"It's a masterpiece", "not so good", "not bad"... Often, on leaving the cinema, spectators give opposite opinions. These reactions are so different that one could say that there are as many ways of "experiencing" a film as there are viewers. Why do we not see the same film?
Because "we attribute different intentions to the director", answers Alessandro Pignocchi, a researcher in cognitive sciences. According to Pignocchi, any film can be seen as a game of chase, with viewers scouring the images for clues left by the production team (actors, cameramen, editors, etc.). When people interpret a film differently, it is because they are evaluating different clues. The first may have focused on the repetition of the zooms, the second probably focused on the meaning of the words in the dialogue, while the last noticed the acting. And even if we consider only the acting, one may have liked scenes that seemed familiar, while another may have thought he was escaping from his daily life.
The appreciation of a film, which is eminently subjective, depends on our cognitive system, which is itself intrinsically linked to our personal experience of life as human beings who move, smell, taste, imagine, dream, etc. It is therefore impossible to understand all the elements of the film. It is therefore impossible to understand all the determinants of the appreciation of a film.
Except perhaps through introspection. To illustrate his method, A. Pignocchi gives us very personal analyses of his favourite films. He identifies recurring themes: the feeling of a lost innocence, the relativity of the concept of nature, or memory and its vagaries, as in Terrence Malick's Tree of Life. He invites us to see these films differently and opens up our field of perception, allowing us to change interpretations at will. Recommended to all those who wish to enrich their experience as film lovers.
