Perception: Week 1

My first lecture and seminar for the perception unit was really interesting as I’ve never delved so deep into the realms of how we perceive everything…and I mean everything including tables! Yes I’ve looked at audience response theories and other media theories but it was very interesting looking further into how we perceive, past the theories and media language and sometimes looking at something so simple but so effective such as the “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”…this is not a pipe painting by René Magritte.

  

We looked at two clips of two very different but also very similar films, Orson Welles’ ‘Touch of Evil’ (1958) and Tetsuya Nakashima’s ‘Memories of Matsuko’ (2006).

We discussed each clip looking at similarities and differences but also especially looking at how the clips differently guided influence and lead the viewer’s perceptions, how cinematic ideas and conventions were used, and how the form, such as sound and lighting affected how we perceive.

Some differences we noticed were how in ‘Touch of Evil’ everyone seems arrogant of their surroundings and living the dream until it comes crashing down whereas, ‘Memories of Matsuko’ is perceived as living reality…but is it real as the edits blur together different events similarly to how we search our memories for the correct one.
                Another idea was how the music and sound allowed us to perceive the time and atmospheres of both film clips but also hint at and foreshadow later events such as in ‘Touch of Evil’ where you can hear the ticking mixed in with the music which is then revealed later to be the bomb counting down.

This idea of perceiving could really come in useful with my metamorphosis essay for unit 1 as I could ask myself how the difference of human and animal physiognomy is perceived and defined through metamorphosis in particular texts. Also, how characters’ metamorphoses are perceived by those and their environment around them.