Download (12MB) - University of Salford Institutional Repository

characters being stimulated into taking action to achieve goals - overlook subtle yet
important elements of the emotion system such as moods: 'These less intense states are as
vital to understanding filmic emotion as are more prototypical emotions' (Smith G., 1999:
104). He proposes a theory that takes into account the function of film style and aesthetics in
generating filmic emotion, an approach that differs from that of Grodal and Carroll who
imply 1 that filmic emotions are principally based around characters establishing goals and
trying to achieve them. Smith asserts that filmic emotion is not necessarily goal/action
oriented:
Emotion states can have nondirected expression (like depression) and can be elicited by extremely
diffUse stimuli (like a sunny day). If I feel happy because it is a sunny day, my emotion has a cause, but
the 'object' (everything surrounding me) is too diffuse to be an object in any strongly meaningful sense
(Smith G., 1999: 106).
It follows that a cognitivist approach to the generation of emotion in real life and on screen is
less convincing in explaining states of melancholy and depression; 'If I am so depressed that
I am immobile, it is difficult to view such an emotional, self-perpetuating state as being an
"action tendency" toward a goal' (Smith G., 1999: 106). Because moods are 'a longer-lasting
but less forceful emotion' within a film, their 'longevity helps make them a crucial part of the
emotion system' (Smith G., 1999: 113) as they 'prepare us to express and experience
emotion' (Smith G., 1999: 115).
Smith adds that once a mood has been developed it is often 'bolstered by occasional
bursts of emotion' that he labels 'emotion markers', the critic illustrating his theory by
discussing sequences from Raiders of the Lost Ark where a mood of apprehensive suspense is
periodically reinforced by visual and aural cues such as facial close-ups of fearful expressions
and musical 'stingers' (Smith G., 1999: 117-118). The notion is also relevant to the more
nuanced approaches of art cinema, examples of which can be seen within contemporary
Italian film-making. Cipri and Maresco's Toto che visse due voltelToto Who Lived Twice
51