This thesis analyzes the materialistic film aesthetics of Siegfried Kracauer and aims to consider the phenomenon and significance of film experience. In this respect, this essay reexamines Kracauer's realism film theory in terms of a spectator as a su...
This thesis analyzes the materialistic film aesthetics of Siegfried Kracauer and aims to consider the phenomenon and significance of film experience. In this respect, this essay reexamines Kracauer's realism film theory in terms of a spectator as a subject of film experience. This essay find his theory of spectatorship to have the connection with contemporary film theory as well as the critical implication on the traditional relationship of subject and object.
Kracauer's realism film theory focuses on film images that show concrete real-life scenes without much deformation. For Kracauer, 'cinematic film' means a film that is appropriate to the unique ability of a camera to reproduce reality. In his view, the spectator representing the modern is governed by abstract and quantifying mode of thinking of the modern that makes it difficult to capture the vivid traits of the object. In connection with this reality, Kracauer expects that the spectator suffering from isolation and alienation in the modern society can directly experience physical reality through film. For Kracauer, film is a medium that can give these spectators the possibility of specific awareness of their own existence and of the world as well as the possibility to correct the limits of modern experience.
This thesis attempts to reconstruct the meaning of Kracauer’s film aesthetics by focusing on the experience of an spectator, that has not been well noticed in his film theory, in order to clarify Kracauer's intention. Today, the study on Kracauer’s Theory of Film remains a fragmentary understanding being the classical writing in realistic film theory. Also, the matter of the spectator's film experience is regarded as secondary to Kracauer's film theory. In this context, this essay argues that the spectator’s experience is the fundamental foundation in Kracauer's film theory, standing on a different line from the existing interpretation.
In general, Kracauer's film aesthetics is called materialistic, as it deals with the content of a film that refers to physical reality rather than the idea of an artist. His materialist film aesthetics also comprehends the technical characteristics of the phenomena of material life recorded and revealed in the film. If we regard the objects that make up the physical world as 'down' and the ideological value as 'top', Kracauer's approach is thinking from 'down' to the 'top'. This approach also applies when Kracauer sees the film experience. He stresses great importance to the acceptance of the film with the material body of the spectator. This view has meaningful significance in making a great step forward from the ideological discussion of film experience of that time when the film experience should be acting more psychologically on the spectator's reason.
The film experience is triggered by the sensory experience of the viewer, and also acts in the spiritual realm of the spectator. First of all, the impact of the film image weakens the influence of conscious spirit of the spectator, which can invoke subconscious memories and immerse him in the film image. However, the experience of film is not limited to this private dimension. As a subject of film experience, the spectator connects with his/her life by accepting the realistic film image, and thus the film experience has the potential to be extended from the individual body of the viewer to the social consciousness.
In particular, this thesis focuses on the fact that Kracauer refers to the phenomenon that the viewer is identified with the film image, and posits that the phenomenon is in the form of 'mimetic identification'. Through the film, which shows the nature in the raw that is not overly transformed, the spectator loses his/her own self and experiences the assimilation to the image. This experience is incompatible with existing cognitive structures that assume a fixed subject-object relationship. The film spectator is no longer a subject that unilaterally defines the meaning of the object. In the film experience, the viewer forgets the bourgeois ideology of self-identity and engages in an embodied contact with the world before defining it with a calculative and objectified way of thinking.
Furthermore, this thesis considers that Kracauer's discussion of film experience with sensory aesthetic characteristics can serve as a pre-history of phenomenological film theory. The phenomenological theories of film, including Vivian Sobchack's work, are related to Kracauer's theory in that they deal with film experiences that interact with the world based on the viewer's physicality in common.