The Power of Cinema and the ideal of sitting next the ‘other.’

Now and again as an audience saturated with media and entertainment, Cinema is a huge social gathering to which we can all come together in an intimate space to watch a film of any genre. Sitting down next to a friend or even a stranger at the cinema can feel empowering, especially while your brain processes all sorts of visual and auditory moving images. Whether one might be watching a sad, romantic, horrific or humorous film, we tend to react in ways far more exaggeration than on the outside world. Not only do we react but we respond with a scream, laugh, touch or engage with the ‘other’ sitting next to us. One must question whether it is the intimate dark atmosphere that is present within a cinema that psychologically affects our thought processes. Enabling us to escape from social boundaries and expectations of what is and what isn’t acceptable behaviour. For example quite recently I went to see Sinister (2012). A girl who I did not know began to hide her face with her scarf, a sudden jump scare in the film automatically made her cling to my arm. She later apologise after calming down, but her response was automatic and uncontrollable.

Does being scared trigger intimate behaviour?

Audiences “enjoy the experience of being scared in an environment that is actually safe. Horror films are another example of this phenomenon.” (Fritscher, 2012)

There are many forms of intimate moments within cinema that make people respond to a stimulus such as a film in various ways. However, sitting at home watching the television with family members. Does this still create an intimate moment, a more calming and relaxing intimacy, a more meaningful intimacy?

Sitting with family members or  friends/strangers can have a different impact on intimate feelings within the room. Although family members are much more comfortable with each other, sitting down and relaxing and being intimate with them can strengthen the relationships a lot more than sitting in a cinema. As communication with one another is important in order to enable intimate moments, for in a cinema it is socially unacceptable to talk, we can only express ourselves through physical acts of touching and the occasional whisper.

I think the power of cinema is a lot more intimate than that of sitting down at home, people today constantly enjoy going to the the big screen. Audiences become addicted the idea of sitting with other strangers/friends and sharing intimate emotions that relate  to them. Such as scene’s of someone dying, things that can affect an audience members on a personal level.

Focusing on a image or display tends to help intimacy be created, as it relaxes and represses any awkwardness that could be at the back of their minds.

If your not touching but sitting next to each other, surely sitting next to each other is a beginning phase in being intimate with someone you hardly know within western society?

Written by Jordan, edited by Leanne McKettrick

 Works Cited

Fritscher, Lisa (2012) Psychology of Fear. Online: http://phobias.about.com/od/introductiontophobias/a/psychologyfear.htm (accessed on 9th December 2012)

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21 Responses to The Power of Cinema and the ideal of sitting next the ‘other.’

  1. Jessica Smith says:

    I agree that having something to watch can help to create and maintain intimacy. It helps to make the atmosphere feel more comfortable. However, I think this is only the case due to the fact that people do not normally just sit there and look at a bare wall. It is not a natural thing to do. Having something to look at feels more natural so would help to ease the tension.

  2. Jordan Edward Tallis says:

    The difference in watching a film such as a horror, is that people respond to it in different ways, most times intimacy can be present, as the picture above depicts people at the edges of their seat, and wanting to hold on to someone intimately in order to feel safe. It also demonstrates a fight or flight responce to a media text. The object stops the eyes from wondering around a room, without that object within my one to one would cause some awkwardness and tension, which was not the intention our piece. For example on a bus, the object we are on moves from place to place, and from looking out of a window we are focused on the world moving around us. Without stimulation or some form of object or envoironment to gaze or focus on, especially sitting still next to someone would cause a lot of awkwardness and very little intimacy. In Jesse’s one to one, although she held hands with one of our audience members (Laura Stones). Laura stated ‘ I liked how you had the lava lamp, because it felt more relaxing and comfortable to have a stimuli to focus on. I think maybe jess could have had something similar.’

    Although my body never really interacts or touches an audience member, and jess’s does through her hands. Our bodies however are sat down still on chairs, surely without some form of object to gaze/focus on intimate moments cant really be created in an awkward envoironment?

    • Leanne McKettrick says:

      Do you not think it depends on the person? Because as Jess has mentioned in her posts some people responded to her piece, without the need of an object, and she states that she felt there was an intimate moment created. Therefore, does that mean the object is always needed? Or is it a device used which helped you?
      It would be interesting to do the format of the performance again and change the sections in which we were in, do you think the layout of each section would change?
      Personally, I think it would as we ourselves, as expressed throughout the blog, experience intimacy in different ways and therefore approach this differently according to what we feel comfortable with.

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      It was a device that I believe was very much was needed, especially for mine. It allowed me to sink into my seat and think intimate thoughts. As there is no physical intimate contact, especially experimenting with my one to one with people it felt something was missing from it. The object filled in that empty space and allowed intimacy to be maintained throughout.

