Wednesday 2 July 2014

Relationships Between Audiences and Films

Active Spectatorship is when the audience gets involved in reconstructing a meaning from the film they are watching. This means the audience often looks deeper in to the film what they are being shown, trying to find a big meaning to the story. Often you may try and guess what is going to happen at the end of the film throughout watching it.

Often you can expect what you are going to see in the film by the genre of the film. For example the film 'Pulp Fiction' is a crime film, so you will expect to see some sort of crime being committed throughout the film which should be a big part of the film. This means if people went to see this film by knowing the genre they should expect to see a film about crime. You may guess for this film to have the same plot as most Crime films and play out in the same way as they do. In the films the audience gather information on what the film might be like from the people in the film or the person directing the film. 'Pulp Fiction' was directed by Quentin Tarantino so people who recognize the director may know he is known for his films being non-linear which may lead to them expecting this film to most probably be non-linear. He is also known for having some quite violent scenes in his films so the audience may also expect to see some violent scenes in this film. You may expect this film to play out similarly to other films he has written and directed.

You may also expect the film to play out out in a certain way based on an experience you've had which has been very similar to the story being shown in the film.

Audiences watch films to gain pleasure. Often people gain pleasure from watching films in the crime genre like 'Pulp Fiction' because crime films represent a world that most people never wander in to. They get to experience the thrill and danger of breaking the law with out the risk of spending a good portion of their life in jail.

Intertexuality is when a film refers to another. This happens a few times throughout 'Pulp fiction'. In the restaurant scene with Vincent Vega (Uma Thurman) and Mai Wallace (John Travolta), Mia says that she was in a TV pilot where she played a 'Knives Expert'. She then went on to star as this character in 'Kill Bill' a future film by Tarantino. This is because whilst working on Pulp fiction, Tarantino and Uma Thurman came up with this idea for the character. 'Pulp Fiction' also links to Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs' as the character from Pulp fiction 'Vic Vega' is brothers with the Reservoir Dogs Character 'Vince Vega'. This was done as Tarantino was planning to make a film set before both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp fiction but the idea was later abandoned as the actors who played these two characters got too old. 

Preferred Readings is when the audience take the intended meaning from the film. In pulp fiction this could be seen as not really possible because there isn't really a clear meaning throughout the film. This is because the film doesn't really focus on one story line or one main character and nearly everyone in the film is a morally bad person.  However these people end up in bad situations which may add the meaning saying to not be like them.

Audiences now expect to see big visual effects when watching films these days. Audiences have grown use to seeing films with CGI, big explotions and 3D. As pulp fiction isn't a current film and came out 20 years ago it doesnt tend to have any of this. When this film came out CGI and 3D films were not really about so the audience wouldn't have been expecting to see any of it. There isn't really any place now for these features in the film however if it was created nowadays for all we know it may look very different. 

Fandom is the term for fans and the things they do to express there appreciation of films. One way which this can be done could be over websites however as pulp fiction is an old film it came out before the internet was really about. This meant that websites never got made. There are some fan made websites to show appreciation to the film but not an official one. Social networking can also be used to talk about the film however this didn't really start till about ten years after the films release when it was already a big success.

Conditions of reception is when people have different meanings to parts of films based on an experience they've had in the past. In the film  Samuel L Jacksons character 'Jules' believes he witness a miracle and then takes a spiritual and religious job after leaving his job as a hit-man. This could relate to religious people who became religious after a specific act. They could probably relate to this character and see a part of themselves in this character.




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