Jenn Thảo Nguyễn

This week I felt very intrigued by the ways in which the theorists Metz and Baudry, through utilizing Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, establish the possibility of one’s “floating” perception in cinema and make sense of cinema’s ‘absence’ that is an inherent, and perhaps integral, aspect of spectatorship in Appartus-theory. My interpretation of Metz is that he derives his notion of fetishism from Freud’s theories on the Mother’s ‘castration’ being the original absence that incites a desire akin to that of the spectator — who is excited by all the sensations that cinema brings to them, an excitation that can only be created by the understanding that the stimulation comes from one’s lack of and desire for the real event/experience represented. Baudry, for me, discusses cinema’s ‘absence’ as rather a ‘negation’ of intermittent frames, imperceptible to the naked eye, that contribute to one’s illusion of cinema’s continuity and without which one would not be able to perceive.

The difference negated being proposed as a way to tap into the subconscious, through the unconscious, reminded me of the idea of subliminal stimuli: “messages that are sent to the brain below the level of conscious awareness”. In contemporary psychoanalysis theories of subliminals (Schlaghecken and Eimer, 2004; Klapp and Haas, 2005; Kiesel et al., 2006; Parkinson and Haggard, 2014; Ocampo, 2015), studies report that one’s susceptibility, or utility of subliminal stimulation, is prefigured by the condition that the “stimuli consisted of singular familiar items that require little integration”. This condition may be satisfied by Baudry’s explanation of the eye’s movement, recognizing the stagnant negated frames, accompanied by the speed of projection and light, to bridge differences and re-establish the illusion of continuity without much effort. With this said, the studies further purport that “subliminal primes not only facilitate correct responses to related targets in a classification task, but also bias responses in “free choice” tasks in which participants can freely decide between response alternatives”. The validity of subliminal studies requires further questioning, although if such reports are fortified by findings, it becomes intriguing to examine the utility and existence of subliminals in film (perhaps through Baudry’s difference negated but also through other forms of subliminal messaging). One would have to stipulate the conditions of what stimuli can be perceived as requiring “little integration”, and what degree of “free choice” is hindered by the inception of the subconscious through the unconscious, but such could unlock our understanding of a different side of cinematic perception, or in another words unconscious reception.

Citations:

Subliminal messages exert long-term effects on decision-making | neuroscience of consciousness | oxford academic. Accessed February 6, 2025. https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2016/1/niw013/2757133.