Reading in both directions, a critical autobiographic method of film interpretation

grantor: University of TorontoThis dissertation concentrates on the experiential, emotional, imaginative and social aspects of film spectator criticism. A method of viewing films is developed which seeks to analyze how viewers' social situatedness in relation to their imaginative and affective responses plays a role in their critical thinking about a given film. The main argument of this thesis is that this kind of strategy to interpreting films can uncover some of a viewer's investments in competing/conflicting filmic discourses and practices. These investments in turn may shed light on her or his life discourses and practices and be implicated in their resistance to social change. Rather than agreeing with the widely held premise that viewers' "experiences" are not very important sources of knowledge for analyzing a film, the thesis argues that a critical autobiographic film viewing method can provide media theorists, educators and spectators with a more sophisticated and productive strategy for understanding aspects of hegemony enacted or represented in films as well as in audience members' lives. Drawing on my own filmic and life experiences, I attempt to critically uncover some of the ways in which my past and current social locations interact with my affective, critical and imaginative responses to specific films. This approach to film might be of particular interest to those who are frustrated with current media theory and criticism focused on so-called rational or objective strategies of viewing film. In contrast, I stress the complex interplay of unconscious and conscious social desires that exist in spectators responses and interpretations. Finally, then, I suggest a method of film viewing which works 'with' and 'through' social ambiguities and contradictions instead of trying to arrive at fixed, universal, or purely individualistic meanings or positions from which to see and assess films.Ph.D