WEBVTT - The Kuleshov Effect, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.720 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.720 My name is Robert lad and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.959 we're back with part two of our series on the 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:22.840 Coolest Shov Effect. Now, as I explained last time, this 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.480 is one that originally was going to be one episode. 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.240 We ended up splitting it into so we're doing a 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.600 little time traveling right now. This is an out of 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.040 sequence introduction, but I guess from here we'll just jump 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.000 right back into the middle of our conversation from last time. 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.800 Let's do it well anyway, So I wanted to talk 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:45.200 about very interesting paper that analyzed the history and meaning 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.640 of the cool Shov effect and then also tried to 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:53.440 recreate the Mojukan experiment. So this paper was published in 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:58.360 the Cinema Journal by Stephen Prince and Wayne E. Hensley, 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.319 called the Coolest Show Effect Recreating the classic experiment Your nine. 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.000 I think both of the authors on this paper were 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:11.160 at the time professors at Virginia Tech. Stephen Prince is 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.640 a is a film scholar who I know has done 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.720 a lot of work on a Kirakua Sawa. And I'm 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:18.480 not going to cover the entire paper, but I just 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:20.640 want to note some parts of it that struck me 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.080 as as relevant and interesting. So they start off by 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.920 telling the story of the Kolashov effect experiment, the experiment 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.360 with that actor Mojuk and making the neutral face and 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.280 then either being intercut with with soup or with the 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.000 woman in the coffin, and and the audience is raving 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.240 about how how expressive and powerful the emotions and the 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.559 performance were. Now, one thing they do at the beginning 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.120 is they note some differences in the details of the 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.520 story that arise from different recountings of it, and so 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.760 they end up casting doubt on whether the accounts of 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.560 this experiment are first of all, historically accurate and second 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.320 analytically valid, and so the author right quote. The goal 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.800 here is to provide a clearer contextualization of Kolashov's work, 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.959 distinguishing between its incontrovertible importance for an understanding of how 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:14.240 cinema communicates and certain of its limitations, especially it's incautious 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:18.799 merging of theoretical claim and observational assertion. As we will see, 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.679 Kulashev may have been right, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.320 So the top line of this paper is that they 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.840 try to recreate the masu Can experiment as it is 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.800 usually described, and they do not produce the same result. 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.960 But this doesn't necessarily mean that the broader implications of 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.840 the Kolashov effect are wrong theoretically, but it might mean 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.840 something about the specific claims about a neutral face. Um. 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.160 So they start off talking about Kolashov's belief in the 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.760 power of montage and his arguments that editing is far 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.160 more important the meaning generated by a film than the 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.080 contents of the shots. So they talk about the masu 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.000 Can experiment, and then the other things we mentioned, creative 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:04.560 geography and creative anatomy, and they described the general takeaway 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:10.760 from the Mashukan experiment as follows quote. Naturalistic emotive performances 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.800 by actors were not considered by Kulashev to be essential 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.000 to cinema. Because of the demands of montage. Actors were 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:24.560 to provide minimal, restrained, and fairly unambiguous gestural and facial expressions. 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.240 As kola Chev puts it, quote, the presence of montage 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:33.079 necessitated that the shots should be constructed simply, clearly, distinctly. 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.760 Otherwise the flickering of a rapid montage would not be 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.440 sufficient for a full scrutiny of its contents, And then 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.080 the authors go on reacting partly against the over emoting 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.640 found in some silent films. Kulashov noted that quote a 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:53.040 preoccupation with psychologism rooted in the actor's performance was quite 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.120 useless for the cinema. So in a in a lot 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.200 of ways, it sounds like Kulashov kind of wanted to 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.520 take the acting out of acting. He's like, there's too 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.960 much psychology and acting. What we need instead is just 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.960 sort of like shots of actors doing kind of like plain, 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.920 unambiguous moments that can then be selected by the editor 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.440 to insert in a sequence to make meaning of m Yeah, 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:19.839 that's I mean, it reminds me of so many other 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:25.280 discussions we've had about performance and direction. Uh, I'm always 