POP FICTION

[82]
UNCHAINED MELODY / GHOST
elements e.g. editing, the score, songs, are often overlooked as their attention is on the ‘Text’, not
the incidental. In a recent TV programme neuro-scientist Susan Greenfield (2000) discussed the
how the brain focuses: ‘We’re all equipped with a means of selecting the key aspects of a scene,
one at a time. This attention system allows us to concentrate on one thing, while the rest of the
world falls into the background. All this happens so automatically that we don’t notice it.’
Gestalt (Wertheimer, 1923, p. 71) rules suggest that as we glance at scattered items forming a
shape, we have a tendency to concentrate on the whole shape rather than constituent parts. If
this, as an action of the mind is true visually, then it can hold for other mental actions like concept
formation. The spectator, whose only job is to watch passively, may be equally annoyed by the
sentimentality and vengeful melodrama (Milne, 1990, p. 296) that Ghost undoubtedly contains
but has been powerfully engaged with its stronger aspects, responding to the narrative as a
continuous whole rather than extracting and focusing on the disparate parts the critic is expected
to discern. Both audience and critic have simplified the film but because their attention systems
have been separately focused their realities are at odds.
...what counts is what goes on inside our heads, what happens there is completely personal.
It’s not so much that our visual system rebuilds the outside world, but rather that we create
from scratch our own private universe, our own reality.
(Greenfield, 2000)
Fowkes (1998) has intuited some of the powerful themes that make Ghost a significant
Hollywood vehicle but was unable/disinclined to unpick how aspects of the film support her
readings. The ‘Gestalt’ of Ghost leaves an overall impression that satisfies the sub-conscious. It
hides its complexity, beneath the simple shapes of romance and fantasy.
...a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination.
(Barthes, 1977, p.148)
It is the open coding of the sign paths that can be read through the film, allowing for multiple
identification trajectories and meanings that enabled the films success. Susan Hayward (2000,
p. 124) in her discussion of the impact of Foucault on feminist film theory could easily have been
describing the theoretical formula underpinning Ghost ‘There is not a ‘female’ or a ‘male’
spectator but different socio-cultural individuals all busy producing reality as the film rolls by. Age,
gender, race, class, sexuality affect reception and meaning production’.
Unchained Melody is a good example of the complex sign structures and themes that support