Maarten Coëgnarts | University of Antwerp (original) (raw)
Video-essays by Maarten Coëgnarts
![Research paper thumbnail of 2023 - Embodied Visual Meaning [in] Motion](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/105177616/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, 2023
Following the embodied mind thesis, this video essay aims to demonstrate how dynamic patterns of ... more Following the embodied mind thesis, this video essay aims to demonstrate how dynamic patterns of containment, as elicited by the stylistic means of fixed-frame movement and mobile framing, play a significant role in fleshing out narrative meanings in film.
https://mediacommons.org/intransition/embodied-visual-meaning-motion
Call for papers by Maarten Coëgnarts
Tallinn invites scholars and creative professionals to contribute to the 2nd International Baltic... more Tallinn invites scholars and creative professionals to contribute to the 2nd International Baltic NeuroCine conference.
Baltic Screen Media Review, Special Issue, scheduled publication Dec 2023 Guest editors Pia Tikk... more Baltic Screen Media Review, Special Issue, scheduled publication Dec 2023
Guest editors Pia Tikka and Elen Lotman with Maarten Coëgnarts
Contact and submission to NeuroCineBFM@tlu.ee
Bibliographies by Maarten Coëgnarts
Books by Maarten Coëgnarts
How do the visuals of Kubrick’s work convey complex concepts and abstractions without the traditi... more How do the visuals of Kubrick’s work convey complex concepts and abstractions without the traditional reliance on words? And how does the pure instrumental music in his films express meaning when music, in essence, is an abstract art form? Drawing on state-of-the-art research in embodied cognitive science, this book sets out to explore these questions by revealing Kubrick as a genuine conceptual artist, a filmmaker who perhaps more than any other director, uses all the non-verbal resources of filmmaking in such a controlled and dense manner as to elicit the bodily structures necessary to achieve a level of conceptual understanding.
ISBN: 9781618118363 (hardcover), 9781644691120 (paperback)
Pages: 264 pp.; 118 figs.; 23 tables
More information is available on the following website:
https://www.academicstudiespress.com/out-of-series/film-as-embodied-art-bodily-meaning-in-the-cinema-of-stanley-kubrick
For a review from one of the leading Kubrick scholars in the field see:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/film-embodied-art-bodily-meaning-cinema-stanley-kubrick-maarten-coegnarts
The embodied cognition thesis claims that cognitive functions cannot be understood without making... more The embodied cognition thesis claims that cognitive functions cannot be understood without making reference to the interactions between the brain, the body, and the environment. The meaning of abstract concepts is grounded in concrete experiences. This book is the first edited volume to explore the impact of the embodied cognition thesis on the scientific study of film. A team of scholars analyse the main aspects of film (narrative, style, music, sound, time, the viewer, emotion, perception, ethics, the frame, etc.) from an embodied perspective. By combining insights from various disciplines such as cognitive film theory, conceptual metaphor theory, and cognitive neuroscience, they show how the process of meaning-making in film is embodied and how empathy and embodied simulation play a role in understanding the way in which the viewer interacts with the film.
PhD Dissertation by Maarten Coëgnarts
Journal Issues by Maarten Coëgnarts
In his book The Meaning of the Body the philosopher Mark Johnson argues that aesthetics is not ju... more In his book The Meaning of the Body the philosopher Mark Johnson argues that aesthetics is not just about art, beauty and taste, but rather about the way human beings construct and experience meaning as well as the bodily origins underlying this process (see also Johnson Identity). Johnson rejects both the conceptual or propositional view of meaning according to which meaning is only a linguistic phenomenon and the Kantian view of aesthetics according to which art is primarily subjective, connected to feelings and therefore non-conceptual and incapable of producing knowledge. For Johnson, meaning is always a matter of human understanding. It involves the question of how humans make sense of the world by means of their ongoing bodily engagement with the world. Meaning is embodied in that it emerges from qualities and patterns of bodily interaction with various aspects of our environment.
