A study in cinematic subjectivity

Coëgnarts, Maarten; Kravanja, Peter

doi:10.1075/msw.4.2.01coe

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Examining this assumption has been exactly the central aim of our recent work on cinematic subjectivity (Coëgnarts & Kravanja, 2014, 2015. Following the structure of Figure 2 our research was driven by the answerability of the following two questions:…”

Section: Spatial Construals Of Character Perception In Filmmentioning

confidence: 99%

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With the Pastin Front ofthe Character: Evidence for Spatial-Temporal Metaphors in Cinema

Coëgnarts

Kravanja

2015

Metaphor and Symbol

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Cognitive research on Ego-Reference-Point models of time in English traditionally shows that "FUTURE IS IN FRONT OF EGO" and "PAST IS IN BACK OF EGO." Recently, however, this view has been challenged by other results, showing that there exists a major static model of time wherein "FUTURE IS IN BACK OF EGO" and "PAST IS IN FRONT OF EGO." However, evidence for both conceptual systems comes predominantly from linguistic and gestural forms of expression.For instance, convincing empirical evidence coming from the manifestation mode of cinema is still lacking. This article attempts to fill this gap by bringing the discussion of temporal metaphors to the foreground of character subjectivity in film. Using concise case-studies taken from various films, this study provides evidence that a majority of flashback scenes seem to base their conceptions of time on a static Ego-Reference-Point model in which the past appears to be in front of the character's eyes on screen.

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Section: Spatial Construals Of Character Perception In Filmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 For a detailed discussion of each category we refer to Coëgnarts & Kravanja (2014, 2015. 4 All film stills in this contribution are treated as visual citations, in accordance with the established guideline for fair use of film stills from DVDs in scholarly writings.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

With the Pastin Front ofthe Character: Evidence for Spatial-Temporal Metaphors in Cinema

Coëgnarts

Kravanja

2015

Metaphor and Symbol

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“…For this reason the study of conceptual metaphor cannot be restricted to the study of language alone (see also Forceville 2009Forceville , 2011Forceville and Jeulink 2011;Gibbs and Perlman 2006: 215). For instance, if conceptual metaphors are modality-independent, it is plausible to assume that the same embodied conceptual structures that lie at the heart of our linguistic expressions of perception are also pervasive in those fi lmic expressions that convey information about the perceptual states of fi lm characters (Coëgnarts and Kravanja 2014, 2015a, 2015b.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing Yourself in the Past: The Role of Situational (Dis)continuity and Conceptual Metaphor in the Understanding of Complex Cases of Character Perception

Coëgnarts¹,

Kiss²,

Kravanja³

et al. 2016

Projections

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This article examines the role of situational (dis)continuity and conceptual metaphor in the cinematic construal of complex cases of character perception. It claims that fi lmed events of the script "a character S seeing something O" can impede the continuity of real-life perception by eliciting discontinuity along two situational dimensions-the temporal dimension (i.e., one cannot directly see events in the past or the future), and the entity dimension (i.e., one cannot see oneself in the act of looking). The article concludes with a case study of Christopher Smith's Triangle (2009) as an example of contemporary complex narrative cinema.

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“…Elsewhere (Coëgnarts and Kravanja, 2014b, 2015b, 2016a we have argued that film is similarly capable of eliciting the conceptual solutions, as raised above, to express the characters' subjective experience of seeing. It is through the forces of cinema (for example, framing, editing, camera movement) and the formal density they impose onto the first-order reality, that we have claimed, that the viewer is prompted to see a fictional character (S) and the object of his or her perception (O) as spatially connected to each other, and by further metaphorical extension that S sees O.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our previous work (Coëgnarts and Kravanja, 2012, 2014b, 2015b, 2016aCoëgnarts et al, 2016) can be seen as a series of attempts to explore and illustrate this line of reasoning with respect to various target domains of character subjectivity. Two such case-studies (character perception and character emotions) will be presented in the second application part below of this article.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cinema and the embodied mind: metaphor and simulation in understanding meaning in films

Coëgnarts

2017

Palgrave Commun

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Only recently, the broad research program of embodied cognition has fuelled a substantial and ongoing body of research at the crossroads of cognitive science and film studies. Two influential theories of embodiment that have received considerable attention among film scholars are: Conceptual Metaphor Theory (originated in the field of cognitive linguistics) and Embodied Simulation Theory (originated in the field of neuroscience). Despite their intimate relationship, both theories have been rarely addressed together in the context of film studies. This article takes on the challenge of combining both perspectives into a unified embodied model for understanding conceptual meaning in cinema. The study is driven by two key assumptions, namely: (1) that meaning in film is metaphorically mapped within our sensory-motor system and (2) that embodied simulation processes in the brain allow for the viewer to infer this meaning from the evidence provided by the film. To clarify both assumptions, the article will present a discussion of the theme of embodiment at three levels of analysis: the conceptual level (how is meaning embodied in the human mind?), the formal level (how is this meaning structured in the visual mode of expression?) and the receptive level (how is the viewer able to infer this meaning on the basis of the evidence provided by the form?). The grounding problem of fictional subjectivity in cinema (that is, how are viewers able to attribute mental states to fictional characters in films?) will be used to test the validity of both claims.

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A study in cinematic subjectivity

Cited by 10 publications

References 31 publications

With the Pastin Front ofthe Character: Evidence for Spatial-Temporal Metaphors in Cinema

With the Pastin Front ofthe Character: Evidence for Spatial-Temporal Metaphors in Cinema

Seeing Yourself in the Past: The Role of Situational (Dis)continuity and Conceptual Metaphor in the Understanding of Complex Cases of Character Perception

Cinema and the embodied mind: metaphor and simulation in understanding meaning in films

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