Event

Caitlin McGrath

"Seasickness is Decidedly Pleasant": Display and Movement in Late-Silent-Era Film Aesthetics

What connects the rollercoaster in Hindle Wakes, the display window in Asphalt, and the trolley in Sunrise? They all use mobile camera work and experimental editing techniques to recreate the perceptual experience of modern life for the viewer. This paper will consider the role of these three sites in the modern urban environment—the department store, the city street, and the amusement park – in cinematic visualizations of modernization and industrialization. Examining this mix of pleasure and discomfort through the lens of the history of perceptual psychology becomes a means of exploring the affective dimension of the history of film style from early cinema through to Classical Hollywood.