Forms of Illusion in Cinema

Thinking back to our very first theoretical reading in the course on "Apparatus Theory", remember that studying illusion, especially in cinema, is challenging to humans. Cinema as a suspension of disbelief refers to the notion of the passive spectator. According to Darwanism, our human senses are not required to distinguish in our environment what is real or what is fake. Moving images trick our senses into believing the illusion of movement because it does not determine our survival.

 

Perceptive and Descriptive Illusion 

Laurent Jullier writes that Perceptive and Descriptive Illusion allow us to discuss the apparatus’s relationship to illusion and view film as a text to be interacted with.

• Perceptive illusion: Spectators believe that the cinematic apparatus is invisible to the point where they believe that they are faced with the world.
• Descriptive Illusion: Film’s ability to serve as a reliable source of information about the world, even if the film is fictional.

 

On the next page, you'll synthesize these concepts of emotion, point-of-view and illusion to watch Stories we Tell. 

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