The Reality of Illusion: An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Film Theory

By Joseph D. Anderson

Book Overview

Applying research findings from studies in visual perception, neurophysiology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and anthropology, Joseph D. Anderson defines the complex interaction of motion pictures with the human mind and organizes the relationship between film and cognitive science.

Anderson's primary argument is that motion picture viewers mentally process the projected images and sounds of a movie according to the same perceptual rules used in response to visual and aural stimuli in the world outside the theater. To process everyday events in the world, the human mind is equipped with capacities developed through millions of years of evolution. In this context, Anderson builds a metatheory influenced by the writings of J. J. and Eleanor Gibson and employs it to explore motion picture comprehension as a subset of general human comprehension and perception, focusing his ecological approach to film on the analysis of cinema's true substance: illusion.

Anderson investigates how viewers, with their mental capacities designed for survival, respond to particular aspects of filmic structure--continuity, diegesis, character development, and narrative--and examines the ways in which rules of visual and aural processing are recognized and exploited by filmmakers. He uses Orson Welles's Citizen Kane to disassemble and redefine the contemporary concept of character identification; he addresses continuity in a shot-by-shot analysis of images from Casablanca; and he uses a wide range of research studies, such as Harry F. Harlow's work with infant rhesus monkeys, to describe how motion pictures become a substitute or surrogate reality for an audience. By examining the human capacity for play and the inherent potential for illusion, Anderson considers the reasons viewers find movies so enthralling, so emotionally powerful, and so remarkably real.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809320002
• ISBN13: 9780809320004
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.9" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

If you interested in the experience of watching a film....

This is an excellent book if you are interested in the film experience. It is not a how to book on making films. Nor will it necessarily make you appreciate films more. But if you find it amazing that we enjoy films and if you wonder how film experience is different from everyday experience, then this is a very fine book. It stands in the classic tradition of attempts to figure out what is happening to the spectator when watching a film, such as Munsterberg's 1916 study relying on the psychology of his day and Rudolf Arnheim's work that relied on Gestalt psychology. Anderson's book relies on Gibsonian ecological psychology. It will show you what we know and make you amazed how mysterious the film experience is.

The book does what it says, and well

For a psychologist and college teacher who uses films in class, plus is writing about films, education, and psychology, this book is a very good overview of how movies affect the viewer's mind and brain; that is basically the meaning of "cognitive theory." There are many other books written before and after, some going into great detail and using more sophisticated language from both film theory and cognitive science. However, the author's accessible style makes it a pleasure to work through and forms a foundation for further reading. It includes topics such as evolution, perception, emotion, neuroscience, and narrative in relation to how we perceive and respond to film. If my primary goal were to learn how to make films, of course cognitive theory would not be my first topic, but perhaps it makes sense to understand more of the thinking behind the creation. Surely learning a craft, even a very complex one such as film making, does not have to exclude a more thorough education.