Moving Pictures A New Theory of Film Genres, Feelings, and Cognition [Paperback]

Providing an alternative to psychoanalytically based descriptions, this book presents an unique new theoretical account of the way emotions and thought patterns interact in creating aesthetic effects in films. Grodal shows how films activate effects in the viewer and how these effects are molded by genres (horror, melodrama) which determine the way in which characters will react in given situations.

Introduction
PART I
1. Fiction, Symbolic Simulation, and Reality
2. Cognition, Emotion, Brain Processes, and Narration
3. Associative Networks, Focus of Attention, and Analogue Communication
PART II
4. Cognitive Identification and Empathy
5. Intentions, Will, Goal, Consciousness, and Humanness
6. Subjectivity, Causality, and Time
PART III
7. A Typology of Genres of Fiction
PART IV
8. Comic Fictions
9. Metaframes as Emotion Filters and Brackets
10. Crime and Horror Fiction
11. Melodrama, Lyrics, and Autonomic Response
Recapitulation and Conclusion
Glossary of Terms
Bibliography

Groundbreaking....Throughout, Grodal refers to an admirably wide range of films; there is a particularly fascinating section onGone with the WindandVertigo. Must reading for anyone interested in film theory. Brilliant. --Choice

Professor Torben Kragh Grodal is Professor of Media Studies at The University of Copenhagen, Denmark