Location: EMOTIONAL WORK OF CINEMA

Discussion: Public / private cinema: micro-screens and emotionReported This is a featured thread

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PaulSutton
PaulSutton
Public / private cinema: micro-screens and emotion
Apr 5 2009, 3:23 AM EDT | Post edited: Apr 5 2009, 3:23 AM EDT
There is an interesting editorial in the May 09 issue of Sight and Sound which picks up on this question of private cinema but in the context of the micro-screen of the ipod, etc. I had been struck by the increasing ubiquity of various kinds of digital devices, all of which enable commuters to watch film and television as they journey to and from work. What I find especially interesting is not only the way that this repositions cinema but how it also represents a private mode of viewing but in a public space. Nick James, in Sight and Sound, wonders whether a 'third aesthetic' might be developed for these micro-screens that suits both the technical limitations of these tiny screens but also 'the solipsist, the lone viewer' (Sight and Sound, 19.5, 5). I wonder what the emotional work of cinema is in these kind of viewing contexts: what kinds of emotional experiences occur for the spectator, what motivates this type of private/public spectatorship, etc. At one level the micro-screen begins to function much like the novel, a connection that James makes in his editorial by citing Bazin, writing on the novel: 'its intimate effect on the isolated reader is not the same as that of a film on the crowd in a darkened cinema' (ibid). I have been teaching a module this term entitled 'Forms of Cinema', which explored two key questions: what is cinema? where is cinema? both of which are central to the rise of the micro-screen... Do you find this valuable?    

RachelShattockDawson
1. RE: Public / private cinema: micro-screens and emotion
Apr 5 2009, 8:14 AM EDT | Post edited: Apr 5 2009, 8:14 AM EDT
As an aside to the above, I read a consultancy marketing report last week which talked about the five screen-touchpoints and how effective marketing these days should aim to reach us through all five - the cinema, the TV, the computer, the mobile phone and the portable multimedia device (Blackberry, iTouch/iPod etc). It referred to the same point, by concluding that content should be adapted to the environment the watcher is in (public/private/intimate etc) as well be relevant to the user's frame of mind (at work, relaxed, etc) as well as to the type of screen. Do you find this valuable?