How should film be viewed?
My understanding of audience theory is that once a text is released for public consumption, a viewer (or reader) can interpret, see meaning in it, in whatever way or ways he or she sees fit so to do. There are many film fansites devoted to contributors’ discussions of what they liked or disliked about their favourite films, inventing extra twists and turns for a film and even lengthy storylines extending a film’s narrative (perhaps akin to the circumlocutions devised in medieval times, lengthening the tales of the search for the holy grail by filling in with sub-stories). The point of this is that there is no right way to watch and appreciate a film.
Films can be appreciated as a genre text or as a star vehicle that mainly seeks to put a celebrated, cameragenic face or body before an audience. If you consider that the cinema experience is of big images on a big screen, it is possible to argue that the spectator is keen to see larger than life, possibly superhuman feats performed by iconic, quasi-religious figures; the auditorium as a kind of shrine. Film is also a cultural entity, or it can be viewed as having major sociological or historical significance. Film can be viewed as art or as commerce. It is the culmination of many stories. Where did these actors learn their craft? How did they come to work on this film? How did the screenplay come about? How did the entire production team come together – each one in talking about his or her particular role in the film’s making will feature his or her own aspect? The make-up team will tell a story of how the film’s stars were made up. The wardrobe department will tell us about how the actors were clothed; cinematographers will talk about how the film was lit; the sound recordists will tell us how the dialogue was captured and so on: a multiplicity of stories and interpretations, well beyond the film’s own plot-line.
John Hartley in 1982 pointed out through his theory of subjectivities that we bring a lot of information to a text such as gender, age and social class. This means that our readings of a film may well be unique to us as we interpret it against our own ideas and experiences. The more knowledge and awareness of other films, of art, of history, of psychology, of current events that we can bring to our film-viewing, the richer will our film consumption be, the fuller and more reliable will be the discourses arising out of our film-making. Film has long established itself as great creativity to be considered alongside the greatest drama, the greatest art, the greatest ballet and so on. Film study is as life-enhancing as any other higher order activity and has much to teach us about ourselves and about life besides being the enjoyable appreciation of a wonderfully complex and profound collaborative human activity.