Reporting one’s experience of the film Alien, one might say that one saw Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley fighting the monster, but one might also say that one imagined Ripley fighting the monster. This paper aims to figure out the experience that the verbs “to see” and “to imagine” characterize in such reports. For this purpose, I first introduce four requirements for an account of film experience. Secondly, I examine the main theses on the role of imagination and perception in film experience, arguing that none of them satisfies all the requirements. Thirdly, I propose a new thesis according to which the spectator of a fiction film imagines being a subject of a different kind, namely, a disembodied subject of experience who can perceive events that occur in a world in which that subject has no place. I argue that this thesis satisfies all the requirements.
Imagination and Perception in Film Experience
TERRONE E
2020-01-01
Abstract
Reporting one’s experience of the film Alien, one might say that one saw Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley fighting the monster, but one might also say that one imagined Ripley fighting the monster. This paper aims to figure out the experience that the verbs “to see” and “to imagine” characterize in such reports. For this purpose, I first introduce four requirements for an account of film experience. Secondly, I examine the main theses on the role of imagination and perception in film experience, arguing that none of them satisfies all the requirements. Thirdly, I propose a new thesis according to which the spectator of a fiction film imagines being a subject of a different kind, namely, a disembodied subject of experience who can perceive events that occur in a world in which that subject has no place. I argue that this thesis satisfies all the requirements.
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