    • Leanne McKettrick says:

      In light of what both you and Jess have said do you think this means that intimacy cannot be created by just sitting with someone?

    • Demi Morrison says:

      I think, after reading everyone’s comments so far, that Jordan is not necessarily arguing that intimacy cannot be created by just sitting with someone, but that the intimacy created feels more natural, in a sense, if there is an object to focus on. Or maybe he is? I think personally it can be created, but again is solely dependent on the people involved. For example; my housemate and myself can sit in silence with each of us doing work on our laptops and I feel like I am intimate with her. But could this be only because we are close friends?

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      I think it all depends down to the situation in which one is conditioned to?

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      Sitting with someone is quite an ambigious thing in itself, we sit down for many reasons with people. Either we are conditioned to sit down with someone or we choose to sit down next to someone. Society operates us to sit down next to someone, say on a bus, in order to fill up empty spaces. In a cinema, whether a cinema is designed to make us feel intimate with each other or the media text itself is uncertain. Maybe’s its both? Sitting down with someone is a thing that is so subjective, intimacy in itself can be an uncontrollable chemical and psychological reaction from knowing someone is close to us. Maybe intimacy is an instinctive drive or mechanism in us in which we have no control over? In everyday life we sit down for what ever reason that may be but in our performance it is artifically constructed and designed, its a performance, it isnt a natural envoironment in which we could measure intimacy that would show valid results. It all depends on many factors, whether the person themeselves are in the mind set of feeling intimate sitting next to someone and vice versa. It pretty much all depends down on the individuals sitting next to each other, whether they allow themeselves to feel intimate with each other. It takes two to tango, as they say.

    • Leanne McKettrick says:

      Are we conditioned to sit next to people? I would have to disagree. I consider myself a open and friendly person but if it came down to sitting next to a stranger or sitting on the free empty seats by myself. I would choose to seat by myself. And to use the bus example again, I see this happen with other people also.

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      But what im stating is if a place is pact with people, say a cinema is full of people, we have to find available seats to sit and watch a film we have payed to see. We are conditioned at that point to get closer to people, we have no power over the situation that is placed before us. But yes as iv stated before, most people would prefer to be by themeselves and away from others. But why is this? I personally prefer to be close to a stranger such as on a bus or in a cinema, a little chat or listening to people’s life and stories is a beautiful thing.

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      *Society is intended to fill as much space as possible in order for profits and economical factors

  3. Leanne McKettrick says:

    Would you say that by having an object to focus on allowed the moment to be more intimate?
    If so I find this surprising as I supposed I would think that it would be the opposite and that just having the moment with someone would be intimate.

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      The object itself didn’t neccasserily allow intimacy to be created, but it allowed the intimacy to be maintained throughout my one to one.

  4. Demi Morrison says:

    I am interested by the idea that watching television as a family can strengthen the relationships between families? I am not sure this is correct, but that may be because I hardly watch television with my family and when we do, we shout at each other or argue over what we are watching.

    I feel that this may be something that could have been explored more in depth if we had more time.

    • Leanne McKettrick says:

      In a sense I agree with what Jordan is saying because my family all sit and watch a film together. And I feel it strengthens us as a family, especially because I don’t live at home anymore I feel when I am home and we all sit and watch something together we connect again.
      Though I guess like we found with the people who took part in our piece this is dependable on the people involved.
      Ultimately everyone experiences intimacy in a different way.

    • Demi Morrison says:

      The idea of watching television with a family to strengthen the relationships seems so bizarre to me. It must just be something I am used to, but if me and my family are all together, we tend to play games or just talk to each other rather than watch t.v.
      I do however think it is a really nice concept, and wish that maybe it was a little more present in my family gatherings.

    • Leanne McKettrick says:

      To be honest, watching tv is not the only intimate moment I have with my family. And I prefer it like with your family, when we sit and talk and play games. For me this is far more intimate because we are not engaging in a separate object, but we are engaging with each other.

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      But surely playing games and doing things with those sort of objects help intimacy to be maintained and created?

  5. Leanne McKettrick says:

    Jordan, I understand what you mean about the differences of intimacy between watching something at home compared to in the cinema but I am really interested to see why you think this relates to our piece?
    In light of what you’ve written, what does it mean for the ‘watching’ you do in our performance? How is that intimate?

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      In the performance me and the audeince had an object to focus on, the same way a person in a cinema had something to focus on. A larva lamp seemed to hypnotise, the same way a film can hypnotise and draw you in. It enables a person to consciously watch something instead of staring into space and feeling awkward, it allows the intimacy to be created and maintained.

    • Jordan Edward Tallis says:

      *audience

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