Leaving the movie theater written by Roland Barthes impresses me a lot and gives me some answers to some questions.For example, why does a film need its main character and why does this character/these characters need a long introduction and foreshadowing?This can be answered by what he mentioned, a film is trying to establish the naturalness(the pseudo-nature)through the image.This can satisfy the narcissism of human.And one main character or characters can be the illusion of people himself/herself.One idea in this text why people enjoy sitting in the cinema is the darkness and strangeness make watching different, and make it erotic and hypnotic, which belong to the perverse body.In addition, in my opinion, people enjoy it also because that for the narcissistic body lost into the engulfing mirror, the film is ongoing, it won’t stop, which makes a continuous mirror for people to be lost in.
Pang Bowen,3035773163
Appreciate that you tried to point out that time is essential for character development in a film to enable audiences to relate oneself with them. I would argue that the distance between the representation / image / film and the audience is more important in Barthes’ view. He noted that “the Real knows only distances, the Symbolic knows only masks; the image alone (the image-repertoire) is close, only the image is “true” (can produce the resonance of truth” (1986, 348). Can the condensation of information in a short movie achieve similar “naturalness”?
You may want to use the text to unpack a bit more on the adjectives you cited – what did he mean by “erotic” and “hypnotic”? What are their relationships to “darkness” of a movie theatre?