Barthes’s essay compares the movie-going experience to a response to idleness and leisure, with the darkness and environment of the movie theater, discussing his experiences in and after leaving the movie theater: the state of hypnosis, “pseudo-nature” as well as the healing cocoon.
What I found most thought-provoking in Barthes’s essay was beyond the discussion of hypnosis. It is the discourses about how to get unglued to the “mirror”. Because this is what I often experience after watching movies, and it is even the obsession that prevented me from movie in a way. After seeing art films like Dead Poets Society or Made in Hong Kong, I am haunted by questions of whether the validity and mechanisms of its construction of meaning make sense. Often this skepticism would make my movie-watching experience shrouded in a melancholic tone.
It was not until I came across this article by Barthes, which introduces Brecht’s theory of Verfremdung that my confusion is deconstructed: they suggest us to maintain an amorous distance from image-repertoire, through the immersion in sound, light or pre/post-hypnosis. The joy of caution, as Barthes puts it, reminds me of two things: firstly, I can enjoy the scene more to “take off”, and thus gain an independent value from the movie, a value not about the content, but about the inherent form. Secondly, we cannot be satisfied by the image code of the film, but we should keep a sense of alienation to get closer to inner heart and realism during film-watching.
Your text is a very good response to Barthes’ essay by including your experience and reflection. Your writing, in a way, is difficult to read because you use a few difficult words such as discourses, deconstructed, etc. If you use these words, you should provide 1 or 2 sentences explaining what they mean—different scholars provide different meanings to those words. It will help the readers to understand your text more if you use simple words and sentences.