Steven Chang
RHE 330E
Davis
Final Project: Inception and Affect.
Inception. Here’s me planting an idea in your head[1]: the reason that people love dramatic and action-filled movies like Inception so much is not because of our own cognitive action, but how our bodies respond affectively. Unfortunately, this idea is not my own, but a radical portrayal of rhetoric and affect from authors like Massumi and Kennedy. It is also not a simple idea. But perhaps by the end of this exploration into Inception and affect, we may just take away a simple enough idea of rhetoric to be called our own.
Inception was one of the great movies of 2010, opening #1 at the box office, receiving high critical acclaim, and reaching the position of 25th highest grossing film of all time[2]. The film was regarded for its stunning visual effects, powerful soundtrack, and the emotional performances from its actors. [Some examples from critics: http://www.brianorndorf.com/2010/07/film-review-inception.html, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/movietime/stories/2010/2961205.htm, etc.]
Inception took the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects, while being nominated for several other categories. [more description]
One of the reasons Inception was so enjoyable was because it drew people in for the entirety of the movie. The plot is always fast moving, with breathtaking landscapes and fierce gun battles going on throughout. People commented on the intensity of the movie, that they were “on the edge of their seats,” or that the movie was dramatic and climactic.
Here’s a clip from the movie that I thought was one of the most intense parts – it’s the climax of the movie, with the protagonist facing his deepest obstacle and the plot coming to a crucial peak.
Again, critics and generally moviegoers alike mention similar reasons for why they enjoyed the movie: captivating visual effects, a soundtrack that shakes your whole body, impassioned acting by the whole cast, and a plot and concept that makes your mind spin. We see all of these elements in this one clip.
[here I’m not sure if I should break down those 4 elements into paragraphs and really expand on the common sense view of why people like this movie, or do more reasons from critics, or if that’s not that important and I should keep it to one paragraph so I can move on to Massumi/Kennedy]
However, Brian Massumi and George Kennedy explain our attraction to dramatic movies and our emotional responses to almost anything with a single term: affect. Teresa Brennan explains that “the term ‘affect’ is one translation of the Latin affectus, which can be translated as ‘passion’ or ‘emotion.[3]’” She goes on to say that, “by an affect, I mean the physiological shift accompanying a judgment.[4]” What makes affect, this physiological shift, interesting is “the notion that passions and affects are themselves judgments[5],” with or without any conscious response. So, for a movie like Inception, does our physiological response in affect determine how much pleasure we receive from the movie?
Massumi gives a clear example that it does. [Snowman example.]
In the snowman movie scenarios, we can see that there are three different aspects of judgment: the child’s qualification of the movie, the physiological response, and the skin reaction. We can clearly see that, in some cases, the physiological and skin responses are different from the cognitive response. Although the child may have ranked one movie the “saddest,” it also gave the highest physiological response of pleasure.
[show parallels to Inception… not exactly sure how I’m going to do that.]
I will definitely incorporate one, if not two more authors here that will talk about physiological affect over cognitive rhetoric and try to apply that to our experience of Inception. I'm leaning towards Kennedy, but his examples don't line up well with a movie and I would have to twist his concepts to fit what I'm trying to say.
I might also try to give a broader generalization of why we like any thriller/dramatic/action movies, but only if the paper with Inception only doesn't quite reach 8 pages.
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