3. If the class haven’t seen it...
Inception as a chess game
Interrogate student reactions at each stage
Explore the idea of intellectual responses,
emotional responses, visceral responses
Get students to become “aware of
themselves as viewers”
Which reactions come first? Why? What is
informing these reactions?
Explore the techniques which create
audience effects
Explore external factors which might
affect the uniformity of the viewing
experience
4. Spectatorship debates:
“The interplay between the director’s
intentions , the audience’s readings and
the external factors at play while they
watch are what account for our different
reactions to any given film” - Nolan
The spectrum
of passive to
active audience
behaviours
Is there an element
of emotional
complicity in
allowing ourselves
to be manipulated?
When we watch
films, do we
KNOW how the
director wants us
to react?
The notion of
preferred,
oppositional
and negotiated
readings
5. If the class have seen it...
Flip the classroom: Get them to watch
it again
Discuss the ending…
What is its significance?
Does anyone AGREE on its
significance?
Does anyone LIKE the ending? What
does this reveal about us as
spectators?
Teach through debate
6. Audience debates:
What factors outside
of the film might
affect your
interpretation of the
film?
Mood
Prior
knowledge of
the director
What you were
looking for when
you chose it
Prior
knowledge
of the film
Viewing
context
Life
experiences
7. Active Audience debates
(Uses and
Gratifications)
Information
Social interaction,
integration and
identity
Personal
identification and
reinforcement of
personal identity
Entertainment,
diversion and
escapism
Education
and
learning
8. Viewing Context debates
Key questions
Who are you
watching with?
How does
technology affect
immersion levels?
When are you
watching it? Does shared viewing
heighten or mitigate
emotional response?
Where are
you watching?
9. Narrative and Genre
Narrative arc
Narrative restrictions
Narrative chronology
Narration and narrative point of
view
Genre expectations
Micro-elementsCharacterisation
Character representation and
construction
Character development or
journey
Character alignment
Binary oppositions
Mise-en-scene: Setting, costume,
props, iconography
Cinematography: Shot angles,
focal length and movement
Editing and VFX
Sound, music, dialogue
Debating the role of techniques
Can you link them together and explain the link?
Can you prioritise them in order of importance in creating meaning?
How does each one position the audience?
10. Spectatorship debates:
“The interplay between the director’s
intentions , the audience’s readings and
the external factors at play while they
watch are what account for our different
reactions to any given film” - Nolan
The spectrum
of passive to
active audience
behaviours
Is there an element
of emotional
complicity in
allowing ourselves
to be manipulated?
When we watch
films, do we
KNOW how the
director wants us
to react?
The notion of
preferred,
oppositional
and negotiated
readings
Editor's Notes
To start the topic, I would take a straw poll of who has and who hasn’t seen the film:
To start the topic, I would take a straw poll of who has and who hasn’t seen the film:
If nobody has seen it, trace Inception as a chess game between the spectator and the director, getting them to interpret at each stage
Explore the idea of emotional, visceral and intellectual responses, and which come first: You can even get the students to do a “reverse DVD commentary” where rather than commenting on the director’s point of view, they are describing the experience from an audience’s point of view
Get students to become “aware of themselves as viewers”
Which reactions come first? Why? What is informing these reactions?
Explore the techniques which create audience effects
Explore external factors which might affect the uniformity of the viewing experience
The interplay between the director's intentions and the audience's reading and external factors are what accounts for these differences. This difference can be characterised as the spectrum from passive to active audiences: Preferred readings, negotiated readings, oppositional readings, and aberrant readings
Do we even know how the director intends us to react? No, so we must be making our own minds up through our own readings
Is there an element of emotional complicity whereby we allow ourselves to be manipulated willingly, or at least suspend our critical faculties or disbelief?
If they have seen it, get them to watch it again
So if I were teaching it, I would flip the learning, get the students to watch it at home or in Film Club, and I would start with this very debate: What happened in the end?
You will note that no two answers are alike. At its heart, the study of spectatorship is the study of factors which could account for our different reactions to a film.
Start by getting students to look at different external factors which might affect their PERSONAL view of this film: From the Popplet: Mood, your life experiences, your knowledge of film, of this director, your surroundings
What they were looking at the time (Uses and Gratifications):
Information;
Education and learning;
Personal identification and reinforcement of personal identity
Social interaction, identity and integration
Entertainment, diversion and escapism
Get them to examine their viewing context: Who they are seeing it with, where they are seeing it, and when they are viewing it
Importantly, they should remember that a shared viewing context can both heighten and mitigate emotional responses
The interplay between the director's intentions and the audience's reading and external factors are what accounts for these differences. This difference can be characterised as the spectrum from passive to active audiences: Preferred readings, negotiated readings, oppositional readings, and aberrant readings
Do we even know how the director intends us to react? No, so we must be making our own minds up through our own readings
Is there an element of emotional complicity whereby we allow ourselves to be manipulated willingly, or at least suspend our critical faculties or disbelief?