Literature Film Quarterly (1978) - Viewing as Action: Film and Reader Response Criticism

Details

• article: Viewing as Action: Film and Reader Response Criticism
• author(s): Carole Berger
• journal: Literature Film Quarterly (1978)
• issue: volume 6, issue 2, page 144
• journal ISSN: 0090-4260
• publisher: Salisbury University
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Perkins, Art, Bodega Bay, California, Critics, Janet Leigh, Leo Braudy, Literary criticism, Methods, New York City, New York, Psycho (1960), Robin Wood, The Birds (1963)

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Abstract

Whereas the American New Critics, influenced by the Romantic, organicist view of the text, searched for unifying themes and patterns of imagery, meanings embedded in the text, response critics analyze the production of meaning through the act of reading. Because his analyses depend on the reader's projections relating to subsequent events, Fish emphasizes the sequentially of reading and the importance of our first encounter with the work. Film techniques of lighting, composition, and camera movement do, of course, guide the spectator, but cinematic "signs" cannot be manipulated with the precision of words.