Papers by Maarten Coëgnarts
This article aims to highlight the role of embodied mental representations or embodied schemas in... more This article aims to highlight the role of embodied mental representations or embodied schemas in both perception and filmmaking/viewing by foregrounding three premises: (1) perception is inferential and relies on prior embodied schemas; (2) filmmakers (authors) do not merely reproduce reality but equally impose body-based schemas onto the parts of a film in order to convey meanings; and (3) these schemas, as presented by the formal design of the work, may enrich the viewers' experience by allowing them a privileged look into the embodied creative-thinking processes of filmmakers. It will be argued that viewers are prompted to peek into these processes because the representational embodied concepts, as cued by the films, are grounded in shared sensory-motor capacities that scaffold all abstract thinking and reasoning.
This article provides an embodied cognitive account of sound in fi lm. Treating sound and image a... more This article provides an embodied cognitive account of sound in fi lm. Treating sound and image as equal partners, we fi rst develop a spatial model for fi lm sound that is based on the inferential logic of the container image schema; an embodied schema which has been argued to play a pivotal role in human reasoning. Next, we use this model to distinguish between three kinds of dynamic sound patterns of containment in fi lm: (1) sound vectors that cross the on-screen/off-screen border within diegetic space, (2) sound vectors that shift from one diegetic time and/or space into another, and (3) sound vectors that cross the diegetic/non-diegetic border. The theoretical entailments of these patterns for fi lm sound analysis will be illustrated through various case examples of narrative cinema.
Semiotica, 2023
The goal of this article is to offer a new model for the study of ocularization in film grounded ... more The goal of this article is to offer a new model for the study of ocularization in film grounded in the semiotic pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce. We first present a literature overview addressing the state of research regarding the theorization of ocularization in film studies. Second, we discuss Peirce's three universal categories (Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness) on which our model will be based. Third, we argue how the theme of ocularization in film, as outlined in the first part, can be theorized anew through these categories. This will result in the introduction of a nine-field matrix that will allow us to systemize all kinds of instances of subjectivity in cinema. Lastly, we will demonstrate the empirical usefulness of this model by illustrating each of the matrix' nine categories through a discussion of Steven Soderbergh's film Kimi (2022).
This chapter aims to discuss the creation of time in cinema from an embodied cognitive perspectiv... more This chapter aims to discuss the creation of time in cinema from an embodied cognitive perspective. Drawing on principles of Cognitive linguistics, we first discuss briefly how our ordinary thinking about time is informed by spatial knowledge. Knowing how space shapes temporal thought, we subsequently show how filmmakers may cue this spatio-temporal logic in the direction of two opposing models of time-creation in cinema: one model in which cinematic creativity serves the purpose of optimal narrative clarity, and another model in which creativity resolves around the opposite goal of spatio-temporal ambiguity. We illustrate both models through various case-examples drawn from classical narrative cinema and modern and postmodern art cinema, respectively.
This essay examines the meaning potential of directed forces or vectors in cinema. The first part... more This essay examines the meaning potential of directed forces or vectors in cinema. The first part draws on the pioneering work of Rudolf Arnheim to highlight the prominent role of vectors in the visual structuring of meaning in paintings. In the second part, we move on to explore the semantic significance of motion vectors in cinema. To this aim we first define and diagram the filmic space in which vectors may articulate themselves visually. Having firmly grounded this spatial framework in film theory, we adopt the terminology of Herbert Zettl to further distinguish between three types of motion vectors: primary motion vectors (elicited by motion of visual objects), secondary motion vectors (elicited by camera movement) and tertiary motion vectors (elicited by editing). We conclude by applying the proposed conceptual tools of this essay to three filmic case-studies in which the relation between narrative meaning and motion vectors is further discussed and illustrated.
This paper adopts an embodied cognitive perspective to review the significance of dynamic pattern... more This paper adopts an embodied cognitive perspective to review the significance of dynamic patterns in the visual expression of meaning. Drawing upon the work of Rudolf Arnheim we first show how perceptual dynamics of inanimate objects might be extended in order to structure abstract meaning in fixed images such as paintings. Second, we evaluate existing experimental work that shows how simple kinematic structures within a stationary frame might embody such high-level properties as perceptual causality and animacy. Third and last, we take inspiration from these experiments to shed light on the expressiveness of dynamic patterns that unfold once the frame itself becomes a mobile entity (i.e., camera movement). In the latter case we will also present a filmic case study, showing how filmmakers might resort to these dynamic patterns so as to embody a film's story content, while simultaneously offering a further avenue for film scholars to deepen their engagement with the experimental method.
