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Part of
Reception Studies and Audiovisual Translation
Edited by Elena Di Giovanni and Yves Gambier
[Benjamins Translation Library 141] 2018
► pp. 21–41

Chapter 2
Film, cinema and reception studies

Revisiting research on audience’s filmic and cinematic experiences

This chapter aims at introducing the reader into the field of film reception studies, more particular into the field which deals with audience’s contemporary and historical filmic and cinematic experiences. After providing an historical overview of this expanding field, the chapter goes into the various strands of cinema and film reception research. The contribution argues that in recent years, this field of research grew into an ever more mature, inter- and multidisciplinary domain, where perspectives are now utilized, which were often neglected within film studies so far, like ethnographic research, memory studies, social geography, urban studies, history, or the digital humanities. Much of this recent work is driven by the idea that a perspective on audience’s ‘bottom up’ experiences of films and cinema, leads to a more profound understanding and eventually to a revision of theories, concepts, and the history of film and cinema. This chapter is to be seen as part of the scholarly endeavour, often called ‘new cinema history’, which aims at rewriting film’s and cinema’s past precisely by integrating audiences’ experiences.

Keywords: Film audiences, filmic experiences, cinematic experiences, new cinema history, film history
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Growth of, and perspectives to, film audience research
    • 2.1An historical perspective
    • 2.2Major trends
  • 3.Filmic and cinematic experiences in the past
    • 3.1Audiences and reception
    • 3.2A broad spectrum of methods
    • 3.3Six different stands of film/cinema audience research
  • 4.Contemporary filmic and cinematic experiences
    • 4.1Reception of particular movies
    • 4.2Other perspectives on film consumption
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 15 June 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.141.03bil
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