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.320 reminded of that that final sequence from a Geary The 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.120 Wrath of God, where you have you have what ends 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:36.080 up being a rather balanced and and and interesting performance 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.680 by klaus Kinsky. But apparently it's because Vernon Herzag just 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.719 wore him out, made him do take after take until 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.479 he wasn't doing like a frenzied um uh, you know, 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:51.760 over almost you know, overacting overly intense performance. He's not raging, 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.279 he's just actually, you know, emoting it at the level 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.200 that the director wants. And then can therefore be uh 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.640 be used effectively in the it. Yeah, And though if 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:03.799 that story is true, it may have worked in this case. 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.839 So I want to say I do not necessarily endorse 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:12.600 directing by exhaustion. No. Now that was a special relationship obviously, 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.000 But you often see this brought up, and you know, 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.359 there's this idea of like, is this is it the 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.880 is is this about the actor and the acting performance? 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.159 Is it about uh editing? Is it about the director's vision? 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.400 And you do often see that sort of push and 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.880 pull be it you know Klauskinski in vern or Herzog 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.920 or Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock. Uh, you know, the 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.560 the actor has a certain vision about how things want 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:37.880 need to be, and then the director had maybe has 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.359 another idea not only about like this particular character in 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.640 this particular performance, but how it fits into the the 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.960 overall film, how it fits into the final edit. And 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.080 so you could have you can imagine somebody going into 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.880 it with this this sort of very Kula Shaw idea 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.400 of just shoot, all we needed just neutral actors, We 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.320 don't really need any any of this emotion one way 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.400 or another. And I don't know, there's probably some examples 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.920 of filmmakers who tend to lean in that direction with 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.240 with very neutral performances. Yeah, you could almost look at 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.159 that approach as uh, something that might be more common 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.640 saying like music videos and stuff than in narrative films. 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.080 Being probably find at some narrative films as well, where 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:22.320 the filming part of the filmmaking process is just sort 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.680 of like creating a bunch of building blocks that can 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.080 later be used in various arrangements to do whatever the 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.679 director or editor later decides to do with them. Yeah, 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.560 it also reminds me how, you know, a lot of 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.080 the films we're watching weird, how cinema will sometimes feature 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.440 non actors or you know, very very green actors. But 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.520 the right sort of non actor can really excel in 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.919 a scene if utilized correctly, you know, like not the 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.479 kind of non actor where they're just really outrageous with 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.520 you know, but uh, but where they're just sort of 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.560 very they're very neutral, they're they're almost barely there at all, 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.360 and if enough the other stuff is in the right place, 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.640 it can really work. Now. I gotta say, though, as 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.360 this paper ends up describing kola Chev's theory of film 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.200 and montage, I think I can't agree with with what 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.920 it sounds like Kolashov's vision actually was, because cool Chev 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.360 apparently said things like the film shot is not a 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:22.120 still photograph, the shot is a sign a letter for montage. 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.720 So I think he's saying like a still photograph can 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.280 have meaning on its own, but a shot in a 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.360 movie is more like a letter in a sentence, something 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.240 which does not have meaning on its own, but is 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.840 combined in sequence to make meaning. Clearly, that has some 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.200 truth to it, because, as we've said, editing does constitute 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.720 a major part of the the sense making or meaning 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.720 making of a film. But I think that's also pretty overstated. 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.040 You know, a lot of meaning lies in the editing, 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.040 but the contents of the shots also stand alone to 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.040 a greater extent and and matter a lot more than 0:07:56.120 --> 0:08:00.360 Kolashov was giving credit here. Um. Though, again, to be fair, 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.320 I think it's important for us not to forget that 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.800 in the nineteen teens and early nineteen twenties. You know, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.400 film was still fairly young, Editing was still fairly new 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:13.120 in cinema, and its powers were still being discovered. Uh. 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.400 You know, it's like, like we talked about the very 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.760 earliest films from the eighteen nineties and such, we're usually 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.520 not edited at all. They just be one continuous shot. 