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UDC: 791.31:1
Contributions to the Psychology of the Cinemagoer
Leopold Blaustein
Translated from Polish by Witold Plotka Abstract and keywords prepared by Witold Plotka Bibliography edited by Witold Plotka
Abstract
The text aims to describe the experiences of the cinemagoer by analyzing complexes of lived experiences as being composed of presentations, feelings, and judgments. These experiences are discussed with regard to the status of sensations and the object constituted by the goer. The study examines the types and features of experiences expressed by film characters by scrutinizing the theory of sympathy (Einfühlung). Moreover, the status and meaning of music in the cinemagoer's lived experiences is
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explored; in this respect, the author argues that music is an important factor in shaping the goer's mood. The text determines non-aesthetic and "semi-aesthetic" factors, which are combined in the cinemagoer's lived experiences, and inquires into the status of the world of cinematic art.
Keywords: aesthetic experience, feeling, pleasure, presentation, assumption, cinematic art, imaginative world.
Prispevki h psihologiji obiskovalca kina
Povzetek
Besedilo skuša opisati izkustvo obiskovalca kina z analizo sklopa doživljanja, kakršnega sestavljajo predstave, občutja in sodbe. Doživetje kina je obravnavno z vidika statusa občutkov in predmeta, ki ga obiskovalec pri tem konstituira. Študija tipe in poteze izkustva, kakor ga izražajo filmski liki, raziskuje s pomočjo teorije sočutja [vživljanja] (Einfühlung). Blaustein, nadalje, pretresa tudi status in pomen glasbe pri 280 obiskovalčevem doživljanju kina, pri čemer poudarja, da je glasba pomemben faktor pri oblikovanju gledalčevega razpoloženja. Besedilo opredeljuje ne-estetske in »pol-estetske« faktorje, kakršni se združujejo pri doživljanju kina, in pretresa status sveta kinematografske umetnosti.
Ključne besede: estetsko izkustvo, občutje, užitek, predstava, domneva, kinematografska umetnost, domišljijski svet.
Leopold Blaustein
[| 5]1 § 1. Introduction
Anyone interested in the psychic life of human beings can approach the study of its manifestations in two ways. And thus, one can focus on some kind of lived experience as the subject matter of one's study, e.g., memories or aesthetic feelings, identify these lived experiences in various situations, and study their properties and functions. However, one may also take a different path for one's studies and attempt to understand the lived experiences of all kinds that occur in a certain type of situation, e.g., the situation, in which a cinemagoer finds oneself during a film screening. We will adopt this second path in the following study, the task of which is to partially shed more light on the psychology of the cinemagoer. It will be partial for two reasons. Firstly, only some selected issues that can be correctly classified as problems of the psychology of the cinemagoer will be addressed in these investigations; secondly, some of the questions that I raise will have to be left open, as they would require more research or would be dependent on certain general questions in the field of psychology, which have not yet been conclusively solved.	281
The psychology of the cinemagoer is the psychology of a person participating in a cinema screening, lasting, say, 1/-2 hours. One's lived experiences during this time are undoubtedly dependent not only on the stimuli provided by the screen, but also, among other things, on his past [experiences]. The nature of one's lived experiences during a screening is, as it seems, influenced by previous lived experiences produced by advertisements of the film, etc., experiences lived through while watching films, which one had previously seen, the frequency of such lived experiences, as well as the mental state, which the
1 [This translation indicates original pagination directly in the text in square brackets; all page numbers refer to: Blaustein, Leopold. 1933. Przyczynki do psychologii widza kinowego. Poznan: Poznanskie Towarzystwo Psychologiczne.]
This translation is a result of the project supported by the National Science Center, Poland (SONATA BIS, project no. 2021/42/E/HS1/00108): The Philosophy of Leopold Blaustein in Context: Brentano, Gestalt Psychology, Lvov-Warsaw School and Early Phenomenology.
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goer adopted immediately prior, whether one was nervous or cheerful, tired or fresh, etc. General mental dispositions, one's intelligence, temperament, one's established beliefs and aesthetic inclinations are also not without consequence. The influence of all this will remain, in principle, outside the scope of our investigations. I will completely omit discussion of the influences of lived experiences [| 6] in the cinema in relation to the entirety of one's mental life or the examination of what kind of films have stronger, weaker, positive, negative effects, what the preferences of the cinema audience are and thus desires for films of this or that type, how the understanding of film affects a child, etc. All these issues, which are worth considering and examining in the psychology of the cinemagoer, as they inquire into causal relationships, about the genesis of certain lived experiences or about certain statistical comparisons, require different research methods than the description of the set of lived experiences experienced by the cinemagoer who watches the products of the contemporary film industry, with particular emphasis on the sources of the pleasure one experiences. In this 282 regard, we are also not interested in the problems of cinema aesthetics, which attempts to determine "specifically cinematic" factors, arguing about the line that the development of cinema should follow. Investigations devoted to the psychology of the cinemagoer are not investigations in the field of aesthetics; however, their results may become a starting point for aesthetic explorations.2
2 The view that psychological investigations are the starting point for aesthetics is shared even by supporters of non-psychological aesthetics. "Die Ästhetik ist eine gegenstandsorientierte Wissenschaft—der Zugang zur Ästhetik führt über die Psychologie. [Aesthetics is an object-oriented discipline—access to aesthetics leads via psychology.]" (Geiger 1928, VIII.)
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I. Presentations and Their Objects § 2. Sensations lived by the cinemagoer
The cinemagoer as such experiences only visual and auditory sensations.3 Any tactile, gustatory, or muscular sensations experienced [by the cinemagoer] are not related to watching what is happening "on" the screen, and therefore they do not come into play here.
a) The visual sensations of a cinemagoer rarely provide one with colors, most often only various shades of neutral colors, [| 7] the play of light and shadows. These sensations come from the phantoms, which are constantly changing, covering the screen. One perceives the colors of these phantoms either as properties of objects seen imaginatively "on" the screen or as phantoms covering these objects, i.e., shadows and lights flashing on them.
Volkelt claims that when one looks at a drawing made in neutral colors, one perceives the trees drawn as green or brown, the clothes as colorful, the faces as having the color of body. The specific Gestalt quality that the 283 drawing has is connected with the certainty that one could at any moment make present to oneself the real colors of the given objects. The certainty of this possibility is not a conscious act; it is not given in a conscious way at all. Rather, it is implicitly present in the Gestalt quality that the black-and-white drawing possesses. "Das Grün des schwarz-weissen Baumes ist mir in der Weise der 'Gewissheit der Möglichkeit' gegenwärtig." (Volkelt 1920, 186.)4 Without examining the question of whether Volkelt is right with regard to drawings, let us ask whether something similar occurs in the goer of a black-and-white film. The people I asked about this, and I myself, were unable to state anything of this sort. In this situation, we do not perceive objects as colored, nor do we have a sense of the possibility of perceptually presenting these objects as colored. How else could this [colorful] manifestation [of
3	The so-called lower senses require contact with an object. (Cf. the distinction between "Kontaktsinne" and "Fernsinne" in Kulpe 1921, 74). The cinemagoer lacks this contact, which is why one does not experience the sensations of the lower senses.
4	["The green of the black and white tree is present to me in the way of 'certainty of possibility'."]
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images] be provided? Probably only in appropriate perceptive or imaginative images. The former is impossible, and the latter is difficult to uphold, and almost never takes place. On the other hand, there is a readiness in us to significatively think that these trees are green or the sky is blue, if someone would ask us about it or if such a question would have arisen in us. Seemingly, however, this is not what Volkelt had in mind, since he believes that colors are "mitgesehen" in such situations.
[| 8] b) It would be wrong to think that, given the limitation of the sensations received by the cinemagoer to visual and auditory ones, the cinemagoer only grasps the colors and shapes of objects seen "on" the screen, and the noises and sounds they make. In his contributions to the phenomenology of perception, Schapp (1910, 12 ff.) describes how the world appears when it is given only in colors, and how it appears when it is given only by means of sounds, etc. The results of his descriptions can be applied accurately to what the cinemagoer sees and hears, with the proviso that the goer usually only has neutral colors, although in countless shades,5 and that usually a sound film does not provide 284 one with all the noises and sounds that one would naturally hear in a given situation, but only certain selected ones. On the screen, therefore, we see not only the colors of the brass lamp, clothes, coffee, honey, but also the smoothness of this lamp, the roughness of the clothes, the fluidity of the coffee, the viscosity of the honey. We see this especially when these objects are in motion, when honey sticks to the objects it has come into contact with, e.g., with the trousers of a comically unlucky character, or when coffee spills from a glass awkwardly held by this character. We see the smoothness of a brass lamp thanks to the specific luster of this object, the softness or hardness of canvas thanks to the various folds, in which it is arranged. According to Volkelt (1920, 194), we even see the sharpness of a sword, the wetness of stones, the smoothness of a dance floor, the elasticity of a spring. But, when we see sugar, we do not see its sweetness; when we see a rose, we do not see its fragrance, just as we see its softness, when a disappointed lover crushes this gift from an unfaithful beloved in their hand. We only know that sugar is sweet, that a rose has a smell,
5 Neutral paintings also have specific decorative values, as Ingarden rightly emphasizes in: Ingarden 1931, 333.
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when we see the facial expression of a child eating sugar or a person inhaling with delight the fragrance of a rose.
[| 9] When a cart loaded with iron bars is pulled along an uneven road, according to Schapp (1910, 12 ff.), we have the unevenness of the road as directly given, along with the weight of the cart, the type of load, etc., even if we do not see the cart or the road at a certain moment. The sound produced by the collision of two objects will betray their hardness or softness. We identify the cart that we hear from a distance with the cart that we see when it gets closer. When we see only the interior of the house "on" the screen, but certain rustles and murmurs come from outside, parts of the imaginary space that are invisible at the moment are filled with things; we know that a storm is raging outside, we hear the rustle of trees swaying in the wind, the beating of rain or hail on the pavement and roof, and we do not have to imagine tree, pavement, roof, and rain.
