity; when a viewer watches a film because they see themselves reflected in it, whether it be one specific character or a certain subculture of lifestyle. ‘Stoner’ comedies are a perfect example. People who smoke drugs are much more likely to relate to stoner comedies like Cheech and Chong or Pineapple Express. Some people watch violent films about football hooliganism such as Green Street because it is a lifestyle that they can relate to. The viewer might even learn some of their values from the text.
Surveillance is another pleasure of film watching that means finding films that might contain information that is useful for living. An example is Fahrenheit 9/11 which might educate the viewer about the current state of America. People may watch world cinema to learn more about cultures that are foreign e.g. City of God and La Haine teach the viewer about what it is like to live in poor areas of Brazil and France. While this could be considered escapism from their own life in Britain, they could also contain information that is useful in life.
What makes us individuals are a range of things and these could be considered our frameworks of interpretation. Age, class, ethnicity, education and past experiences all have some bearing on the way one reads and interprets a film. Though a film may have a preferred reading, there may be some differences in the way people interpret it due to their differing frameworks of interpretation.
Avatar (2009) may appear to be about a so-called primitive alien species that taught a human that he should be more respectful of nature and the environment. However others criticised it for portraying the aliens as savages and for the use of African-American and Native American actors in the roles of the aliens. I interpreted it as a ‘save the world’ film, the emphasis on a world cared for by the ‘primitive culture’ that is run by nature needs protecting, runs parallel with the fact the Earth is slowly being destroyed through humans excessive use of natural resources. Others consider it a patronising view of non-white cultures and criticised it for having a white hero who has to save the savages. Some critics with different frameworks of interpretation were more sensitive to these issues. A major factor of this is the media literacy of the viewer. If someone is educated about the media and is aware of how media texts are constructed, this is likely to have an impact on their enjoyment and interpretation of a film. A viewer who is more media literate may be aware of how the text is positioning them and may therefore be less suggestible to the messages of the film; they are more aware of how the preferred readings of a film are constructed and therefore may resist the ideology or messages of the film more than someone who is less aware e.g. some viewers may find ‘Kidulthood’ to be a realistic representation of London’s youth - others may see it as a sensationalistic film that stereotypes London teens in order to sell more tickets. Some will not enjoy fantasy films as much because they are overly aware of how the special effects are created and this ruins the magic for them. Some may appreciate the films of Tarantino because they are aware of the references to other films that Tarantino alludes to. They enjoy a film such as Pulp Fiction more because they find the structure challenging and interesting compared to a traditional narrative whereas others may find the non-linear narrative confusing. Intertextuality is where a film references another piece of media (deliberate or unavoidable). Tarantino pays homage to films he loves such as ‘Lady Snowblood’ in Kill Bill or ‘City on Fire’ (full film) in Reservoir Dogs by imitating them but not to mock them. Intertextuality can also be less deliberate and almost unavoidable; this is often the case with genre films and the use of stars. Any slasher film where a killer stalks a bunch of kids and stabs them one by one will always have unavoidable references to the whole slasher sub-genre of horror. Any time a star such as Tom Cruise is cast for example, the viewer is likely to be reminded of previous Tom Cruise films, where he mostly plays an action hero. This can be used to sell a film or it can be used to subvert expectations. The use of certain generic conventions or stars can impact the experience for the viewer, particularly if they are media literate or very knowledgeable about films.
Most people reject the idea that film audiences are a completely passive mass who do not question or interpret films in different ways; some argue that films can have serious and damaging effects on viewers. In the past, the media (particularly newspapers) have been quick to blame films and video games when individuals have committed terrible crimes. Natural Born Killers (opening scene) and A Clockwork Orange were blamed for copycat violence - some people see bad things in films and want to copy them. The main effects that people are concerned about are: desensitisation, fear, violence in society and viewer aggression. If people see a lot of violence in films they might become desensitised to real life violence e.g. children could be affected if they see too much violence on screen, perhaps they will not feel as strongly about it when they see it in real life. This could arguably make them dangerous human beings that do not empathise with people in pain and therefore they would be capable of being more violent in real life. Films make audiences feel that violence is an acceptable part of life and being violent is an acceptable way to behave; if film characters solve their problems with fights and killing the bad guys, people might follow. This also ties in with viewer aggression. If a viewer watched lots of violent films or films that make them angry, they might be more aggressive. The real concern is children who are considered to be more impressionable.
Watching Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Spiderman or Transformers may make them more aggressive and enjoy the idea of fighting more. The BBFC provide age ratings to stop children from seeing things that society deems unsuitable. The majority of the time the BBFC ratings are effective, however children have always and always will be attracted to media that is deemed ‘too old’ for them. The BBFC research what the public views are on things like sex, violence and swearing. Still occasionally but very rarely they ban or cut films that are too offensive or ‘dangerous’ even for people over the age of 18. With all this violent entertainment, vulnerable people may actually start to fear society and other people. If an elderly, frail person watched a film like Harry Brown or Kidulthood, it may make them fear London youth because of the stereotypes it presents. Horror movie watchers might be more afraid of being alone, women could be more afraid of men and the threat of rape all because of violent films that people watch for entertainment.
The Hypodermic Needle Model was developed in the 1920’s to explain reaction to mass media. Audiences passively receive information without challenging or processing data, this can be linked with propaganda, especially in Europe. It suggests behaviour and thoughts can be changed by media.
