Author: Peter Vorderer Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136687696 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 372
Book Description
This volume begins with the general assumption that suspense is a major criterion for both an audience's selection and evaluation of entertaining media offerings. This assumption is supported not only by the popularity of suspenseful narratives, but also by the reasons users give for their actual choice of media contents. Despite this, there is no satisfying theory to describe and explain what suspense actually is, how exactly it is caused by films or books, and what kind of effect it has on audiences. This book's main objective is to provide that theory by bringing together scholars from different disciplines who are working on the issue. The editors' goal is to reflect the "state of the art" as much as it is to highlight and encourage further developments in this area. There are two ways of approaching the problem of describing and explaining suspense: an analysis of suspenseful texts or the reception process. Researchers who follow the more text-oriented approach identify the uncertainty of the narrative outcome, the threat or danger for the protagonist, the play with time delay, or other factors as important and necessary for the production of suspense. The more reception-oriented scholar focuses on the cognitive activities of audiences, readers' expectations, the curiosity of onlookers, their emotions, and their relationships with the protagonists. A correspondence between the two seems to be quite difficult, though necessary to determine. Both perspectives are important in order to describe and explain suspense. Thus, the editors utilize the thesis that suspense is an activity of the audience (reader, onlooker, etc.) that is related to specific features and characteristics of the text (books, films, etc.). Their question is: What kind of relation? The answer comes from finding out how, why, and which elements of the text cause effects that are experienced as suspense. Scholars from semiotics, literary criticism, cultural studies, and film theory assess the problem from a text-oriented point of view, dealing primarily with the how and which. Other scholars present the psychological perspective by focusing on the cognitive and emotional processes that underlie viewers' experience of suspense; that is, the reception theory tries to answer the question of why suspenseful texts may be experienced as they are.
Author: Rick Warner Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231559526 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 231
Book Description
Typically, films are suspenseful when they keep us on the edge of our seats, when glimpses of a turning doorknob, a ticking clock, or a looming silhouette quicken our pulses. Exemplified by Alfred Hitchcock’s masterworks and the countless thrillers they influenced, such films captivate viewers with propulsive plots that spur emotional investment in the fates of protagonists. Suspense might therefore seem to be a curious concept to associate with art films featuring muted characters, serene landscapes, and unrushed rhythms, in which plot is secondary to mood and tone. This ambitious and wide-ranging book offers a redefinition of suspense by considering its unlikely incarnations in the contemporary films that have been called “slow cinema.” Rick Warner shows how slowness builds suspense through atmospheric immersion, narrative sparseness, and the withholding of information, causing viewers to oscillate among boredom, curiosity, and dread. He focuses on works in which suspense arises where the boundaries between art cinema and popular genres—such as horror, thriller, science fiction, and gothic melodrama—become indefinite, including Chantal Akerman’s La captive, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, Lucrecia Martel’s Zama, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Creepy, and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return. Warner investigates the pivotal role of sound in generating suspense and traces how the experience of suspense has changed in the era of digital streaming. The Rebirth of Suspense develops a fresh theory, history, typology, and analysis of suspense that casts new light on the workings of films across global cinema.
Author: Andrew Ortony Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521386647 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 228
Book Description
It has long been clear that the way in which people interpret the world affects our emotional reactions. What has been less clear is exactly how such different interpretations lead to different emotions. This is the central question addressed by The Cognitive Structure of Emotions. Taking a cognitive science perspective, a systematic account is presented of the cognitive structures that underlie a wide range of different emotions. Detailed proposals about the factors that affect intensity are also offered. The authors propose three broad classes of emotions, each corresponding to a different attentional focus. One class consists of reactions to events, one of reactions to the actions of agents, and one of reactions to objects. By basing their analysis of the antecedents of emotions on an analysis of the perceived situational conditions that elicit them, the authors offer the prospect of accounting for variations in the emotions of different individuals, different cultures, and perhaps even different species.
Author: Diana Holmes Publisher: Manchester University Press ISBN: 9780719045547 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
Truffaut shot to fame in 1959 with his first film Les 400 Coups, a semi-autobiographical narrative shot in the low-budget neo-realist style of the emerging Nouvelle Vague. He went on to make twenty-three films in twenty-six years, films which have entertained, provoked debate and caused controversy. This fresh appraisal of his work provides a useful socio-political contextualization and gives an overview of his films and film-making methods, shedding new light on key aspects such as sexual politics, the construction of masculinity, the exploitation of genre and the tension throughout the films between the "absolute" and the "provisional."
Author: Eric S. Rabkin Publisher: ISBN: Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
"When Slim Turned Sideways . . ."--this is narrative suspense, and if well done propels the reader on into and through a novel, or folktale, or printed play, or epic poem. How does it work? Is it a matter of plot only? Why do some works rivet our attention from the first page, while others obviously do not? These are among the deceptively simple questions taken up in Eric Rabkin's seminal study of narrative suspense. Using the insights afforded by structuralism, linguistics, and modern criticism--and basing his discussion on close readings of many well-known works--Rabkin provides at once an original work in literary theory and a remarkably practical account of how successful narrative establishes and sustains interest on several levels. Suspense, Rabkin shows, is involved not only in the plot of a narrative, but in its thematic development, character development, and style as well. This broad understanding enables the author to develop a coherent theoretical description of suspense, using the terminology of rhetoric. The most startling result of this approach is a schematic representation for literary genres that, though arrived at theoretically, corresponds almost exactly to our intuitive categorization of literary works. Narrative Suspense can be read with ample profit by interested layman and professional critic alike. With wit and intelligence, the book clarifies an oft-perceived phenomenon--the fundamental importance of suspense, broadly defined, in all great works of literature.
Author: John V Pavlik Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1315530759 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
The early eras of radio storytelling have entered and continue to enter the public domain in large quantities, offering unprecedented access to the Golden Age of Radio. Author and Professor John Pavlik mines the best this age of radio has to offer in Masterful Stories, an examination of the masterpieces of audio storytelling. This book provides a chronological history of the best of the best from radio’s Golden Age, outlining a core set of principles and techniques that made these radio plays enduring examples of storytelling. It suggests that, by using these techniques, stories can engage audiences emotionally and intellectually. Grounded in a historical and theoretical understanding of radio drama, this volume illuminates the foundational works that proceeded popular modern shows such as Radiolab, The Moth, and Serial. Masterful Stories will be a powerful resource in both media history courses and courses teaching audio storytelling for modern radio and other audio formats, such as podcasting. It will appeal to audio fans looking to learn about and understand the early days of radio drama.
Author: Peter Vorderer
Author: Rick Warner
Author: 
Author: Library of Congress
Author: Andrew Ortony
Author: United States. Department of the Army
Author: Diana Holmes
Author: Eric S. Rabkin
Author: John V Pavlik
Author: