The article – “Leaving the Movie Theater” by Roland Barthes clearly articulates his view of the cinematic experience as hypnosis and makes a comparison with a television experience.
Movie theatres are special and unique in many ways. Most importantly, they are filled with “darkness”. The emptiness draws the crowd’s focus to the screen. In addition, with multidimensional audio, the audience would be fully immersed in the cinematic world through sense stimulation, mainly sight and hearing. Thus, the viewers would hear what the characters hear and see what they see.
On the contrary, televised programs or streamed content are usually viewed at home – a familiar and comfortable space, often well-lit. As a result, the viewers of television won’t be as engaged as if they were in a cinema.
The clear demarcation between the cinema and the average television experience made by Barthes may explain the many rules of cinema. For instance, most modern cinemas prohibit conversations and the usage of light-emitting devices. Evidently, these certain rules were set to eliminate external stimuli. Therefore ensuring other audiences’ cinematic experience.
Barthes claims that movies act as a lure, which puts the audience in a state of hypnosis. It is through hypnotising the audience that the scene seems real and life-like. Therefore, the people in the cinema can effortlessly superposition themselves onto the scenes as if they experienced those events themselves. This may be another reason why so many people are drawn to the movies, for their purely passive nature.
– Li Mei Yiu Belinda, 3036179273
I greatly appreciate your internalization of Barthes’ various points on the atmosphere of the cinema and your subsequent rationalization of them as being the unspoken rules of the cinema. Do you then feel that the effect of hypnosis is not present in the home theatre experience?