This is not the place for a closer analysis of how these apparently nonvisual or non-auditory properties6 are given to the senses of sight or hearing. Schapp believes that these properties are directly seen, Volkelt that they are 285 "sinnlicherganzend mitgesehen,"7 both are opposed to the view that phantasy or the combination of what is seen with associated memory impressions play any role here. These are difficult questions, which cannot be addressed within the scope of the psychology of the cinemagoer, because they belong to the field of general psychology. For the psychology of the cinemagoer, only this circumstance is important: although one experiences only visual and auditory sensations, objects on the screen are also given to one as smooth, liquid, elastic, wet, etc., that objects are given to one, although one does not see them, one only hears them, etc. I am inclined to the view that this is in fact the work of visual and auditory sensations, and the acts of presentation and judgment that interpret them,8 and not the work of phantasy or associated secondary images.
[| 10] c) This does not exclude the possibility that sometimes the visual
6	I call these properties "apparently non-visual or non-auditory," because I believe that the words "smoothness," "stickiness," "hardness," etc., denote features that can be given not only tactilely, but also visually or auditorily.
7	["[S]een together as sensorily complementing."]
8	Cf. my treatise: Blaustein 1928, § 32.
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and auditory sensations experienced by someone may be joined by associated secondary images of the same or other senses, e.g., olfactory. Witasek (1904, 185) even believes that the aesthetic pleasure of a painted rose necessarily includes the presentation of its scent and that the association evokes a secondary sensation of scent as soon as the stimulus provided by the eye is sufficiently vivid. The same can sometimes be experienced by a cinemagoer if one is not an audile or an extreme visualizer (Blachowski 1919, 31). Thus, a cinemagoer perceptively experiences only visual and auditory sensations. Despite this, one also grasps properties of imaginative objects that are mainly given in other senses, such as smoothness, roughness, and which can also be grasped with the help of sight or hearing. Moreover, a cinemagoer can perceive properties, such as smells, which the senses of sight and hearing cannot provide at all, thanks to associated secondary olfactory images, etc.9
§ 3. The observation of a film and its object
2Q6 a) Sensory content given in visual sensations is arranged into certain wholes, called presenting content. For the cinemagoer, however, they do not present the reproducing object, i.e., the screen together with the phantoms covering it, but play the role of appearances of imaginative objects or reproduced objects, depending on the viewer's attitude. When watching scientific films or film weeklies, the goer is focused on reproduced objects, in other films— basically on imaginative objects, rarely only on the reproduced ones, [| 11] e.g., when one knows the cities, mountains, buildings, etc., which constitute the background of the action [of the film] or sometimes in historical films. Reproducing objects are given to one in perceptive images, imaginative or reproduced objects—in imaginative images.10
b) "Observation" in the broader meaning of the term is usually only a series of systematically successive perceptions of a certain object. However, there is
9	It should be added to the above argumentation that the role of the reproducing object is played by phantoms on the screen, objects that are exceptionally "volatile," "non-massive," "non-corporeal," and "fleeting," and that some of these properties are transferred to the imaginary objects, which in turn make them similar to the objects of daydreaming.
10	Cf. my treatise: Blaustein 1930, passim.
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nothing preventing us from also referring to a series of imaginative presentations as observation, experienced together with attention in the cinema.11 A cinemagoer thus observes everything that happens in the imaginative world appearing "on" the cinema screen. One perceives the sensory content given to one as appearances of mountains, cities, streets, people, etc., and one observes everything that happens to people, cars, etc., against the background of these mountains, streets, and interiors. The goer can observe these events thanks to a series of appearances appearing on the screen, where of course only snippets of these events are given to one in the appearances, only certain phases of them. These appearances change often and quickly, which is why we talk about the snapshot nature of film images. Thanks to this snapshot nature, the cinemagoer does not sense the absence of words (a meaning) (Irzykowski 1924, 127).
The conditions of observation in the cinema are partly different from those in other circumstances, which also explains the goer's interest in film. A cinemagoer can view a given object from various viewpoints. A painter must limit herself to presenting the object from only one viewpoint (Cornelius 1921, 22); even in ordinary life, the possibilities of observation from different 287 viewpoints [| 12] are sometimes more limited than in the cinema. A film shows us a crowd raging with anger from the viewpoints of various people who are part of the crowd, from the viewpoints of observers placed above the crowd (from a bird's eye view), or even below the crowd, when we see only the feet of rushing people. A painter must take a position sufficiently distant from the painted object or objects (Cornelius 1921, 23) to be able to encompass their entirety at one glance; otherwise, the painting will be unclear in terms of its spatiality. A film director may not take this [adequate distance] into account; one may present a human face or some other objects so that their image fills the entire screen, and after a moment this object will appear at an appropriate
11 We speak of "observation" in the stricter sense of the term only where these series of perceptions are made for research purposes. This meaning is what Twardowski seems to have in mind in his treatise "O metodzie psychologii" (Twardowski 1910, 10). One could argue that, in this sense too, a cinemagoer observes, because one follows objects on the screen, for example, in order to learn the fates of film characters. However, a cinemagoer cannot observe individual, quickly disappearing images, but the imaginary objects given in them.
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distance among other objects, this enables the appropriate location of the fragment, which previously was shown from a close-up. Similarly, when we perceive the world around us, we focus our attention on different objects, but then we cannot freely bring it closer and enlarge it, as a film does. An analogy would rather be provided by observing objects in the theater or in ordinary life through binoculars, because in this way we achieve a closer and enlarged object, and by doing so, we limit the visual field solely to that object. But in the theater or ordinary life, we make our own choices about which objects we want to look at more closely, while a cinemagoer cannot constitute their activity in this respect. The value of a film depends to a large extent on whether the film directs the goer's attention in accordance with their interests, aroused by the images so far. If this is the case, the goer hardly feels the aforementioned passivity.
It is precisely by showing fragments, isolating details, cutting out, by enlarging, reducing, or changing the usual perspective to another, by changing the usual pace to a faster or slower one (Irzykowski 1924, 83, 146)—all of this 288 makes the observation of things and events in the cinema sometimes more interesting, even if these things and events are not interesting in themselves. [| 13] Slow-motion shots or sped-up projection of a film onto the screen are particularly interesting for psychological analysis. While watching them, the goer can clearly distinguish two different rates of the passage of time, and realize that there in the imaginary world time now passes at a slower or faster pace than in the real world, in which the goer finds herself (Blaustein 1930, 21 ff.). This phenomenon cannot be found, for example, in the theater, where only the time between parts [of the play] or scenes sometimes passes faster, and not the duration of the action on the open stage.
c) In the context of observation in the cinema, it is worth noting that despite the two-dimensionality of the screen, on which phantoms appear and disappear, imaginary objects are viewed by the cinemagoer in a three-dimensional space; there they are grouped in front of his body—not in front of the one sitting in the audience, but in front of the body, which is unconsciously and invisibly projected into that imaginary world (Blaustein 1930, 18 ff.). These objects are perceived by the cinemagoer not as "one-sided, partial, shell-like, shifted in perspective in relation to us, different in their changes"—as Oleksiuk
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characterizes objects viewed in the attitude toward their appearances in his so-far unpublished work on the so-called perceptual judgment—"but [they are perceived] as identical in themselves, versatile, full in their depth, having back sides and interiors."
Just as these objects are located in the background or are close by, to the left or to the right, so also the sounds and noises that reach us from this imaginary world come from far away or close by, from above or below, from the left or the right. The objects seen on the screen are moving, and thus, with good synchronization, the location of the sounds and noises made by these objects changes. Sometimes, we hear the sounds and noises of objects that have not yet appeared or that have already disappeared from the screen. The strength of the sounds, the tempo, the rhythm, etc., contribute to the fact that we experience what K[arl] Lange calls—perhaps not entirely adequately—"musikalische Bewegungsillusion" (Lange 1907, 110 ff.).12 We hear [| 14] thus how certain objects move away or approach after they have disappeared or before they appear on the screen. Objects appear to us in principle as correlated with distance. Similarly, sounds and noises have a strength that usually corresponds 289 to the distance, from which they come. Of course, this is not about distance relative to the body of the cinemagoer. After all, it is only the screen that is closer to the cinemagoer sitting in the first row than to the goer sitting in the last row. As I have already said, the objects seen "on" the screen, which are perceived imaginatively, are grouped in front of the goer's body projected into that world; [this projected body] is invisible and at the same distance from the perceived objects as the camera was from them when capturing the shots (Blaustein 1930, 18). This imaginary spatial world, which is revealed "on" the screen, appears itself as an unfamiliar visitor in the space surrounding the goer, and it is not in any spatial relations to the latter. This is also why, when a train on the screen is barreling straight toward the goer, the goer does not fear for her life; when at the end of the screen the ship partially disappears, the goer does not search for the rest of it on the walls. One does not see a destroyed ship then, but half of the ship. This does not require a phantasmic supplementation of the seen half of the ship with the other; this is no different than in everyday life,
12 ["[M]usical illusion of movement."]
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where objects partially disappear beyond our visual field. After all, we perceive them as whole objects, and not as pieces of objects. The space revealed on the screen in the background has no boundaries, it stretches into the distance, if it is open (e.g., a desert landscape, the sea); the edges of the screen are sharp, but they clearly indicate that they hide the "continuation" of the imaginary space and the objects, which fill this space. If the screen is covered with an image of an object whose contours merge with the screen boundaries, the boundaries no longer indicate this "continuation" (which Lipps (1914, 156 ff.) criticizes in the context of the images that he analyzes from these viewpoints, and which a film operator should also avoid). [| 15] The foreground "boundary" of imaginary space is different from its lateral edges and its depth. It is not sharply closed like the side boundary, nor does it extend endlessly forward (but it is given as the depth). The psychological situation is in this respect analogous to that, in which we observe the world around us; it should be emphasized, however, that the visual field of a cinemagoer has different contours from the normal visual field, and that objects or their parts seen between the eye and the 290 screen are not perceived as a continuation of the imaginary world.