This article provides an embodied study of the fi lm style of the French fi lmmaker Éric Rohmer. ... more This article provides an embodied study of the fi lm style of the French fi lmmaker Éric Rohmer. Drawing on insights from cognitive linguistics, I fi rst show how dynamic patterns of containment shape human thinking about relationships, a concept central to Rohmer's cinema. Second, I consider the question of how fi lm might elicit this spatial thinking through the use of such cinematic devices as mobile framing and fi xed-frame movement. Third, using Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs series as a case study, I demonstrate how the fi lmmaker applies these devices-and with them the spatial thinking they initiate-systemically to shape the relationships of his fi lms visually. Lastly, I use the results of this analysis to provide discussion and suggestions for future research.
This chapter aims to discuss the notion of conceptual metaphor in relation to the visual manifest... more This chapter aims to discuss the notion of conceptual metaphor in relation to the visual manifestation level of films. The first part takes on the challenge of addressing a theoretical issue that is inherent to this level and that at first sight seems to impede a metaphorical analysis of film, namely the problem of iconicity. After having addressed this problem, the second part discusses how metaphor can be analyzed in film. Since conceptual metaphor can be conceived of as consisting of a relationship between image-schematic driven source domains and abstract target domains, this part is divided into three subparts. The first subpart shows how image schemas may be instantiated in visual images by means of the application of a variety of film stylistic means (e.g., camera movement, editing). The second subpart stresses the importance of metonymy in representing target domains in film. The third and last subpart makes their connection by illustrating, through a case-study taken from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), how stylistically motivated image schemas maybe be mapped onto the inferential logic of metonymically represented target domains.
This article aims to examine some aspects of the cinematic work of Stanley Kubrick from the embod... more This article aims to examine some aspects of the cinematic work of Stanley Kubrick from the embodied and interdisciplinary point-of-view of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Central to this theory is the idea that abstract concepts such as emotions, relationships and mental functions are metaphorically understood in terms of concrete concepts of human bodily experiences such as movement and spatial boundedness. Given that Kubrick’s work is characterised as highly conceptual, it is therefore plausible to assume that the meaning entailments of his films arise from the same mappings of embodied source domains. This paper sets out to illustrate this hypothesis by offering a dense analysis of various concise scenes taken from his oeuvre. It is precisely through Kubrick’s mastery of the devices of filmmaking (e.g. framing, camera movement, editing, etc.) that, as this paper demonstrates, his films exhibit a formal precision rooted in the human sensory-motor system, which enables them to reach a level of conceptual sophistication.
Only recently, the broad research program of embodied cognition has fuelled a substantial and ong... more Only recently, the broad research program of embodied cognition has fuelled a substantial and ongoing body of research at the crossroads of cognitive science and film studies. Two influential theories of embodiment that have received considerable attention among film scholars are: Conceptual Metaphor Theory (originated in the field of cognitive linguistics) and Embodied Simulation Theory (originated in the field of neuroscience). Despite their intimate relationship, both theories have been rarely addressed together in the context of film studies. This article takes on the challenge of combining both perspectives into a unified embodied model for understanding conceptual meaning in cinema. The study is driven by two key assumptions, namely: (1) that meaning in film is metaphorically mapped within our sensory-motor system and (2) that embodied simulation processes in the brain allow for the viewer to infer this meaning from the evidence provided by the film. To clarify both assumptions, the article will present a discussion of the theme of embodiment at three levels of analysis: the conceptual level (how is meaning embodied in the human mind?), the formal level (how is this meaning structured in the visual mode of expression?) and the receptive level (how is the viewer able to infer this meaning on the basis of the evidence provided by the form?). The grounding problem of fictional subjectivity in cinema (that is, how are viewers able to attribute mental states to fictional characters in films?) will be used to test the validity of both claims.
