Eye of the Century by Casetti Francesco.;

Author:Casetti, Francesco.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PER004030, Performing Arts/Film & Video/History & Criticism, PER004000, Performing Arts/Film and Video/General
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)
Published: 2008-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

CONSTRUCTING EMOTIONS

Let us try to join the threads of this issue. The three films analyzed revolve around one of modernity’s most essential junctures, what Simmel called the “intensification of nervous stimulation.” The world becomes richer in provocations, and the sensitivity of its inhabitants increases. Each film has shed some light on a particular form of sensory excitement: the thrill of movement, the thrill of change, and the thrill of rhythm, respectively. The dangers associated with such sensory excitement have likewise emerged: the risk of losing one’s way (the world is moving forward, and I don’t know where I am); the risk of not understanding the new forms (the world is changing, and I do not recognize it, nor do I recognize myself); and the risk of losing the meaning of things (the world is following a rhythm, and I do not understand why). In such a situation, the cinema develops a dual line of behavior. It puts into play an excited gaze that gathers stimuli and boosts them, yet it also gives this gaze adequate defenses, which protect it from possible dangers. It is here, in front of a fast-moving reality, that the filmic gaze reveals itself just as fast: it moves, it jumps between different scenarios, it anticipates the next step. At the same time, it does not get lost: the observer knows where he or she is and goes along with the flow of events, instead of being overwhelmed by or excluded from them. The race against time is the key image of this challenge to speed, but the cinema registers and appropriates attitudes such as the wait, the escape, or immobility. The filmic gaze is also able to open up to the new, to dream it as well, and finally to separate it from the old. At the same time, it prepares itself against the fear of the unknown: the process of figuration and refiguration carried out by the films allows the new to appear as the effect of a regeneration, and on this basis, as something acceptable and accepted. The cinema adopts a similar behavior with the world as pure rhythmic pulsation. On the one hand, its gaze is able to gather all provocation (it can “dance” in rhythm to the material and bodies). On the other, it can also put itself back on the path to meaning (that meaning that seems lost in the stupefaction of impressions, and that narration is able to reconquer). In short, the cinema is able to compete with the excited world. Better still, it gives an image of this excitement and thus contributes to making it perceptible: it enjoys the thrill that it brings, but it is also able to face the catastrophe that hangs over all excitement. The dialectic between the intensification of the nervous life and a defense from sensory excess finds a point of equilibrium in the cinema.

There is clearly a dynamic of negotiation, directed at finding convergences among different stimuli and needs. This dynamic intersects with

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