Lange claims that in the cinema we see movements,13 but not space. "Die Personen huschen mit ihrer Bewegung flächenhaft, wie Schemen an uns vorbei... Die Bewegung brauchen wir uns nicht hinzudenken, denn wir sehen sie wirklich. Den Raum dagegen müssen wir uns hinzudenken, denn in Bezug auf ihn findet keine optische Täuschung statt" (Lange 1907, 267-268.)14 It seems to me that Lange is wrong. Perhaps he was right about the films available 50 years ago, when he was writing his book. I recall, moreover, that I myself felt the same way, when I was in the cinema for the first time. Normally, however, a cinemagoer accustomed to watching films perceives the imaginary space visually as having three dimensions, without the help of phantasy, as Lange15 claims.
13	We will not deal with the psychological analysis of perceiving movements in the context of cinema. It has been experimentally studied many times.
14	["In their movement, the persons drift past us listlessly, like apparitions ... We do not need to contrive the movement, since we really see it. However, we must contrive space, for in relation to it no optical deception takes place."]
15	It is perhaps worth noting a certain prediction of this aesthetician, which did not
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[| 16] I mentioned above that the spatial world revealed to us on the screen has found itself as an unfamiliar visitor in the world around us. This applies to film even more than, for example, to painting. A painting can sometimes serve as a decoration of the surroundings, but a film image never plays this role. In the case of a painting, isolation from the surroundings is marked by the frame, which can be designed in such a way that it becomes a part of the surroundings as a part of its environmental structure. The role of the frame in a film image is played by the darkness around the screen, isolating the imaginary world in a more perfect way than picture frames. The darkness of the cinema hall, which is indispensable for technical reasons, has effects that are more than technical. It makes it easier for the goer, or even forces her, to concentrate on the screen; it performs the indicated isolation and prevents the artificial intrusion of the imaginary world into ours, which is what some strive for in theater, painting, or sculpture. The significance of this isolation is important; according to Utitz, it is even a condition for being an aesthetic object.16 It is also one of the reasons for the aesthetic attitude of the goer, in which one perceives objects in terms of their beauty or ugliness.	291
We have said of this isolation that it is largely the result of the darkness surrounding the screen. It is an interesting phenomenon that, whenever the screen is also covered with darkness in connection with the action, e.g., after the lights in a mine are turned off, the goer feels as if the film has been
turn out to be true. Namely, he writes that the future addition of sound to films will lead to goers experiencing the illusion that they are dealing with nature, and not with a work of art. The accidental circumstance that this nature will be projected onto the surface of the screen will be insignificant, just as viewing natural beings through binoculars does not deprive the goer of the awareness that they are viewing real, natural beings. With the removal of the strong obstacle to illusion, consisting in the lack of appropriate noises connected with moving objects, such as the clatter of a train, the shouts of a crowd, nothing will stand in the way of experiencing illusions (Lange 1907, 267-268). This mistake by Lange results from his erroneous view that the occurrence of certain so-called "illusionsstorende Elemente [illusion-interrupting elements]" depends on whether we perceive certain objects as real or as imaginary. It depends on the subject's attitude, not on the objective properties of the object seen. (Cf. Blaustein 1930, 38. In § 33 of this work, I discuss the issue of whether the cinema viewer experiences illusions or an aesthetic illusion.) 16 See Utitz 1927; also in: Dessoir 1925, 614 ff.
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interrupted; the dark screen merges into one whole with the dark hall, the imaginary world of the film disappears. The situation is somewhat different in a sound film when voices reach us from a dark screen, but in this situation the goer also feels uneasy and must help herself with phantasy, in order to throw some hidden imaginary world into the darkness surrounding her.
d) When observing objects or events, we do so with attention. A cinemagoer, too, while observing everything that happens "on" the screen, focuses her attention on it. [| 17] This is almost never voluntary attention, but involuntary. Even when the film is not very interesting, thanks to the darkness in the cinema hall, involuntary attention is focused on the film, as long as the goer is perceiving the screen at all. If the film is interesting, the focus of attention is exceptionally strong and long-lasting; the world around one disappears for the goer as rarely happens otherwise. This also depends partly on the position in the audience that the goer occupies. For instance, the visual field of a goer sitting on a balcony is usually not as completely limited to the screen as that of a goer sitting on the ground floor. However, the section of the imaginary world seen "on" the screen 292 is large enough for attention to be focused on various parts of it, on this or that character, or on the background. In this respect, too, the activity of a cinemagoer is largely limited. The focus of the goer's attention on this or that detail is decided by the [film's] action, the director,17 and occasionally the goer may free herself from their influence and focus her attention, e.g., on the background or on a character that is not in the foreground at a given moment. Something similar also happens, e.g., to a theatergoer, when one suddenly stops observing a person who is currently active and follows the facial expressions of a person who is passive in a given situation.
§ 4. The role of secondary and non-visual presentations in watching a film
In describing the experiences of a cinemagoer, we have so far only drawn attention to certain perceptive images with simple sensory content experienced by someone, namely visual and auditory sensations, to the sometimes
17 The art of good montage is precisely to direct (in psychological terms) the goer's attention naturally.
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associated simple memory images of these or other senses, and to imaginative presentations based on these visual sensations. Do presentations of other types, i.e., phantasy, memory, schematic, [| 18] symbolic,18 and significative presentations play no role in the psyche of a cinemagoer?
a) Phantasy sometimes plays a certain role in the experiences of the cinemagoer. After all, the goer perceives a whole series of images, between which there is often no continuity. The main character of the film reads a letter, gets into a car, the car speeds through the night, stops in front of their house, etc. However, we do not see the character leaving their apartment; we do not see the entire journey the car takes, nor a scene of them getting out of the car, walking up the stairs, entering the apartment, etc. Do we fill in the missing scenes imaginatively? This happens sometimes, though rarely. Operations of phantasy take place in particular, when the director wishes so—when the director only marks and consciously interrupts certain scenes. This happens in crime films, in order to create the mystery of who committed the crime, in erotic films, where the image disappears when a moment of heightened intimacy or intensity approaches. Sometimes the film directly challenges us to 293 fill in the images seen on the screen with imaginative ones. For instance, it only shows shadows on the wall or outside the window, forcing us to guess what is happening in the room—showing the faces and eyes of people watching something with suspense that the film does not show us, but that we can guess at. In addition, we rarely supplement the images we see with phantasy during the screening, if only because we do not have time, because we are busy watching more and more new images appearing on the screen. The role of phantasy in the situations discussed above resembles the role of phantasy in Volkelt's (1920, 210-211) "supplementary phantasy," which is active when watching images.19 When an image contains some biblical, legendary, or historical content, it is understood—according to Volkelt—only when, in
18	Cf. my treatise: Blaustein 1931, passim.
19	[Volkelt] distinguishes from supplementary phantasy what he calls "umspielende Phantasie," which concerns some indefinite, volatile, and fleeting images. The concept of this phantasy, which is supposed to be active rather when viewing the works of Dürer, Rembrandt, and Klinger than Holbein, Rubens, and Hildebrand, is not entirely clear.
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addition to the presented [| 19] moment of action, we imaginatively present the previous and next moment. As Volkelt himself points out, this can happen without harm to the aesthetic experience, not only with the help of phantasy presentations, but also in a shortened and unclear way with the help of "presentations of meaning."
While discussing the role of phantasy in the experiences of cinemagoers, it is worth emphasizing that young adolescents draw rich material and stimuli for their dreams from films, which are so characteristic of childhood and adolescence, whereas for adults who have lost to some extent the ability to daydream, films are a certain artefact that satisfies their need to travel to other countries and life situations different from their real ones.
b) Memory also plays a certain role in the experiences of the cinemagoer. It supplements the background of the film action, if the surroundings or cities are familiar to the goer, and it supplements the action itself, if the script is a summary of a novel known to them. These supplements can be made in the form of secondary images or by way of signification. In principle, the presence 294 of recognizable objects, whether the surroundings, streets, buildings, or actors, is alien to the overall experience of the cinemagoer, and as such it does not merge with these experiences into a whole; rather, it leads to a change from the attitude toward the imaginary world to the attitude toward the reproduced or reproducing world. This does not apply to recognitions of other types, which are coherently connected with the stream of experiences of the cinemagoer. When, for instance, the film introduces more people of the same sex in the first images, the goer often distinguishes these people from each other in clear instances of recognizing when observing subsequent images. Similarly, recollections of past moments of the action of the film are closely connected with the rest of the experiences of the cinemagoer.20
[| 20] c) In the stream of lived experiences of a cinemagoer, schematic and symbolic presentations undoubtedly sometimes appear, if the objects appearing "on" the screen schematize or symbolize something. Symbolic presentations
20 A relatively small share of secondary images in the experiences of the cinemagoer reduces their role as a factor in the aesthetic experience, discussed, among others, by Groos 1902, 85 ff.
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are more frequent than schematic ones, because of the significant role that symbols and allegories play in cinematographic art. However, the analysis of these film symbols and allegories is rather a matter of film aesthetics, and not the psychology of the cinemagoer.
By understanding the subtitles, letters, or sentences spoken by people "on" the screen, the cinemagoer experiences signitive presentations. The breaks in viewing the imaginary world caused by the display of these subtitles do not interfere with grasping the continuity of events, despite the lack of continuity in observation.21 It is similar with perceptual presentations, when, under the influence of fluctuations in attention, I interrupt my observation. I observe horses running in a race. For a moment, I look at the excited audience, then return to observing the horses, which are already in a different place. Nevertheless, I perceive their current movements as a continuation of those seen before. In cinema, this is all the easier, because the events in the imaginary world do not continue during this break, because, despite the break in observation, no links in the chain of observed events escape it. Because of these pauses, cinema images resemble secondary images that have such breaks 295 (Witwicki 1925, vol. 1, 214). By means of judgments or assumptions, as it seems, the content of the subtitles is "put" in the mouths of the speakers in a silent film, since the subtitles are usually not perceived at the same time as the speakers are viewed.
§ 5. Types of objects viewed by the cinemagoer
We already know what kind of presentations the cinemagoer experiences, and how one makes objects present to oneself. Now, [| 21] let us ask what kind of objects one makes present to oneself, because the kind of these objects may explain the wide scope of the various experiences of the cinemagoer (cf. §§ 9 and 10).
Wallis-Walfisz, while discussing groups of aesthetic objects that are not works of art, lists, among others, things and natural phenomena, activities,
21 We are not interested in the question of whether the inscriptions interfere with aesthetic experiences.
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human lives and institutions, and technological products.22 Cinema provides us with the appearances of all these objects.
a)	Film shows us the beauty of nature, delights us with appearances of sunsets, moonlit nights, golden waves of grain, the sky before a storm—gives us the appearance of things that we do not observe in ordinary life due to various difficulties, e.g., the seabed, exotic flora, the starry sky viewed through a telescope. It also draws our attention to things that we pass by without a thought, e.g., the beauty of snow-covered trees or a romantic view of city roofs. It also shows us extraordinary events in nature: floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Film spreads before us all the charms of nature, not only its shapes, lights, and sometimes colors, but also movements (bodies of water, animals, clouds) and bird calls, the rustling of trees, the sound of sea waves, the murmur of rain. It cannot provide only the scent of flowers, the taste of fruit, the sensations of temperature, touch, or the breeze, or perhaps only exceptionally in the form of associated secondary sensations. Nature affects all the senses, nature in film only some. Non-color film takes away the colors
296 of plants, animals, etc., but not the shades of colors or the play of light and shadow.
b)	Human bodies, their beauty, comedy, and strength, human bodies while dancing, working, and running—these are the other types of aesthetic objects that the cinemagoer perceives. The shared rhythm of the collective work of rowers, the beautiful jump of a skier, the gymnastic exercises of thousands of people, horse races, military parades, carnival processions, street gatherings, [| 22] groups of people interacting with each other with exquisite politeness, crowds of amused children—all this appears on the film screen.
c)	Moreover, cinema provides us with the appearances of architectural and technical constructions, such as pyramids, skyscrapers, Hindu temples, Renaissance palaces, the appearances of magnificent bridges, ships, air squadrons performing beautiful acrobatics, tall factory chimneys, and radio towers. Other images combine the beauty of animated machines with the rhythm of human work, showing the path taken by telegrams or the creation of
22 Wallis-Walfisz 1931b, 783-802. One may draw numerous examples from this article. The author, however, forgets about cinema completely.
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a newspaper in a printing house. Film can show us everything that constitutes the beauty of technical products, the purposefulness of construction, the simplicity and clarity of construction and fragmentation, the specific beauty of materials, the beauty of shapes, the rhythm resonating in the whole, the monumentality or filigree of dimensions (Wallis-Walfisz 1931b, 783-802).
d)	But cinema can provide more than what can be perceived in regular conditions. It enables the "visibility of invisibility"—as Irzykowski (1924, 25 ff.) puts it—it shows, for example, marvelous transformations of a man into an animal, an artificial human being, talking animals, fairy-tale wonders and fears, ghosts, or miracles of Hindu yogis.
e)	Similarly to the beauty of nature and the human body, technology, human play and work, the works of fine arts, i.e., products of architecture and sculpture, painting (decorations), and artistic industry can be admired by the cinemagoer. In addition to the arts created mainly for the eye, music has also become a "supplier" for cinema. The cinemagoer perceives all these wonders most often in passing, accompanying the people in the film on a journey by train (views from the window), ship, or plane, on walks through 297 fields and meadows, on mountain trips, in car rides along streets flooded with illuminated advertising at night. However, another aesthetic object usually comes to the forefront—human characters, human life and its strange fates, human happiness and despair. [| 23]
II. Higher Intellectual Functions and Emotional Experiences
§ 6. Experiences, in which the understanding of film takes place
a) The cinemagoer perceives not only a series of loose images presenting individual objects and events, but perceives these individual events as components of a larger whole, as parts of the action.23 It is not enough for the cinemagoer to perceive individual images, one must also understand their connection with the whole. This understanding takes place in acts of
23 The action consists of parts (acts), those of episodes, episodes of scenes, and those of many cycles of images, taken from one point of view—the so-called film set.
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judgment, based on imaginative presentations, and therefore devoid of the moment of conviction, i.e., in assumptions (Meinong 1910, passim). Already when seeing individual images, the cinemagoer assumes, for example, that the film character is reading a letter from his fiancée. Seeing him getting into the car in the next image, one assumes that the letter contained a call to come immediately. Thanks to these assumptions, the action is combined for the goer into a certain whole, the past parts of which are given to one in memories, the present ones are observed, and the future ones are awaited. These memories, observations, and expectations include assumptions, and these memories and expectations most often rely solely on these assumptions; they usually lack the participation of reproductive or productive images.24
b) Understanding the action of a film is not always easy, and not every person is able to do it. A small child does not; one is usually given only loose images, without grasping the connection between them. But adults sometimes fail to achieve understanding as well. This depends to a large extent on the level of one's intelligence, to which, for example, according to Wiegner (1931, 298 10), the function of understanding is assigned. As I have already [| 24] pointed out at the beginning, the issue of developing the ability to understand films requires an experimental attitude. Various incoherent films pose difficulties in understanding them for the cinemagoer. Certain difficulties are caused, e.g., by interweaving several plot lines with each other; for example, one cycle of images shows how relief forces struggling with difficulties make their way to a besieged fortress, and another how the defense of the fortress is taking place, with the images from both cycles appearing on the screen alternately. Other difficulties arise, because the temporal order of the images does not always coincide with the temporal order of the action of the film. For instance, interjected stories told by people cause the currently watched action to be perceived as past. Subtitles play an important role in this regard; therefore, people who do not read fast enough to read subtitles or who do not understand spoken words complain about not understanding the film's action. Particular difficulties in understanding are caused by certain original films, which use unusual montages, e.g., a contemporary composition or a combination
24 In this respect, I rely on Auerbach's recently published research on memory.
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of several images. Other difficulties are caused by film censorship, which sometimes requires the omission of certain elements of the action or changes in the meaning of subtitles. Understanding the action also depends to a large extent on understanding the mental states of the people presented in the film; we will now deal with [this phenomenon].
§ 7. Types of experiences and psychological traits expressible on
the screen and the means of expressing them
a) Regardless of the result of the dispute on how the experiences of other people are understood, it can be stated that these experiences are given to us thanks to the facial expressions, gestures, and bodies of these people, and thanks to the sounds made by them, whether in the form of shouts or in the form of meaningful sentences, and thanks to the various psychophysical products of these people in the form of letters, etc. A silent film uses primarily facial expressions, gestures, and bodies, supplementing them with subtitles; a sound film also uses facial expressions and body in addition to various sounds
299
and songs, supplementing them with sentences uttered by the people in the film.
[| 25] b) A reading of works on facial expressions and body, e.g., Piderit (1886) or Krukenberg (1913), introduces us to the rich inventory of mental states that facial expressions can express without the help of verbal utterances. E.g., the movement of the eyes can make the gaze tired, apathetic, lively, energetic, gentle, restless; depending on the direction, a gaze may be secretive, pedantic, full of delight. The ability of the eyes to express mental states or character traits is enhanced by opening or closing them, wrinkling the forehead when looking at something, the play of tears, on which the shine of the eyes depends, etc. The comportment of the mouth can give the face a bitter or sweet, fierce, contemptuous, searching expression. Our face also owes its ability to express certain mental states to the facial expression of the nose (flaring nostrils), hand gestures, etc.
Among human character traits, which can be expressed through facial expressions, gestures, and body, including race and age, we find, above all, permanent dispositions, such as cleverness, stupidity, arrogance, pride, submission, etc. A bitter person has a shrunken face, covered with wrinkles
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and furrows. A balanced, cheerful person has bright eyes radiating with joy, calm, and slow movements. The inventory of momentary emotional states that can be expressed in this way is inexhaustible. These include fear, depression, a mood of excitement, agitation, concern, despair, astonishment, delight, humility, shame, contempt, joy, etc. The means of expressing mental states also include yawning, moaning, sobbing, gnashing of teeth, whispering, screaming, singing, laughter, or smiling, which can be embarrassed, joyful, playful, or ironic. Various feelings can manifest themselves naturally or in a clearly restrained form; overcoming physical pain or anger has a specific facial expression. Facial expressions also reveal to us the effort, with which certain actions are performed, whether with increased strength or with fatigue, exhaustion due to excessive exertion. [| 26] Certain actions or facial expressions, such as kissing, eating (the pleasant or unpleasant taste of a dish, satiety), eavesdropping on a stranger's conversation, etc., have particularly clear and unmistakable expressions.
The most limited is the inventory of intellectual experiences expressed 300 through facial expressions, gestures, and body. It consists primarily of attention, sudden recollection of something, the quality of judgment (confirmation or denial with the head), and the very fact of intense thinking, of mental work. Generally speaking, however, the possibility of expressing intellectual experiences, especially the content of thoughts through facial expressions and body is very limited, which leads to the hegemony of the emotional sphere over the intellectual sphere in film, as Ingarden (1931, 335) writes.
c) Moreover, feelings also have intellectual content (a "central and peripheral factor of feeling" according to Witwicki (1925, vol. 2, 14 ff.)), which is available not due to facial expressions and body, but due to the situation, knowledge of the stimuli that caused the given feelings, due to the subtitles, etc. Knowledge of the situation in which certain persons find themselves, the stimuli to which they react, is, next to facial expressions, etc., important to the cinemagoer's understanding of the film characters. That is why a cinemagoer who came after the screening had already begun often does not understand at all or partially the facial expressions of the film characters, but after watching the film again from the beginning, one understands much more; movements
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that were previously meaningless now become meaningful. Sometimes, the goer may become uncertain about what feelings the imaginary person is experiencing. Feeling alien feelings may, similarly to thinking alien thoughts, be accompanied by doubts as to whether these alien thoughts and feelings are really as they are thought, as they are felt. Sometimes, the cinemagoer thinks that the imaginary person is experiencing something, but the signs of these experiences may be "ambiguous." The spoken word or inscription (letter, etc.) helps then; its role is not limited to expressing the intellectual life of imaginative persons, but serves also [| 27] to express and disambiguate their feelings. Just as facial expressions and gestures alone are sometimes not enough to know the type of feeling experienced by the imaginative person, subtitles alone or an oral statement may not be enough to evoke the conviction that this very person experiences certain feelings if they are not accompanied by appropriate facial expressions. If someone says they are suffering, whereas we would not know it from their face and, on the contrary, their eyes laugh at us—we suspect them of being insincere. This is sometimes planned with purpose by the screenwriter and the actor (insincere characters, irony etc.), and sometimes the result of 301 poor, unconvincing acting by the actor. It should also be noted that acting on stage, in a film, etc., takes into account—as Lange (1907, 300 ff.) rightly emphasizes—a compromise between the naturalness of facial expressions and their clarity for the goer. The actor consciously changes their movements to turn partly toward the goer, changes their gestures, sometimes intensifying slight movements of the face into a distinct grimace, and changes their speech for various reasons. Nevertheless, certain ambiguities remain for the goer, which are often removed—as we shall see—, as far as emotional experiences are concerned, by another important factor, namely, the music which accompanies the film (cf. § 8).
As we have stated, facial expressions, gestures, and body are the most important factors in the goer's understanding of the richness of the emotional experiences of film characters. These factors fail when it comes to the content of thoughts, intellectual experiences, and the intellectual content of feelings, and here they are partly replaced by the spoken word and subtitles, the situation, knowledge of the stimuli to which a given person reacts, playing a similar role in facilitating the understanding of facial expressions and gestures to what the
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302
context of a whole sentence plays in grasping the meaning of an individual expression.
Theater uses a combination of words and mimicry, a work of literature uses only words, a silent film only mimicry, a sound film uses both, but with a clear emphasis on mimicry. Therefore, not only silent films, but also [| 28] sound films, if they are not an imitation of theater, can be said to be characterized to a large extent by a predominance of the emotional sphere over the intellectual— although to a lesser extent than silent films.
§ 8. The role of musical illustration in the overall experience of the cinemagoer
a) We have already said that in film it is usually the human being, one's character, one's strange fate, which comes to the fore. They are reflected in one's feelings, and the fact that film can show them indirectly contributes to the pleasure that film evokes in goers. This is in accordance with the trend in aesthetics that Geiger (1908, 323) calls "organic aesthetics," according to which nature and art are aesthetically valuable because of the "life content" (Lebensgehalt) that is revealed in them. This revelation, the expression of feelings in the film in a way that is understandable to the cinemagoer and in a way that arouses their empathy, their sympathy, is facilitated to a large extent by the music that accompanies the film.
The hegemony of the emotional sphere over the intellectual one in film means that the goer's participation in the film's action depends mainly on their understanding of the emotional states of the characters, on their properly empathizing with these feelings, and on their co-experiencing (to a certain extent) these moods and feelings. The music, which accompanies the film, if properly selected, contributes significantly to both. The melodies can be cheerful, sad, lively, or solemn—accompanying the actions of people who attempt to communicate these moods with their facial expressions and sometimes with their statements; the melodies make this task much easier. When a film takes the goer to a café, to war, to a revue theater, to some ceremony, the right music perfectly puts the goer in the right mood— something the image of a silent film without any music, singing, etc., would not be able to do to the same extent. When [| 29] the main character of the
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film rejoices when one suffers or longs, when they pass from one emotional state to another, when feelings are agitated or calmed, the music marks these mental metamorphoses, expressing cheerful moods in a major key, sad moods in a minor key, using dissonance as a means of bringing about a sudden change of mood, e.g., when it comes to disturbing the peace, silence, and weather (Reiss 1922, 44).
b)	If we consider that the "content" of music is moods (R[ichard] Wagner), it will seem natural to us that it is closely connected with film. After all, what Wagner said about music, that it is exclusively the language of feelings, can be applied to a large extent—as we have seen (§ 7)—to silent films, and to some extent also to sound films. Thus, nothing is more natural than combining these two languages, expressing feelings, in order to make this expression more explicit, to give it greater "insight" into the goer's psyche. Silent films provide only visual images. Sound films also provide murmurs, songs; they renounce music only when spoken words come to the fore. Usually, music should even be prioritized with regard to its ability to express moods. Playing the flute
will convey the mood aroused by fields and meadows, rather than playing 303 only natural sounds. In music, as in film, tragedy, sublimity, and charm can manifest themselves, so it comes as no surprise that music can be tuned to any film action. There is no comedy, wit, or irony in music, because they require intellectual elements (Reiss 1922, 52-53); there is only humor in the sense of a mood full of cheerfulness and playfulness. Similarly, in film comedies, the spoken word seems more indispensable than in tragedies. Sometimes, however, a good comedic effect is achieved by a serious musical piece contrasted with something frivolous taking place in the scene.
c)	In addition to the just-mentioned connection between music and film as a means of expressing feelings, there are also certain differences, which make film and music complementary in this respect. According to Volkelt's view, the feeling that [| 30] the aesthetically experiencing person feels can be experienced in two ways: a) as a so-called presented feeling and b) as a real feeling. Music and songs have the ability to arouse feelings of the latter type, while visual arts and literature, apart from songs, rather arouse feelings of the former type. Tones have the ability to go through us. "Die Tone scheinen in
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uns hineinzuklingen, sich in unser Ich hineinzuwuhlen,"25 writes Volkelt. Something similar cannot be said about spatial Gestalts. They stand at a certain "distance" from us. This is why the feelings expressed by tones merge more with our actual experiences than feelings, which are expressed by spatial Gestalts (Volkelt 1920, 58). The longing expressed by music puts us in a longing mood; the longing expressed by the facial expression of a painted figure only arouses our understanding, the presentation of this feeling. In the cinema, we have a combination of both. Music usually arouses real feelings, the visual image on the screen usually presents feelings. When the imaginary character is jealous or despised, their sight arouses analogous feelings in the goer, only if one oneself was recently or is currently in a similar life situation. Music, in turn, allows the appearance of real feelings, e.g., joy, even if the goer's life situation does not encourage one to do so. We have already mentioned the projection of the goer's body into the imaginary space. Through the music, the goer is immersed into this imaginary world emotionally; one succumbs to the mood of a ball thanks to Strauss's waltzes—one wishes to dance, as if one were 304 oneself at the ball that the film screen presents.
d) All this explains the enormous influence of music on the psyche of the cinemagoer. It is known that the use of music in the theater intensifies the viewer's feelings (the scene of the mother's death in Ibsen's Peer Gynt). In regard to film, it can be said that without the help of the strong tone of a trumpet, without the sound of the flute, film could not evoke certain moods at all—it could not have the exciting effect [| 31] of increasing our energy and will to live, which is achieved by the rising melody line, nor could it lower any resulting psychological tension, introduce calm, or arouse depression and helplessness of will, which is the work of the falling melody (Reiss 1922, 41). It is known that the desire to break the monotony of everyday life is often a motivator for seeking aesthetic experiences. The ally of film in satisfying this desire is music, sometimes awakening pleasant, cheerful moods, other times serious and depressed, sometimes awakening in the heart of the listener complaint, pain, longing, and sadness, other times feelings of tenderness, delight, strength, and triumph, giving someone, whom the monotonous reality of life has deprived
25 ["The tones are lost in us, they are lost in one ego."]
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the opportunity to develop their feelings, the opportunity to get to know that wealth of emotional experiences, of which one is capable (Witasek 1904, 134-135). The enormous significance of the influence of music in the whole experience of the cinemagoer will be appreciated only by someone who has had the opportunity to watch a silent film without musical accompaniment. A goer accustomed to that accompaniment, in the absence of it, will feel a strange alienness in what is happening on the screen; it seems to the goer that some shadows appear and disappear there, not living people, and the facial expressions are rather comical. The great importance of music in cinema is usually overlooked, because the goer's attention is so strongly focused on the visual apprehension of the images that one hardly hears the music; sometimes, one is not even aware of the familiarity of the piece being played at the time. Schopenhauer could extend his contempt for opera music to film music, as in cinema the goer likewise cannot devote themselves exclusively to listening to the music—it even recedes into the background. In fact, one could separate the musical piece from the film, usually without harming the music, but with great harm to the film.	305
It is interesting that music, acting as if it were hidden, is an excellent "interpreter" of the feelings of film characters. When music comes to the forefront, as in opera, e.g., when a film character expresses their feelings of anger through song, the music fulfills its role [| 32] much worse; the goer relaxes, the tension caused by the mimicked presentation of anger and the accompanying appropriate musical illustration disappears, with the goer not listening to it with clear attention.
e) The connection between film, especially silent film (sound films are also silent at moments), and music is also facilitated by the subordinate role of words both in music and in film. Music expresses emotional states; it is indifferent to the events that caused them. Film expresses emotional states, showing in addition the events that caused them; film and music are indifferent to the intellectual reflections that accompany events and feelings, which precede them or follow them. A novel or drama sometimes reflects in great detail the battle of thoughts in the main character's psyche, while film is limited to reflecting the battle of feelings with the help of music, even using an oral statement or a subtitle to inform the goer of a battle of feelings rather than a battle of thoughts.