Suspense in cinema has often been described to result from either (1) the frustration of the view... more Suspense in cinema has often been described to result from either (1) the frustration of the viewers’ strong desire to know the narrative’s outcome (the uncertainty premise), or (2) the frustration of the viewers’ strong desire to use their knowledge in order to change the narrative’s outcome (the helplessness premise). In order to test the veracity of these assertions, one needs to examine the underlying mechanisms on which these cognitive frustrations (and by that the creation of suspense) rest. This paper aims to take on this task by drawing on the conceptual framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Using the subgenre of the slasher film as an exemplary case study, we show how suspense is grounded in perception in which the spatial constituents of image schemas (e.g. front, back, light, dark) are instantiated cinematically (e.g. by framing, editing, lighting) in order to structure the narrative’s conceptual constituents (e.g. the absence or presence of knowledge concerning the killer’s whereabouts).
Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, 2023
Following the embodied mind thesis, this video essay aims to demonstrate how dynamic patterns of ... more Following the embodied mind thesis, this video essay aims to demonstrate how dynamic patterns of containment, as elicited by the stylistic means of fixed-frame movement and mobile framing, play a significant role in fleshing out narrative meanings in film.
https://mediacommons.org/intransition/embodied-visual-meaning-motion
Tallinn invites scholars and creative professionals to contribute to the 2nd International Baltic... more Tallinn invites scholars and creative professionals to contribute to the 2nd International Baltic NeuroCine conference.
Baltic Screen Media Review, Special Issue, scheduled publication Dec 2023 Guest editors Pia Tikk... more Baltic Screen Media Review, Special Issue, scheduled publication Dec 2023
Guest editors Pia Tikka and Elen Lotman with Maarten Coëgnarts
Contact and submission to NeuroCineBFM@tlu.ee
How do the visuals of Kubrick’s work convey complex concepts and abstractions without the traditi... more How do the visuals of Kubrick’s work convey complex concepts and abstractions without the traditional reliance on words? And how does the pure instrumental music in his films express meaning when music, in essence, is an abstract art form? Drawing on state-of-the-art research in embodied cognitive science, this book sets out to explore these questions by revealing Kubrick as a genuine conceptual artist, a filmmaker who perhaps more than any other director, uses all the non-verbal resources of filmmaking in such a controlled and dense manner as to elicit the bodily structures necessary to achieve a level of conceptual understanding.
ISBN: 9781618118363 (hardcover), 9781644691120 (paperback)
Pages: 264 pp.; 118 figs.; 23 tables
More information is available on the following website:
https://www.academicstudiespress.com/out-of-series/film-as-embodied-art-bodily-meaning-in-the-cinema-of-stanley-kubrick
For a review from one of the leading Kubrick scholars in the field see:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/film-embodied-art-bodily-meaning-cinema-stanley-kubrick-maarten-coegnarts
The embodied cognition thesis claims that cognitive functions cannot be understood without making... more The embodied cognition thesis claims that cognitive functions cannot be understood without making reference to the interactions between the brain, the body, and the environment. The meaning of abstract concepts is grounded in concrete experiences. This book is the first edited volume to explore the impact of the embodied cognition thesis on the scientific study of film. A team of scholars analyse the main aspects of film (narrative, style, music, sound, time, the viewer, emotion, perception, ethics, the frame, etc.) from an embodied perspective. By combining insights from various disciplines such as cognitive film theory, conceptual metaphor theory, and cognitive neuroscience, they show how the process of meaning-making in film is embodied and how empathy and embodied simulation play a role in understanding the way in which the viewer interacts with the film.
In his book The Meaning of the Body the philosopher Mark Johnson argues that aesthetics is not ju... more In his book The Meaning of the Body the philosopher Mark Johnson argues that aesthetics is not just about art, beauty and taste, but rather about the way human beings construct and experience meaning as well as the bodily origins underlying this process (see also Johnson Identity). Johnson rejects both the conceptual or propositional view of meaning according to which meaning is only a linguistic phenomenon and the Kantian view of aesthetics according to which art is primarily subjective, connected to feelings and therefore non-conceptual and incapable of producing knowledge. For Johnson, meaning is always a matter of human understanding. It involves the question of how humans make sense of the world by means of their ongoing bodily engagement with the world. Meaning is embodied in that it emerges from qualities and patterns of bodily interaction with various aspects of our environment.
