In Chapter 6 of Film, Art, and the Third Culture, Murray Smith argues
for a biocultural account of the emotions, which treats them as an interaction
between universal and cultural dimensions. He goes on to test this approach
in relation to the representation of emotions in films by considering an example
from the tradition of modernist filmmaking. This article suggests that,
while Smith’s case is broadly convincing, there are several ways in which it
could be presented more forcefully. In particular, his discussion of the challenge
of modernism to a biocultural account could be strengthened by emphasizing
rather than downplaying the role that various types of cultural
knowledge play in our interaction with modernist works.
Book Review: The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution