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Not only is music an ally of film, but also, conversely, for certain people film is an ally of music. As is commonly known, and as P[hilip] E[wart] Vernon's survey has shown, music evokes a series of free associations, often very pleasant ones. This distracts attention from the music itself, and this is why more musical people attempt to suppress such associations. In particular, when music is similar to the sounds and events of the outside world, listeners experience visual interpretations of it, similar to daydreams.26 Now, in the cinema, film satisfies this need, providing listeners with images and diverting them from listening attentively to the music. This circumstance, of course, deepens the connection between music and film, making it psychologically natural.
f) In this regard, the value of program music as a musical illustration of film should be emphasized, regardless of the controversial aesthetic value of program music in general. [| 33] Program music leverages musical painting, which consists in using appropriate rhythms, sound colors, and harmonies to illustrate certain external events, storms, fights, birdsong, animal voices, 306 rustling, and noises of machinery, etc. Program music also tries to imitate, more or less successfully, the murmur of a stream, turbulent waves, the howling of the wind, the patter of rain, the clatter of horses, etc. Certain instruments have a special ability to evoke certain moods, e.g., the lute—a solemn mood, the sounds of trumpets or fanfares—a ceremonial, victorious mood, horns bring to mind hunting in a forest grove, the sounds of the clarinet and oboes create an idyllic atmosphere. The above examples, compiled by Reiss, prove, according to him, that "the color of sound has a great associative capacity and, due to certain atmospheric analogies, can become an emotional symbol." The programmatic nature of this music, as Reiss writes, can be understood twofold: either as the ability of music to paint and reproduce sensual images, events, and phenomena, or as the most generally understood ability to awaken certain emotional states in the soul of the listener. The first direction is technically possible, but contradictory to the essence of music (Reiss 1922, 58, 65 ff., 67 ff., 80 ff.). With regard to film, program music is useful in both senses as a musical illustration. In a silent film, it can replace natural sounds; it can also be
26 Vernon 1930, 50-63. The essay is summarized in Kwartalnik Psychologiczny 2 (4).
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performed in a sound film by incorporating these sounds into a larger musical whole, awakening certain emotional states in the psyche of the cinemagoer.
The above arguments lead us to the conclusion that the connection between film and music is psychologically natural for various reasons, and it is an indispensable factor in understanding the psyche of the cinemagoer.
§ 9. Non-aesthetic emotional states of the cinemagoer
Investigating further the emotional experiences of the cinemagoer, we will consider the various sources of the cinemagoer's pleasure. [| 34] It is not only about aesthetic pleasure; after all, the fact is that aesthetic pleasure is not the only element that the cinemagoer experiences, and they do not go to the cinema solely in pursuit of it.27
a) Among the non-aesthetic feelings that emerge in the cinemagoer, erotic ones come to the fore, which is the result of the filmmakers' clear desire to evoke arousal in the goer. Experiencing such arousal does not yet cause the cinemagoer to stop having aesthetic experiences. However, in accordance with gg^ numerous aestheticians, e.g., Witasek (1904, 221), I believe that aesthetic experiences themselves do not contain such desires, just as they do not contain the appetite that sometimes arises for the cinemagoer due to dishes shown on the screen.
The result of the tendencies present in the film or the inconsistency of the goer's moral, social, etc., beliefs with the views of the film's creators is the positive or negative moral reactions that sometimes appear in the goer, e.g., patriotic enthusiasm, moral disgust, etc. These reactions may not only be emotional, but also intellectual, e.g., when the film includes moral, social, etc., reflections, called, e.g., by Groos (1902, 93), "extra-aesthetic associations."
27 While considering the emotional experiences of the cinemagoer, I will first discuss their non-aesthetic states, and then their aesthetic and "semi-aesthetic" experiences. Attempting to clearly distinguish between non-aesthetic and aesthetic feelings would exceed the scope of this work. In the following examination, therefore, the main point will be to state that the cinemagoer experiences certain experiences, without examining whether these experiences are aesthetic or not. On the issue of semi-aesthetic experiences, see Blaustein 1931, 133.
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b) Another type of non-aesthetic pleasure, often experienced by the cinemagoer, is the pleasure of getting to know unknown cities, countries, and human customs through film, especially if they are exotic or famous, if one has read or heard about them. In such cases, seeing India, the Paris Opera, and the Niagara Falls [| 35] on the screen satisfies the tendency to visualize, which prevails in our psyche (Blaustein 1931, 30 ff.). However, this pleasure is clearly lacking when the setting of the film is already very familiar. The delight in a film decreases significantly when the goer watches a historical film set in ancient Rome or an exotic one set in South Africa for the sixth time in a row. The triviality of the film's action often causes these feelings to come to the forefront, arousing delight in the film. Views of unknown countries and buildings seen in the cinema, thanks to their beauty, arouse aesthetic pleasure. However, regardless of their beauty, perceiving them for the first time has a specific emotional charm for the goer. The sight of torches in the mountains, carried at night by people searching for lost tourists, is always beautiful, and yet seen for the first time it arouses stronger sensations than for the second or 308 third time, and this difference in intensity is not explained solely by a dulling of the aesthetic sensation. The pleasure in question is so strong that Irzykowski could rightly write: "One goes to the cinema not for artistic sensations, but sincerely to see something new and revel in some cinematic achievement" (Irzykowski 1924, 61).
But it is not only the imaginative perception of things that were never seen before that has the charm of novelty for the cinemagoer. There is a need in us to see things imaginatively that we have already seen directly in perception. That is why we like to look at photographs of people we know, a film against the background of landscapes and cities we know. Irzykowski rightly emphasizes that art generally restores the moment of wonder, the moment of "first sight" (Irzykowski 1924, 27). Irzykowski writes that, e.g., he liked gymnastic exercises in the cinema better than in reality, explaining this with the so-called "mirror law," which consists in the desire to see things and matters in isolation from reality (Irzykowski 1924, 29). However, two things should be distinguished here: [| 36] the pleasure of seeing things in isolation from reality, and the pleasure of imaginatively perceiving something for the first time, which interests us now.
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However, it is not only pleasant for us to perceive imaginative objects, which we have already seen perceptually, but also, conversely, to naturally perceive objects, which we have only perceived imaginatively so far. Among the experiences of a cinemagoer, we will often find desires for the perception of countries, cities, celebrations, etc., perceived imaginatively with pleasure on the screen.
c)	While discussing the issue of what it means to understand a film, we drew attention to the fact that a cinemagoer performs certain mental operations. The successful accomplishment of these operations is a source of pleasure for the cinemagoer. This pleasure is absent, whenever these operations are ineffective, i.e., whenever the goer does not understand the film's action. The goer clearly feels this, when the film is "too difficult" for them or when it is illogical, when it contains contradictions. This causes a certain dissatisfaction in the goer, while grasping the plot of a "more difficult" film arouses clear satisfaction. A cinemagoer is also dissatisfied, when the script is banal, when there is no need to think, to guess, which is one of the most common sources of dissatisfaction
of a cinemagoer with a film. The disadvantage of a banal film is that it weakens 309 the goer's tension—one's curiosity about what will happen next, what fate has in store for the characters. This tension is weakened by the goer himself, even when watching an unconventional film, if, having arrived late for the beginning of the screening, one first watches the end of the film, and then its beginning. In this way, one deprives oneself of much of the pleasure of watching a film; the end of a film before watching its beginning, which undermines numerous fanciful desires and wishes concerning the fate of the characters, assumptions about their fate, or anxiety or joyful anticipation one might otherwise feel. In place of these experiences, there is then a cool guess as to what the unknown links of the film action will be. The fact that the cinemagoer often watches [| 37] the film from the middle, which, for example, the reader of a novel does not do (one does not read the second volume before the first one), indicates that the film's action is often something secondary for the goer. Its various other values come to the fore, which is also evidenced by the desire to watch the film a second time, which is often done by the goers.
d)	The tension of the cinemagoer and any related experiences, such as the aforementioned desires, assumptions, anxieties, and expectations, intensify,
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not unlike the intellectual operations discussed earlier, the activity of the cinemagoer. The mental work of the goer, their psychological activity, is one of the main reasons why one likes to spend time in the cinema. Postponing discussion of the relation of this pastime to ordinary activities and to fun until later (cf. § 10), we will now focus on the numerous subjective emotional states of the goer as a goer, [states, which are] connected with this activity. Such states are, on the one hand, the goer's liveliness, on the other, fatigue—boredom with the monotony of a given film or films of a relevant type in general. Whether the states of the former or the latter type occur in the goer depends on the type and value of the film and on the goer's past (which and how many films one has watched), on one's sensitivity and expectations. Positive states of the former kind—relating to the goer's liveliness—are usually connected with the desire to prolong the state of watching the film, the desire for the film not to end yet, for it to last longer. States of the latter type, in turn, result from the goer's dulling of the stimuli flowing from the screen, which is the result of frequent visits to the cinema, and mass production of films, which thus often 310 provide similar stimuli, repeating the background, action, etc. Sometimes, however, these states of weariness and boredom are rather the effect of the goer not "being in the mood," consisting in the lack of an appropriate mental attitude toward the imaginary world, usually under the influence of thoughts, feelings, and desires related to the goer's life, their hopes and worries, which interrupt the experience of watching the film, under the influence of which [| 38] the film seems to be stupid, lifeless, boring. Watching a film requires— as we already know—a strong concentration of the goer's attention. This is impossible if the thoughts, feelings, or desires discussed above occur. We will emphasize now that the subjective emotional states of the goer considered above are sometimes joined by others, such as invigoration, relief, shock, a sense of happiness, depression, a feeling of intoxication, elation, or a feeling of triumph.28 These are emotional states that are the result of strong aesthetic experiences.
Finally, it is worth considering the feelings of admiration or similar feelings experienced by a cinemagoer for the creators of the film, for the director,
28 Volkelt 1904, 66; Wallis-Walfisz 1931a, 618-624.
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actors, the screenwriter, etc. In order to experience these feelings, the focus on the imaginary world must be suspended for a moment. It is interesting that this admiration appears precisely, when the cinemagoer is most absorbed in the film, when the experienced feelings reach the peak of their intensity. However, I have the impression that both intellectual reflections and emotional experiences related to the creators of the film occur less often in a cinemagoer than, for example, in a theater viewer, because the lack of the physical presence of the performers makes them less aware of their existence.
e)	The share of non-aesthetic factors in the unity of the cinemagoer's experiences seems to be larger than in the case of a person enjoying other arts. Does this not make aesthetic experience impossible? Not necessarily; their significant share in the unity of experiences in the cinema, even in terms of quality and intensity, does not have to—as Witasek also states—deprive the experience of its aesthetic character. However, they should not dominate; they should not exceed the intensity of aesthetic experiences, they should be part of the unity without coming to the forefront of attention. In this role, according to Witasek, they deserve to be called "pseudo-aesthetic" factors 311 ("pseudoästhetische Genussfaktoren"). However, when they come to the fore, when they appear in isolation [| 39] from the rest of the experiences, aesthetic feelings lose their leading position; the unity of experience no longer has a uniform aesthetic character (Witasek 1904, 234-235). This often happens to
the cinemagoer either because of oneself or because of reasons inherent in the film itself, in the intentions of its creators who are not always interested in evoking aesthetic experiences in the goer.
f)	A cinemagoer is not always aware that the pleasure one experiences while watching a film is not an aesthetic pleasure. It does not emerge with the beauty of the film, but with its other values. This is why cinemagoers often experience dilettantism in their aesthetic experience. According to Geiger, it is characterized by two circumstances: 1. a work of art evokes experiences, which do not arise with the value of the artwork as such, but with something else (ethical, patriotic, religious, erotic feelings), 2. these inadequate experiences are considered to be truly aesthetic experiences. Less common among cinemagoers, however, is another type of aesthetic dilettantism, which is characterized by a transition from an extroverted attitude toward the work
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of art ("Aussenkonzentration"—as Geiger (1928, 4, 13 ff.) puts it) to an introverted attitude, in which the work of art becomes only a means of daze ("Rauschmittel"), used to evoke feelings in the goer, which the goer delights in. The former mental attitude is specifically aesthetic—the latter is typically amateurish, and occurs particularly often in those listening to music or reading lyrical poetry. The context of watching a film, as described above, is not very conducive to the development of the latter attitude, i.e., the introverted attitude, and this explains its rather rare occurrence in the cinemagoer.
§ 10. Aesthetic and "semi-aesthetic" experiences of the
cinemagoer
a) According to Lange, we experience aesthetic experiences only through hearing and sight.29 According to him, [| 40] we deal with art precisely, where there is an attempt to evoke pleasure in the creator or the experiencer through one of these two main senses, without any other direct goals (Lange 1907, 46, 56). The cinemagoer owes their sensations—as we have seen—exclusively to the senses of sight and hearing, while the creators of the film strive to give the experiencer pleasure. It is no wonder, then, that aesthetic experiences are important among the experiences of the cinemagoer. Although Irzykowski (1924, 197) rightly writes that cinema primarily satisfies the hunger of the eyes, hearing is also used in cinema to constitute aesthetic experiences (cf. § 8). Therefore, in addition to literature, which may provide a plot, all arts that create for the eye and ear, such as dance, can become providers for film. To these are added nature, technology, the human body, play, the work of individuals and the masses, thus providing—as we have seen above (cf. § 5)—the most diverse objects capable of evoking aesthetic pleasure with their beautiful appearances.30 All these objects reach the screen captured in a certain
29	The issue of the influence of the images derived from the lower senses on aesthetic experience is a controversial issue, also studied experimentally. Cf. Kulpe 1921, 74.
30	Witasek (1904) distinguishes—as it is well known—five groups of aesthetic objects: 1. simple sensory content, 2. Gestalt qualities, complexes, 3. objects consistent with the norm, 4. objects expressing mental states and moods, 5. objectives (events, situations, etc.). All groups can be found among aesthetic objects that reveal themselves to the cinemagoer. The third type has not yet been specified in the above analyses. It is
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way by the camera. Photography, as we know, becomes a separate art, and the way, in which these objects are recorded by the camera on the film strip, largely determines whether the beauty of their appearances will impose itself on the goer or not. In addition to the sources of the goer's dissatisfaction with film already discussed, dissatisfaction with poor photography is one of the most common. Another source [| 41] of dissatisfaction is the poverty of the background. In the cinema, the goer is not satisfied with the sight of one or a few beautiful objects; one desires richness and variety in this respect.
A cinemagoer, therefore, undoubtedly experiences aesthetic feelings, evoked by the beauty of the appearance of objects perceived on the screen. However, this perception cannot be long-lasting due to the rapid change of images, due to their snapshot nature. This circumstance means that aesthetic enjoyment of the beauty of objects "on" the screen has a different character than, e.g., perceiving paintings or even natural objects, provided that the goer can perceive them for a longer period of time from a certain perspective. It is rather like perceiving, e.g., a landscape from a moving train. Thus, one cannot uncover here new beautiful details, new views of the whole, there is no 313 intensity of delight, no full blissful duration in perceiving a beautiful object. A cinemagoer—as we already know (§ 3)—is limited in the freedom to choose objects that one wishes to perceive attentively, and the time for which one can perceive given objects; neither depends on the goer at all. An aesthetically sensitive goer often feels this, regretting that a certain film image has already passed, being angry at the excessively fast pace of the displayed images.
Nonetheless, film provides compensation to the goer in the form of the possibility of an imaginative perception of objects in motion. It has already been mentioned that perceiving objects in a closed imaginative world, separated from the surrounding spatial and temporal world, gives us a special aesthetic pleasure. Film enables the imaginative perceiving of a movement, e.g., a herd of horses in a rush, cars, trains, airplanes going through beautiful
often present in cinema; e.g., watching typical characters played by extras gives the goer considerable pleasure. By showing us, e.g., a crowd watching a spectacle, the film draws our attention to certain characteristic characters, e.g., typical spinsters, laughing picnickers, flirting suburban couples, etc. The cinemagoer is less pleased by the tiresome stereotyping of film characters, which is also often encountered.
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surroundings, a human body in action, etc. The dynamics of movement, shown in the film not in one moment, as in painting or sculpture, but in all of its characteristic phases, is a source of numerous aesthetic experiences for the goer, among others when the director has properly exploited the rhythmic values of movement, has given it the right tempo. In particular, the short musical pieces [| 42] present the aesthetic values of the rhythm of movement on the screen, in harmony with the rhythm of the accompanying music.
Another factor that stimulates the goer to aesthetic delight is the composition of individual images, regardless of the beauty of any image. A film or certain parts of a film can be compared to a melody. The whole has a specific aesthetic value, independent of the aesthetic value of individual images. Especially at the beginning of a film, we sometimes encounter such compositions of images which are intended, e.g., to synthetically present the character and mood of a certain large city, jungle, factory life, war, some bygone historical era, or quiet life in the countryside, or on some distant island in the ocean. The right choice of fragments, their proper ordering, sometimes their proper contrasting, often 314 arouses the goer's delight, regardless of whether the goer could analytically give an account of the reasons for the delight—for this composition of images merges for one into a unified whole, to which one responds with an aesthetic experience.
The aim of such compositions of images is usually to evoke a suitable mood in the goer, to introduce one into the setting of the film's action. A film can achieve this, among other things, thanks to the special property of certain appearances of awakening certain emotional moods in the goer. Other emotional reactions, even in the form of the presented feelings, are aroused, e.g., by narrow medieval streets, rather than by the wide streets of contemporary large cities, by views of endless deserts, rather than by the peaks of rocky mountains. The atmospheric values of appearances are rightly exploited by the director to intensify the goer's moods or to help one to understand the feelings of the film's characters. A friendly, cheerful southern landscape or a harsh and sad northern one, the magical charm of night in the forest, the horror of heavy, dark clouds gathering in the firmament, monotonous, hopeless rain, treetops swayed by the wind and storms, or sea waves hitting a rocky shore ineffectively sometimes play a role similar to that played by musical illustration in the overall experience of
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the cinemagoer (cf. § 8). Besides, not only nature, but also technical products or crowds of people can serve as [| 43] a factor that intensifies the mood, as a symbol of feelings. The atmospheric presentation of the landscape seen, etc., and especially its symbolic presentation, depends on the goer, on one's mood, one's phantasy, ability to sympathize,31 etc. The cinemagoer usually does not have this freedom; the atmospheric presentation and symbolic interpretation are imposed on the goer by the film, one can at best remain deaf and blind to the intentions of the film, not understanding the symbolic role of the blooming fields, the connection of the autumn landscape with the film's action. Finally, one can understand the director's intentions, but not feel them emotionally due to the banality or inadequacy of the symbols.
Some believe that participating in the beauty of nature is desirable only if it is closely connected with the film's action. This postulate can be understood as a demand for consistency with the mood, but even a loose connection is enough. For instance, views of nature from a moving car, in which the film's main character is driving somewhere, often serve as a pleasant diversion. It sometimes happens that a cinemagoer dazzled by the beauty of the Alps, for 315 example, changes their attitude toward the imaginary world, moving to the attitude toward the reproduced world, admiring the real Alps, possibly wanting to see Alps perceptually. The same applies to the beauty of the human face and the human body. A cinemagoer captivated by it often admires the beauty of the actress or actor, forgetting for a moment about their imaginary role. From the point of view of film aesthetics, Irzykowski seems to be right in claiming that a beautiful face can have a pleasant effect in the cinema, like any beauty, but it is not a "cinematic sensation" (Irzykowski 1924, 193). From the point of view of psychology, however, the aesthetic experiences of the cinemagoer should also be noted. The aesthetic experiences of the cinemagoer mentioned above are joined by the experiences evoked by the musical illustration, which will not be discussed in more detail, and the experiences evoked by the action.
[| 44] b) A cinemagoer can participate in the film action in two ways. One can perceive the events that take place, as if through the eyes of one or more
31 One can sympathize not only with the experiences of other people, but also with inanimate objects. Cf. Kulpe 1921, 85.
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film characters, sympathizing with their position and feelings, or (possibly simultaneously) look at everything with one's own eyes, with the eyes of an observer who sympathizes, takes a position for or against. In the first case, one sympathizes with the feelings of the film characters (experiencing the so-called "Einfuhlungsgefuhle"); in the second case, one empathizes with the film characters (experiencing the so-called "Anteilsgefuhle") (Witasek 1904, 149). Experiences of these feelings are of course dependent on the satisfactory acting of the actors. Bad acting disturbs the goer in this respect and is another potential source of dissatisfaction with a film. Psychologists and aestheticians have devoted numerous studies to the feelings of "sympathizing."32 At this point, we can just state that they occur in the cinemagoer and that they occur in two forms, determined, among others, by Volkelt. The goer can— excluding the participation of one's own self—present them to oneself as the feelings of strangers. In this case, the subject's participation ("Miterregtheit des Subjekts") occurs only in the form of a feeling that one could experience such feelings oneself in an analogous life situation. However, there is a more 316 subjective sympathy; the goer feels, as if one were embodied in an alien character.33 The fact that the goer, thanks to sympathizing with the psyche of the characters, creates numerous phantasy feelings, which are never or rarely experienced personally, is another important source of pleasure experienced by the cinemagoer. Speaking of sympathizing with alien mental states, it is worth emphasizing the particularly interesting psychological situation, in which some imagined characters grasp the emotional states of other imagined characters, and the goer knows about it and co-experiences this sympathy of, e.g., a mother with the feelings of her child.
[| 45] Based on these feelings of "sympathy" with alien mental states, the goer experiences numerous feelings, such as empathy or antipathy, compassion, anger, contempt, and indignation toward certain imaginary characters, or respect for them and a sense of friendship. The goer rejoices in the success of a character one likes and is saddened when they fail. Experiencing these
32	A summary of the various theories on this topic can be found, among others, in Neumann 1908, 53 ff.
33	Volkelt 1920, 48, 51, 52, 55, 56, 58. Also Külpe supports a similar distinction ("einfache und sympathische Einfühlung") (Külpe 1921, 94).
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various feelings greatly increases the goer's mental activity (cf. § 9). It is interesting that when experiencing the most diverse feelings just described, the cinemagoer does not always forget oneself entirely, because sometimes, namely when the experiences of the imaginary character remind one of one's own current, recent, or future difficult experiences, the film arouses intensified thinking about oneself.
In addition to the feelings already mentioned, the cinemagoer sometimes experiences complex emotional states, in which one feels the sublimity, tragedy, or comedy of certain situations, the charm or humor of certain people, etc. The goer particularly often experiences a feeling of comedy, especially the comedy of situations, characters, figures, and their movements, and thanks to subtitles and films with spoken words, also the comedy of language.
c) Various experiences caused by, e.g., one film constitute a closed whole limited in time by the beginning and end of the screening, and sometimes interrupted, to the goer's dissatisfaction, by breaks in the projection, and thus in the aesthetic experience.34 This whole constitutes an interruption of the course of everyday activities of everyday life, and moreover, if the film delights 317 with its aesthetic value, it can constitute a holiday break, can put the goer in the "Sunday mood," which is mentioned by, among others, Lange (1907, 296-297). In everyday life, the overwhelming majority of matters and events have connections with human life; they pose a danger for some and disturbing hope for others, requiring concentration, [| 46] readiness to defend oneself, or nervous effort. In the cinema, the goer perceives matters and events in an imaginary world; one is not a part of this world, and, in this regard, one is not free but not apathetic either (Germans speak of "freies Schweben über den Dingen"35). Despite the lack of connection between these events and one's life and struggle for existence, one reacts to them with vivid feelings; creative mental activity is evident in one's aesthetic experiences. Aesthetic experiences are characterized by complete suspension of the received impressions ("ein reines Sichhingeben an die Erscheinung, ein völliges Sichanschmiegen an den
34	Intermissions in the theater take place after complete sequences of action, whereas interruptions in the cinema are random and irritating to the goer.
35	["[F]loating above things freely."]
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Eindruck"36—as Utitz writes (1927, 234)). Of course, sometimes the goer remains a passive, reluctant observer, namely when the film surprises one with its worthlessness. However, when watching a good film, the goer leaves the cinema joyfully excited, and returns to their activities rested. Any break in everyday life, even if filled with active attitude, is a rest, as long as it completely distracts us from our regular daily activities and worries for a certain time. Being in an imaginary world, just having such a break, is an important factor in mental rest and relaxation. The "I"—figuratively speaking—projected into the imaginary world as an observer, returns to the real world rested, refreshed, and pleasantly excited. This metaphoric description suggests that the processes of watching a film are a kind of play. However, this idea is not correct and should be rejected both in relation to watching a film in particular and to any aesthetic experience in general. Aesthetic pleasure is—as Geiger (1908, 234) emphasizes—joy in certain objective values, the pleasure in fun is joy in one's own skill and independence. The partial analogy of the goer's experiences with the mental states experienced during some games (tension and expectation 318 during betting and lottery games, the activity of phantasy when solving riddles) concerns rather non-aesthetic states of the cinemagoer. There is, however, a certain aesthetic theory that can be perfectly [| 47] applied to the experiences of the cinemagoer, if the values of the film give them a distinctively aesthetic character. It is Schiller's theory of aesthetic appearance, which emphasizes the pictoriality and unreality of the aesthetic world.37
36	["[A] simple surrender to the appearance, a complete attachment to the impression."]
37	Its [i.e., the world's unreality] consequences are characterized by Geiger as follows: "dass wir im aesthetischen alle Fülle des Lebens erleben können, im reicheren Ausmasse, in tieferer Verknüpfung, in rücksichtloser Hingabe, als im gewöhnlichen Leben und doch wegen ihrer Scheinhaftigkeit ohne Verantwortung; dass wir aus der Alltagswelt herausgehoben werden in eine andere, in ihrer Weise doch nicht weniger wirkliche Welt, dass die Gefühle, die wir der Scheinwelt gegenüber erleben, die Frucht mit dem Handeln, die Wut über die Niedertracht des Bösewichts—mit den Gefühlen des wirklichen Lebens verwandt und doch nicht dieselben Gefühle selbst sich" ["that in the aesthetic world the fullness of life can be experienced to a greater extent, in a deeper relationship, in direct devotion than in everyday life, and yet without responsibility for its appearance; that we are transferred from the everyday world to another world, no less real in its own way, that the feelings we experience toward the illusory world, the
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However, a film does not always have qualities that arouse deeper aesthetic experiences in the goer. Geiger (1928, 47 ff.) distinguishes between "Oberflächen-" or "Amüsement-wirkung" and "Tiefenwirkung"38 of art. The aim of the former is the momentary pleasure of the goer; the aim of the latter is to surprise the goer and make one happy. A film often aims only to provide entertainment to the goer, in whose psyche there do not then appear those various feelings, in the description of which we have emphasized that they are the effect of intense, deep aesthetic experiences (cf. § 9). In each of these two psychological situations, the entirety of the experiences of the cinemagoer has a different character, a different coloring, and other experiences come to the fore. These two psychological situations, though having different values from the aesthetic point of view, are equally justified from the psychological point of view, as Geiger himself admits.
It should not be assumed that the various sources of pleasure for the cinemagoer distinguished in the above descriptions evoke separate, simultaneously experienced pleasures. On the contrary, one can point out a fusion of various components of the cinemagoer's experiences into one whole, 319 a fusion especially of emotional experiences. This fusion rejects the atomic character of the wholeness of the goer's experiences, and it constitutes a different character [| 48], e.g., when non-aesthetic emotional states come to the fore under the influence of an entertaining or biased film, or when an aesthetically valuable film evokes strong aesthetic experiences, constituting, as it were, a variety of the unity of experiences, in which its other components serve only as a psychological basis for the aesthetic experience.
Following the example of representatives of psychological aesthetics, I have tried to analyze the entirety of lived experiences experienced by the cinemagoer (similarly to the lived experiences experienced when contemplating works of other arts), and I attempted to distinguish its parts. The unity of these
fruits of our actions, anger at iniquity—are connected with feelings of true life, but in themselves are not the same feelings"] (Geiger 1908, 320). The above characterization is therefore—as we see—in accordance with what we found in the description of the experiences of a cinemagoer. It probably applies to him to a greater extent than to a listener of music, a person viewing works of architecture, sculpture, and even painting.
38 ["[S]urface" or "amusement effect," and "depth effect."]
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experiences, and especially the unity of these numerous types of pleasure as complex aesthetic experiences, consists in the fact that everything that is called aesthetic experience satisfies certain elementary needs of mental life, especially the need for an emotionally tinged viewing (Volkelt). This need in today's man is largely satisfied by film, and therefore the field of the psychology of the cinemagoer deserves—I believe—thorough investigation, to which the above descriptions are to be a small contribution.39
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