This article aims to highlight the role of embodied mental representations or embodied schemas in... more This article aims to highlight the role of embodied mental representations or embodied schemas in both perception and filmmaking/viewing by foregrounding three premises: (1) perception is inferential and relies on prior embodied schemas; (2) filmmakers (authors) do not merely reproduce reality but equally impose body-based schemas onto the parts of a film in order to convey meanings; and (3) these schemas, as presented by the formal design of the work, may enrich the viewers' experience by allowing them a privileged look into the embodied creative-thinking processes of filmmakers. It will be argued that viewers are prompted to peek into these processes because the representational embodied concepts, as cued by the films, are grounded in shared sensory-motor capacities that scaffold all abstract thinking and reasoning.
This article provides an embodied cognitive account of sound in fi lm. Treating sound and image a... more This article provides an embodied cognitive account of sound in fi lm. Treating sound and image as equal partners, we fi rst develop a spatial model for fi lm sound that is based on the inferential logic of the container image schema; an embodied schema which has been argued to play a pivotal role in human reasoning. Next, we use this model to distinguish between three kinds of dynamic sound patterns of containment in fi lm: (1) sound vectors that cross the on-screen/off-screen border within diegetic space, (2) sound vectors that shift from one diegetic time and/or space into another, and (3) sound vectors that cross the diegetic/non-diegetic border. The theoretical entailments of these patterns for fi lm sound analysis will be illustrated through various case examples of narrative cinema.
Semiotica, 2023
The goal of this article is to offer a new model for the study of ocularization in film grounded ... more The goal of this article is to offer a new model for the study of ocularization in film grounded in the semiotic pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce. We first present a literature overview addressing the state of research regarding the theorization of ocularization in film studies. Second, we discuss Peirce's three universal categories (Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness) on which our model will be based. Third, we argue how the theme of ocularization in film, as outlined in the first part, can be theorized anew through these categories. This will result in the introduction of a nine-field matrix that will allow us to systemize all kinds of instances of subjectivity in cinema. Lastly, we will demonstrate the empirical usefulness of this model by illustrating each of the matrix' nine categories through a discussion of Steven Soderbergh's film Kimi (2022).
This chapter aims to discuss the creation of time in cinema from an embodied cognitive perspectiv... more This chapter aims to discuss the creation of time in cinema from an embodied cognitive perspective. Drawing on principles of Cognitive linguistics, we first discuss briefly how our ordinary thinking about time is informed by spatial knowledge. Knowing how space shapes temporal thought, we subsequently show how filmmakers may cue this spatio-temporal logic in the direction of two opposing models of time-creation in cinema: one model in which cinematic creativity serves the purpose of optimal narrative clarity, and another model in which creativity resolves around the opposite goal of spatio-temporal ambiguity. We illustrate both models through various case-examples drawn from classical narrative cinema and modern and postmodern art cinema, respectively.
This essay examines the meaning potential of directed forces or vectors in cinema. The first part... more This essay examines the meaning potential of directed forces or vectors in cinema. The first part draws on the pioneering work of Rudolf Arnheim to highlight the prominent role of vectors in the visual structuring of meaning in paintings. In the second part, we move on to explore the semantic significance of motion vectors in cinema. To this aim we first define and diagram the filmic space in which vectors may articulate themselves visually. Having firmly grounded this spatial framework in film theory, we adopt the terminology of Herbert Zettl to further distinguish between three types of motion vectors: primary motion vectors (elicited by motion of visual objects), secondary motion vectors (elicited by camera movement) and tertiary motion vectors (elicited by editing). We conclude by applying the proposed conceptual tools of this essay to three filmic case-studies in which the relation between narrative meaning and motion vectors is further discussed and illustrated.
This paper adopts an embodied cognitive perspective to review the significance of dynamic pattern... more This paper adopts an embodied cognitive perspective to review the significance of dynamic patterns in the visual expression of meaning. Drawing upon the work of Rudolf Arnheim we first show how perceptual dynamics of inanimate objects might be extended in order to structure abstract meaning in fixed images such as paintings. Second, we evaluate existing experimental work that shows how simple kinematic structures within a stationary frame might embody such high-level properties as perceptual causality and animacy. Third and last, we take inspiration from these experiments to shed light on the expressiveness of dynamic patterns that unfold once the frame itself becomes a mobile entity (i.e., camera movement). In the latter case we will also present a filmic case study, showing how filmmakers might resort to these dynamic patterns so as to embody a film's story content, while simultaneously offering a further avenue for film scholars to deepen their engagement with the experimental method.