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.320 And even after editing was introduced, films of the Silent 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.520 era typically did not have as many cuts as movies 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.480 were used to today. Furthermore, the authors of of this 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.240 ninety two paper argue that a theory comparing film to 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.280 language is actually not super useful because there's just a 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.880 lot of ways in which that doesn't work. Like film 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.520 does things language cannot do, So you don't have to 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.400 learn a language to appreciate the meanings of films. You 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.960 you learn some conventions, but you know, you can just 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.040 watch a movie and make some sense of it even 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.320 if you're not familiar with conventions. As you to understand 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.560 the language, you have to learn the language. Um. Meanwhile, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.360 language does things that film can't do, like photographic images 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.800 used in a film cannot be recombined freely to make 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.520 endless meaning the way a language can. There's also an 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:14.240 interesting digression in this paper about Kolashaw being influenced by 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.360 the ideology of industrial efficiency on the model of the 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:23.400 American engineer Frederick Taylor, who was a big proponent of 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.600 finding ways to make you know, production processes and factories 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.280 more efficient, finding all the places where where waste and 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.439 and and problems creep in and eliminating those, And that 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:38.360 Taylor's ideas of industrial efficiency were apparently very popular in 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:42.239 the Soviet Union at the time, and that in a way, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.679 the authors say that you could view Kolashav's emphasis on 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:51.319 economy and acting as a type of industrial efficiency technique 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.480 applied to film theory. Yeah, And based on what I 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:56.440 was reading it, it doesn't. It does seem like a 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.440 lot of his work was based in let's figure out 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.000 what's working, and then how we can we can do that? 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.440 How how do we make how do what is the 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.920 most economic means of making effective film? Now? Ultimately, Prince 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.600 and Hensley make the case that Koulishov really was trying 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.960 to dress up his theoretical convictions about how film works 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.880 with the imper mater of empirical science with this alleged 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.360 experiment them as you can experiment uh and I think 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.880 I'm pretty convinced by their description of it that way. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:28.599 I think this is something you've always got to be 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:32.120 cautious of because obviously, you know, I don't object in 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:37.960 principle to exploring or building upon artistic theories with empirical methods, 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:40.640 But I would also say, my personal opinion is that 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.920 a lot of these efforts to inject scientific methods into 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:50.559 esthetics and and art and stuff can be confusing and unnecessary. Like, 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.160 I don't think you have to have an empirical scientific 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.920 justification for an opinion about where meaning comes from in 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.480 art or in film. Obviously, I'm a huge believer in 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.040 empirical science. I just don't think it has to pervade 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:08.839 every domain, Like aesthetics and art don't necessarily need scientific 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.920 evidence and theories behind them. That those fields just you know, 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.920 work by different standards. And I think also a lot 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:20.600 of times if you try to generate empirical scientific justifications 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.760 for your beliefs about art or aesthetics or whatever, you're 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.600 often just gonna end up doing sloppy experiments or drawing 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:32.239 unjustified conclusions, even if you do a good one. Yeah, um, 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.560 Like I'm reminded, you know, of the fact that obviously 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:36.520 you have a such thing. There's such a thing as 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:41.840 outsider art and outsider cinema. Um and and examples of 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.120 outsider art and outsider cinema can be amazing, uh, you know. 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.400 And on the other side of things, you don't hear 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:54.959 as much about maybe outsider architecture, outsider structural engineering, things 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.959 of this nature. Outsider medicine is probably you know, best 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.040 avoided if you can, no matter how it's being dressed up. Well, 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.200 I mean, I think empirical methods are good for fields 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.720 in which you are trying to achieve very clearly specified goals, 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.640 certain kinds of outcomes and get them as reliably as possible. 