Audio-visual Rhythms

Questions on the relation of film and viewer's emotions have been widely discussed in recent film theory. But while the role of emotions for cinema in general, particular film genres and the movie going experience have been largely discussed systematic film analytical approaches to qualifying the emotional quality of particular films and audio-visual sequences remain rare exceptions. In addition, the existing approaches often focus on narrative structures, character constellations and empathetic emotions. On the other hand, over the past two decades film phenomenology has produced highly interesting ideas on embodied perception, subjective affectivity and temporality that call for a re-thinking of film analytical approaches to viewer's affectivity. Against this backdrop, the book takes film music theory – as well as the particular importance of temporality and dynamic affects in this field of theory – as a starting point in looking at the musicality of the audio-visual image itself. In light of this perspective analytically graspable rhythms of audio-visual images are taken into account, revealing viewer's affects to be shaped in time by a complex interplay of rhythmic tensions and kinetic forces.