The Feeling of Film: Texture and Criticism

Description

Texture invites or appeals to touch through tactile properties of material, yet is not limited to such a direct sensory engagement as the concept encompasses broader expressions of quality and nature. Texture comes from the warp and weft of fabric, it is the result of weaving, the composition of a made object, threads woven together. Taking texture in the sense of an overall fabrication, contemplation of a film’s texture offers a way to unpick the affective qualities evoked by the constituents of its form, by the qualities of the materials it uses (be they bodies, props, décor, narrative or genre) and how they interact and combine. In bringing together construction and affect, texture offers a route into understanding the pleasures of film (and other arts) and underlines the value in feeling, emphasising the relationship between film and critic as emotional and physical. As V.F. Perkins’ argues, responsiveness to film is an important constituent of our critical appreciation: ‘The evidence of feeling demands an acknowledged place in the process of interpretation’ (1990: 6). To think about the sensation invited by construction, be it the decision about a material surface or a narrative, is to be involved in a critical evaluation, or as John Gibbs and Douglas Pye put it, ‘To understand style is to interpret what it does’ (2005: 11). Texture can claim a place in the methodology of film analysis by joining style to its sensory qualities.
Through a number of detailed examples, this paper will explore an approach to film that considers texture as the interrelation of material decisions, narrative and other frameworks: how sound and image relate to one another; how style supports and contributes to narrative; how the nature of a genre (expectations around shape of narrative, location and so on) contributes to the affective qualities of a particular film. I will argue that bringing texture into our critical vocabulary is also an argument for precision, for reflecting carefully on the constituents of a film’s form, for evaluating the nature and quality of the filmic world in all its elements.

Keynote speaker at Textures conference, School of English, University of St Andrews

Period	5 Apr 2014
Event title	The Feeling of Film: Texture and Criticism
Event type	Other
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