Film, Illusion & Spectatorship, Part 2: Take me to a whole new world…but don’t show me how we got there.
In Part 1 we discussed how the typical Hollywood ending turns audiences off to movies with ambiguous endings. Now, in Part 2, we explore why audiences reject movies that remind them that they are, well, fake. The insistence on a certain type of realism, which in Hollywood comes down to slickness, truncates the audience’s imagination. [...]
Film, Illusion & Spectatorship, Part 1: Tie It Up With a Bow, Please.
Because I teach film in a high school setting, I have access to audiences – young, raw audiences. Every time we watch a film together, I get to monitor the reactions of about 150 people whose tastes have been primarily shaped by slick Hollywood standards. When they watch a movie, they want a blockbuster: they [...]