This article provides an embodied study of the fi lm style of the French fi lmmaker Éric Rohmer. ... more This article provides an embodied study of the fi lm style of the French fi lmmaker Éric Rohmer. Drawing on insights from cognitive linguistics, I fi rst show how dynamic patterns of containment shape human thinking about relationships, a concept central to Rohmer's cinema. Second, I consider the question of how fi lm might elicit this spatial thinking through the use of such cinematic devices as mobile framing and fi xed-frame movement. Third, using Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs series as a case study, I demonstrate how the fi lmmaker applies these devices-and with them the spatial thinking they initiate-systemically to shape the relationships of his fi lms visually. Lastly, I use the results of this analysis to provide discussion and suggestions for future research.
This chapter aims to discuss the notion of conceptual metaphor in relation to the visual manifest... more This chapter aims to discuss the notion of conceptual metaphor in relation to the visual manifestation level of films. The first part takes on the challenge of addressing a theoretical issue that is inherent to this level and that at first sight seems to impede a metaphorical analysis of film, namely the problem of iconicity. After having addressed this problem, the second part discusses how metaphor can be analyzed in film. Since conceptual metaphor can be conceived of as consisting of a relationship between image-schematic driven source domains and abstract target domains, this part is divided into three subparts. The first subpart shows how image schemas may be instantiated in visual images by means of the application of a variety of film stylistic means (e.g., camera movement, editing). The second subpart stresses the importance of metonymy in representing target domains in film. The third and last subpart makes their connection by illustrating, through a case-study taken from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), how stylistically motivated image schemas maybe be mapped onto the inferential logic of metonymically represented target domains.
This article aims to examine some aspects of the cinematic work of Stanley Kubrick from the embod... more This article aims to examine some aspects of the cinematic work of Stanley Kubrick from the embodied and interdisciplinary point-of-view of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Central to this theory is the idea that abstract concepts such as emotions, relationships and mental functions are metaphorically understood in terms of concrete concepts of human bodily experiences such as movement and spatial boundedness. Given that Kubrick’s work is characterised as highly conceptual, it is therefore plausible to assume that the meaning entailments of his films arise from the same mappings of embodied source domains. This paper sets out to illustrate this hypothesis by offering a dense analysis of various concise scenes taken from his oeuvre. It is precisely through Kubrick’s mastery of the devices of filmmaking (e.g. framing, camera movement, editing, etc.) that, as this paper demonstrates, his films exhibit a formal precision rooted in the human sensory-motor system, which enables them to reach a level of conceptual sophistication.
Only recently, the broad research program of embodied cognition has fuelled a substantial and ong... more Only recently, the broad research program of embodied cognition has fuelled a substantial and ongoing body of research at the crossroads of cognitive science and film studies. Two influential theories of embodiment that have received considerable attention among film scholars are: Conceptual Metaphor Theory (originated in the field of cognitive linguistics) and Embodied Simulation Theory (originated in the field of neuroscience). Despite their intimate relationship, both theories have been rarely addressed together in the context of film studies. This article takes on the challenge of combining both perspectives into a unified embodied model for understanding conceptual meaning in cinema. The study is driven by two key assumptions, namely: (1) that meaning in film is metaphorically mapped within our sensory-motor system and (2) that embodied simulation processes in the brain allow for the viewer to infer this meaning from the evidence provided by the film. To clarify both assumptions, the article will present a discussion of the theme of embodiment at three levels of analysis: the conceptual level (how is meaning embodied in the human mind?), the formal level (how is this meaning structured in the visual mode of expression?) and the receptive level (how is the viewer able to infer this meaning on the basis of the evidence provided by the form?). The grounding problem of fictional subjectivity in cinema (that is, how are viewers able to attribute mental states to fictional characters in films?) will be used to test the validity of both claims.
