Goldilocks Aesthetics

Projections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-74
Author(s):  
James E. Cutting
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Responses ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure

Much of aesthetics is based in psychological responses. Yet seldom have such responses—couched in empirically based psychological terms—played a central role in the discussion of movie aesthetics. Happily, Todd Berliner’s Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema does just that. This commentary discusses some history and some twists and turns behind Berliner’s analysis.

Speculating about Spectatorship

Projections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-80
Author(s):  
Janet Staiger
Keyword(s):  
American Cinema ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure

Todd Berliner’s Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema (2017) offers useful broad theoretical arguments about how to understand our pleasures in viewing cinema. Yet, moving to individual cases requires recognizing the historical conditions of spectatorship including contemporaneous ideological issues, levels and types of knowledges, and cooperation (or non-cooperation) by a spectator.

Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-152
Author(s):  
Grant Wiedenfeld
Keyword(s):  
American Cinema ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure

Hollywood Aesthetic

Projections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-55
Author(s):  
Todd Berliner
Keyword(s):  
Film History ◽  
Intrinsic Properties ◽  
Aesthetic Design ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Affective Processes ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
Hollywood Movies

Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema investigates the Hollywood film industry’s chief artistic accomplishment: providing aesthetic pleasure to mass audiences. Grounded in film history and supported by research in psychology and philosophical aesthetics, the book explains (1) the intrinsic properties characteristic of Hollywood cinema that induce aesthetic pleasure; (2) the cognitive and affective processes, sparked by Hollywood movies, that become engaged during aesthetic pleasure; and (3) the exhilarated aesthetic experiences afforded by an array of persistently entertaining Hollywood movies. Hollywood Aesthetic addresses four fundamental components of Hollywood’s aesthetic design—narrative, style, ideology, and genre—aiming for a comprehensive appraisal of Hollywood cinema’s capacity to excite aesthetic pleasure. This article outlines the book’s main points and themes. As a précis, it is heavy on ideas and light on evidence, which is to be found in the book itself.

The artful mind meets art history: Toward a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas J. Bullot ◽  
Rolf Reber
Keyword(s):  
Common Core ◽  
Art History ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Art Appreciation ◽  
Psychological Responses ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
Design Stance

AbstractResearch seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework.

Book Reviews

Projections ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-141
Author(s):  
Christopher Blake Evernden ◽  
Cynthia A. Freeland ◽  
Thomas Schatz ◽  
Frank P. Tomasulo
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
University Of Chicago Press ◽  
Oxford University Press

Rikke Schubart, Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions, and Contemporary Horror (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018), 384 pp., $117 (hardback), ISBN: 9781501336713.Xavier Aldana Reyes, Horror Film and Affect: Towards a Corporeal Model of Viewership (New York: Routledge, 2016), xii + 206 pp., $49.95 (paperback), ISBN: 9781138599611.David Bordwell, Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 592 pp., $30.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9780226639550.Todd Berliner, Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 320 pp., $39.95 (paperback), ISBN: 9780190658755.

Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

Projections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-101
Author(s):  
Todd Berliner
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Research ◽  
Film Analysis ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
The Relationship

In this reply to four commentaries on my book, Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema, I address several conceptual and methodological issues raised by the respondents. Those issues include the book’s focus on aesthetic pleasure; the functions of narrative, style, ideology, and genre in Hollywood cinema; the relationship between ideology and aesthetics; the use of scientific research in the humanities; normative aesthetic evaluations; real versus hypothetical spectators; and the practices of aesthetic film analysis.

Male Psychological Responses to Idealized Images of Men and Women

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Philip ◽  
Donald R. McCreary ◽  
Jennifer S. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Responses ◽  
Men And Women

Psychological responses to violence exposure in high-poverty African American youth

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Bolland ◽  
Anneliese C. Bolland ◽  
Shannon M. Hitchcock ◽  
Kathleen A. Bolland ◽  
Sara E. Tomek
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Violence Exposure ◽  
African American Youth ◽  
Psychological Responses ◽  
High Poverty
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