Buckland-Warren-Puzzle-Films-Complex-Storytelling-Contemporary-Cinema

“Twist Blindness” 63second, Malcolm sitting opposite Cole’s mother Lynn (Toni Collette); andthe third, Malcolm having dinner with his wife Anna (Olivia Williams). Iwould suggest that one of the main reasons the film demands a second viewingis that we tend to assume – on the basis of one viewing alone – thatthe filmmaker has, in Marshall’s words, “pulled a fast one.” We suspect thatthe flashbacks – especially the second and third involving Lynn and Anna– are not representative and that the filmmaker has conveniently forgottencertain contradictory scenes. Contrary to our initial recollections,however, a second viewing reveals that Shyamalan is “honest” and “true,”or at least as honest and true as he can be given that a narrative of thistype is never going to be completely watertight. This is where the notionof reconstructive memory fits into the picture.MethodologyMy more general objective in this chapter is to explore the scope andlimitations of two particular psychological faculties in film viewing. Thefirst of these faculties can be described as attention. Although attention isnotoriously difficult to characterize, various analogies can be drawn. Oneexample is to compare attentive processing with either a spotlight or a zoomlens. Another, and more informative, example is to compare attentive processingwith foveal vision on the grounds that it is both limited and serial– a move taken by Dirk Eitzen (1993). 2 For instance, foveal vision occupiesonly one or two degrees of our field of view – the size of a thumbnailheld at arm’s length. Likewise, we are only capable of focusing on (or “foveating”)one aspect of the world at any given time. The second psychologicalfaculty of interest is memory. Contrary to popular belief, memory is notphotographic in nature. Perhaps the closest approximation to a photographiccapacity is sensory memory: here, auditory and visual traces are held ina sensory buffer, but only for a period of milliseconds to seconds.Meanwhile, the capacity of short-term (or working) memory is thoughtto equal seven items “plus or minus two”; however, retaining these itemsfor any degree of time requires both deliberate rehearsal and the absenceof distraction (Miller 1956; Baddeley 1995). Significantly, the capacity oflong-term memory – the type of memory to which we refer in everydayconversation – is even less robust.Although attention and memory can be treated as separate psychologicalfaculties – and although they are often discussed in separate chapters