Suspense in cinema has often been described to result from either (1) the frustration of the view... more Suspense in cinema has often been described to result from either (1) the frustration of the viewers’ strong desire to know the narrative’s outcome (the uncertainty premise), or (2) the frustration of the viewers’ strong desire to use their knowledge in order to change the narrative’s outcome (the helplessness premise). In order to test the veracity of these assertions, one needs to examine the underlying mechanisms on which these cognitive frustrations (and by that the creation of suspense) rest. This paper aims to take on this task by drawing on the conceptual framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Using the subgenre of the slasher film as an exemplary case study, we show how suspense is grounded in perception in which the spatial constituents of image schemas (e.g. front, back, light, dark) are instantiated cinematically (e.g. by framing, editing, lighting) in order to structure the narrative’s conceptual constituents (e.g. the absence or presence of knowledge concerning the killer’s whereabouts).
This article presents the views of two strands of film scholarship, each taking the tools of Conc... more This article presents the views of two strands of film scholarship, each taking the tools of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) into suitable areas of Cognitive Film Studies. In the first section we consider the implications of CMT for the study of two kinds of languages about film, namely (1) the kind of ordinary language audiences use to talk about their viewing experience and (2) the kind of theoretical language film scholars use to reason about film. In the second section we explore how CMT can be applied to the study of film style. Drawing upon earlier research we show how three abstract concepts (perception, time and emotions) can be metaphorically embodied at the non-verbal formal level of film through cinematic devices such as camera movement, editing and framing. Our paper will reassess and discuss the methodological and theoretical implications of both views. This comparative study intends to highlight the academic value of CMT for Film Studies and to inspire avenues for further research.
This article examines the role of situational (dis)continuity and con- ceptual metaphor in the ci... more This article examines the role of situational (dis)continuity and con- ceptual metaphor in the cinematic construal of complex cases of character perception. It claims that filmed events of the script “a character S seeing something O” can impede the continuity of real-life perception by eliciting discontinuity along two situational dimensions—the temporal dimension (i.e., one cannot directly see events in the past or the future), and the entity dimension (i.e., one cannot see oneself in the act of looking). The article con- cludes with a case study of Christopher Smith’s Triangle (2009) as an example of contemporary complex narrative cinema.
This article investigates the conceptual and formal ways in which the cinematic mode of expressio... more This article investigates the conceptual and formal ways in which the cinematic mode of expression prompts the viewer to perceive emotional causality in film, namely the percept that the viewer sees that the character’s perception of an outer event is the cause of an emotional state in the character. The structure of our paper is twofold. The first section is theoretical and centres around the answerability of four main questions: What is emotional causality? How do we conceptualise it? How do we perceive it? And how do we perceive it in the filmic form? Explanations will be mainly drawn from three different intellectual disciplines: cognitive linguistics, experimental psychology and the philosophy of mind. The second section is
practical and aims to show how the proposed theoretical model can be applied by considering its use for the analysis of what has been described by many as the prototypical genre of intense emotions, namely the melodrama genre. Using a scene from Douglas Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows as an example, we show how film, through its formal articulation of various conceptual mechanisms, stimulates the viewer to infer a causal relationship between (1) the character’s visual experience and (2) the character’s emotional state.
This article aims to show how the metaphorical and metonymical portrayal of character perception ... more This article aims to show how the metaphorical and metonymical portrayal of character perception in film can give rise to two distinct but interrelated percepts of causality in the viewer, namely (1) the percept that the viewer sees that an object perceived by a character causes the character’s perception of that object and (2) the percept that the viewer sees that character perception in turn causes a change of state in the perceiving character’s mind (e.g., knowing, remembering). We start our discussion with a brief epistemological overview. Thereby two questions are central: (1) How do people conceptualize perception and causality? and (2) When do people perceive causality in perception? Answers will be given, respectively, by considering insights from cognitive linguistics and experimental psychology. In the next section, then, we bring the theoretical discussion to the foreground of Film Studies by showing how the conceptual solutions, as suggested in the prior part, can manifest themselves in cinematic terms. It is through the forced movements of film making (e.g., framing, editing and camera movement), that, we will argue, the viewer is encouraged to see a causal relationship between (1) the object perceived and the character’s visual experience and (2) the character’s visual experience and the change of mental state in the perceiving character.
