Emotion and Films

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environment, and movement. Specificity of a film elicits a much stronger emotional response than a generalized informations. The density of images where let’s say we see a specific person as a villain; for example, Pennywise in the movie elicits a stronger sense of fear compared to his description in Stephen King’s Novel IT. Films are also a compilation of various images thus providing a sense of movement. Editing techniques used properly can bring forth the desired effect of the artist. For instance, parallel editing which shows two events occurring simultaneously while cutting back and forth from one scene to another with and increasing speed as the scenes approaches climax. The increasing tempo and rhythm creates a sense of excitement and anticipation thus generating strong emotional reaction. Films can also show objects at various distance, either from far away in a long shot or very closely in a closeup to manipulate its viewers’ emotions. The early film theorist Béla Balázs noted that, when closeup is used to show the temperament of a human face, it helps us notice the slight nuances of human emotion that we can’t capture in a wide shot.

Let’s go back to the thesis and assume that the films emotional power only comes from our identification with the character(s) is true. In that case only way a film would be emotionally successful if and only if I can identify myself as the character. I am emotionally moved by Albus Dumbledore’s death, does it mean that I am identifying myself as him dying? or am I seeing myself as a 16-year-old wizard who just lost his headmaster? Neither of those statements make sense. I am not an extremely old dying wizard nor am I young wizard with the weight of the world on my shoulders. True that sometimes we do relate to the character, but it is only in a metaphorical or representational manner. We get emotionally invested in the fate of a character; In lord of the rings I want Frodo to destroy the ring, I am rooting for him, but I don’t believe that his action in anyway will affect my real life. Talking about our self-identification with a character the paradox of fiction comes into play. We can have real emotional reaction without believing that the character suffering might in fact be us.

In this essay I have presented a few arguments to show that our identification with a character is not the sole source of a films emotional power. We get the full impact of a films emotional power when music, cinematography, film editing etc. are combined in to a two-hour emotional rollercoaster ride. To conclude I would like to state that a film’s emotional power rests on various complex components as opposed to only depending on one aspect.