Roland Barthes firstly regards the experience of watching movies as a kind of “hypnosis”, implying the all-round immersive characteristic. He connects darkness of the cinema, which contributes to give effects of hypnnosis, with desire and eroticism in modern city. To emphasize, the differences of cinema and television are compared. Another cause of the immersive characteristic is sound and music, the “suppleentary instrument of representation”. However, he argues that not only should people immerse, but also should be a “spector” despite “glued”to the representation. This leads to the anology between cinema and history, showing the dual relation. In the aspects of cinema and history, he suggests spectors keeping a critical vision and a distance to the image.
What interests me is that he dug deep into the essence of cinema experience itself and correct attitudes in the experience–being immersing, feeling, but also holding a critical vision, thinking. I agree that both of them are vital for a complete and meaningful cinema experience as the former one let spectators enjoy the audio-visual feast and the latter one urge people to think about its content, theme and what is behind the surface representation. It is the same for spectators in history–to be sentient and intellectual.
–Qu Shendi Sindy 3035973622