Steven Spielberg once said that Kubrick was a “conceptual illustrator of the human condition”. He... more Steven Spielberg once said that Kubrick was a “conceptual illustrator of the human condition”. He possessed the “conceptual talent”, as Kubrick biographer Alexander Walker called it, “to crystalize every film they make into a cinematic concept”. In this paper we will argue that this talent was never more conspicuously exemplified, than in his testament film Eyes Wide Shut. At the centre of the discussion will be an aesthetic quandary that is rooted in the film’s conceptual subject matter: the emotional relationship between the married couple, Bill (Tom Cruise) and Alice (Nicole Kidman). As an abstract concept, the concept of a relationship presents the filmmaker with a twofold challenge: (1) to communicate complex emotion concepts visually while, at the same time, images are not conceptual and (2) to communicate those same psychological ideas musically (that is, purely instrumental) when music, in essence, is an abstract, non-referential art form. Drawing on state-of-the-art research in embodied cognitive science, this paper sets out to explore these cinematic paradoxes through an analysis of what are perhaps the most finest cinematic renderings of intimate marital life ever put on screen, the three night-time bedroom scenes of the film commonly referred to as: (1) the scene in which Alice confesses a former fantasy about leaving her husband for a naval officer, (2) the scene where Alice tells Bill about a dream she was having, and (3) the scene where Bill finally stumbles home and confesses everything to Alice. It will be argued that Kubrick succeeds in overcoming these problems of representation because he uses the cinematic resources at hand in such a controlled and dense manner so as to elicit the patterns necessary to convey the concepts non-verbally without the traditional reliance on words, making him one of the most cinematic storytellers ever to appear in the history of filmmaking.
université sorbonne nouvelle -paris 3 UFR Arts & Médias 2 Dear 2017 NECS Conference delegates,
info: Dr. Miklós Kiss [m.kiss@rug.nl] guest LECTURE by Dear all, On Tuesday, April 28th from 18:0... more info: Dr. Miklós Kiss [m.kiss@rug.nl] guest LECTURE by Dear all, On Tuesday, April 28th from 18:00 in the Heymanszaal of the Academy Building, the Film and Media Studies section of the Department Arts, Culture, and Media -in collaboration with ICOG -welcomes Maarten Coëgnarts (University of Antwerp), who will give a guest lecture on the impact of the embodied mind thesis on film (as well as its relevance for the scientific study of the film and visual culture). Free entrance. All ICOG members are very welcome to attend! Information: Miklós Kiss
Today it is generally accepted that metaphor is not simply a figure of speech or a feature of lan... more Today it is generally accepted that metaphor is not simply a figure of speech or a feature of language, but a fundamental mode of cognition. It is vital to our thinking and crucial for our understanding of abstract concepts. This reconceptualization has an important theoretical implication: if metaphor is no longer confined to language (because it is conceptual), then it is plausible to assume that there exist modes of expression other than the verbal one. Validating this assumption is important because it will lend more weight to the existence of conceptual metaphors. Indeed, without the empirical support of other modalities, it would be hard to see how metaphor differs from language. To avoid the risk of circular reasoning and "to prove the idea that metaphors are expressed by language, as opposed to the idea that they are necessarily linguistic in nature, " it is therefore "imperative, " as Forceville asserted in one of his agenda-setting articles, "to demonstrate that, and how, they can occur non-verbally and multimodally as well as purely verbally" (p. 381, italics in original). In view of this, it is all the more remarkable that nonverbal metaphor has never been explored with the same rigour as metaphor in language. Although Conceptual Metaphor Theory (henceforth, CMT) approaches its forty-year anniversary, it is only now, after a modest start, that scholarly work investigating metaphors in nonverbal and multimodal modalities is thriving. Steen's edited volume "Visual Metaphor: Structure and Process" further builds on this line of research. Restricting itself to the nonverbal case of visual metaphor, it aims to exploit the vast psycholinguistic expertise and knowledge on metaphor in language for a more in-depth and empirically founded understanding of static visuals. The book establishes this goal, which is sketched in the introductory chapter, in six chapters that are equally divided over two parts.