Barthes has made an interesting description of movie theatres and how these theatres of movie images caught audiences’ attention. He named out a number of elements that have basically transformed a plain black box a place that made everyone in their seats concentrate their eyes onto the screen or even evoke emotions from the characters’ point of view. The element of “darkness” was one of my favourite descriptions, as my understanding to his “darkness” is more than being optically dark but also how the such a dark area changes one’s emotional state when watching a movie, or even more, digging into a person’s inner self. Additionally, as a person that appreciates movie music a lot, I really do agree on his description of sounds in a movie are “lures”, as well as his vision of how tunes and sound effect has a non-substitutional position in movies.
Wong Ho Wang Caleb – 3035740465
Good effort in attempting to unpack Barthes’ ideas in your own words. You may wish to delve a bit more on the relationship of “darkness” at the movie theatre and the “hypnotic” experience in the text – how does the viewing experience at the movie theatre”letting oneself be fascinated twice over” (1986, 349) ? How do the “narcissistic body” and “perverse body” support your point that the darkness digs into a person’s inner self?
You have also mentioned the element of sound in a movie – Barthes pointed out that “sound is merely a supplementary instrument of representation; it is meant to integrate itself unobtrusively into the object shown, it is in no way detached from this object;[…] blurring the scene shown by the screen yet without distorting its image (its gestalt, its meaning).” (1986, 347); if it has a non-substitutional position, what role does it play?