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:18.000 And empirical methods are are less important in fields where 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.319 you're you're just trying to be expressive or be creative 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.880 and see what kind of emergent results come out. But 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.840 if it's like like this turns my mind to like 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:33.199 a B. Testing and focus groups used in film and television, um, 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.560 you know, not not necessarily a bad idea at all, 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.120 especially when you're dealing again with a very mainstream product 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.800 you want to appeal to a you know, a wide 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.400 population of individuals. Um. But you know, there are plenty 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.320 of arguments to be made about it as a potential, 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.520 you know, sloppy experiment. As you say, perhaps one of 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.360 the best critiques of all of this is that that 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.000 episode of The Simpsons, the Itchy and Scratchy and Pucci Show, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.360 one of my favorites. It's just an old, creaky mirror. 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.440 Sometimes it sounds like it's coughing or talking softly. Yes, 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.280 But anyway to come back to uh, Prince and Henley's 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:22.079 description of methodological problems with the common descriptions of Kolashov's 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.040 alleged experiment the Masukan experiment with the neutral face and 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.280 the soup and the and the coffin and stuff. And 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.720 they list a bunch of questions, they say, quote for 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.160 such a seminal and basically uncontested study. There is virtually 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.720 no information available about Kolashov's actual method and procedure. Did he, 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:41.160 for example, interview the subjects individually or in a group? 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.840 What did he tell them beforehand about the purpose of 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.760 the presentation, What if anything, did he tell them about 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.880 the nature of film editing or montage. What was the 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.840 frequency of outlier opinions e g. People who did not 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:57.679 think Masouken was saddened by the dead woman. Published accounts 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:02.160 suggest the responses were uniform as this. So, unfortunately we 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.120 do not know the answers to any of these questions. 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:10.120 So given these limitations, they attempt to recreate and try 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.680 to replicate as best they can the conditions of the 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.520 original experiment to see if they get the same result. 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.760 So what they did was they put together a videotape 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.720 that they had some auditions for actors to produce a 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.480 close up shot of a face that was just totally 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:27.400 neutral and expression list. And they had to go through 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.320 a couple of rounds because in the first round the 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.760 actor's neutral face was not perceived as neutral enough by 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.640 the control group. Um. But so so they got a 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.280 neutral face on a video and they did the same thing. 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.320 They intercut it with a woman lying in a coffin, 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.040 a girl playing with a Teddy bear, and a bowl 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.600 of soup on a table, and they tried as best 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.680 they could to follow Kolashov's cues about what what the 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.560 cinematography techniques for making this work the best would be, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.840 so it would be uh people visible on a darkened 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.760 black velvet back ground. Apparently the actors were told that 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.080 they just needed someone to uh to model for an 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.360 instructional video in which they would be required to do 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.040 an expressionless or neutral face. So one difference is that 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.960 instead of one long sequence intercutting with all of them, 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:20.200 they did separate sequences for each reaction. So, for example, 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.720 it might go face soup, face fade out or face coffin, 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.000 face fade out, and each shot was seven seconds long. 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.920 And the separate sequences make sense to me because you 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.960 might get a different reaction with some pairings than you 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.640 would with others. So viewers each saw one sequence selected 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.080 at random, and they were told that the experimenters needed 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.040 help evaluating an acting performance, and then the viewers were 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.640 supposed to select from a list of emotions that they 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:55.280 thought were being portrayed by the actor. Options included happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgusted, hunger, 0:15:55.640 --> 0:16:00.240 no emotion, and other Apparently the participants were underground adds 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.040 at a mid Atlantic university I'm going to assume based 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:07.760 on the author's affiliations, this was probably Virginia Tech. They 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.920 said that interestingly, film students were excluded from the experiment 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.880 since they might detect the connection to Kolashov and understand 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.760 what the experiment was getting at, which could bias results. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.840 And in support of this decision, I mean, it seems 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.400 like a good choice either way. But to justify this decision, 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.520 they wrote about another recent attempt to replicate the Moso 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:33.360 Can experiment in France among film students who allegedly gave 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.680 answers like the following quote. We know that the man 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.600 does not change his expression, but because of the montage, 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.000 we think we see him change or quote. We know 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.080 the Kolashov effect and it works. And then Prince and 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.440 Hensley also had a control condition where they showed the 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.440 face to UH twenty four film students this time but 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.880 without any inner cutting. They were just showing them the 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.720 face by itself and asking them what emotion it was 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.359 showing for the face that they actually used in the experiment. 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.280 Percent said there was no emotion on the face, So 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.200 this is a very good neutral face. You know that. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.240 That reminds me though of of use of neutral face 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.440 uh sort of not still pictures but just seen sequences 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.280 where um, a character and an individual is staring directly 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:22.280 into the camera. UM. I'm thinking it is certainly about 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.560 Ron Fricks film Baraka, which features a number of these 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.919 UH sequences where you'll you'll just have an individual from 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.560 from one culture or another just staring into the camera. 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.280 Or another example that comes to mind is the film 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.560 The Mission, where at the very end of the film 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.000 there's you just have several beats of one of the 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:48.240 primary characters, UH staring into the camera and very neutral expression. 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.800 And of course you have the entire film you've just 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.240 watched to help UH inform your idea of what's going 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.000 through that that character's head. Um. But but but still 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.240 it's it's a it's a great use of neutral expression, 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.080 like he doesn't it doesn't look particularly sad in that case, 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.320 but you in you can see sadness in the character. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.840 You know, Well, yeah, that's a good example. But I 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.880 think it also does raise questions about something that's supposed 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:19.760 to be sort of outside the standard interpretation of this 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.359 of this experiment, which is like, well, wait, what are 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.160 the actual contents of the face? Maybe that does matter 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:27.920 that's going to come up in the author's interpretation of 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:30.800 the results they get. But so in the actual experiment 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.280 they did, they had a hundred and thirty seven participants, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:37.440 including the control group in the experimental group in every condition, 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.919 whether it was soup, coffin, or child, the majority of 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.159 people said there was no emotion. So they saw the 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.160 face that was supposedly neutral, they saw it intercut with 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.800 whatever it was, the soup or the coffin, and they said, Nope, 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.920 there is no emotion on this face. In the soup condition, 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:58.600 sixty eight percent selected no emotion. In both the child 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.720 and the coffin can s and sixty one percent said 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.160 no emotion, and so comparing that to the control group, 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.640 in the control eight percent said there was no emotion, 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.760 and that dropped down to sixty eight in the soup 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.640 and sixty one in the child and the coffin. So 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.080 you could say this is a small increase in perceived emotion, 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.119 though the authors note that for the size of the 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.560 group they tested, it actually doesn't reach statistical significance, so 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.639 it might just be a random fluke. Furthermore, in the 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.639 cases where the viewers picked in emotion, it was usually 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.040 not the expected emotion, so it was not happiness for 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.280 the child and so forth. So either way, this experiment 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:42.440 finds something somewhere between no effect and small effect on 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.520 perceived emotion, which is a very far cry either way 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.639 from Kolashov's reports about the audiences unanimous raving about the 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:54.000 actor's subtle emotional performances, And so the authors say here that, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.960 you know, in less contrary evidence emerges, it seems true 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.600 to say that quote the Kolashov effect as report did 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.040 no longer exists, even if the effect did play a 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.320 role at one time, though emphasis there should be on 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.119 as reported because some of the broader implications of it 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:14.840 probably do still hold true. Now, this raises an interesting question. 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.159 If we assume, for the sake of argument, that Kolashev 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.520 was basically reporting the results of his experiment accurately or 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.480 with only slight exaggeration, what could account between the difference. 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.640 Why did Kolashov get people raving about the subtle emotion 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.919 in the neutral face, but that that didn't really happen 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.919 in a modern experiment. The authors offer some ideas here, 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.800 and I think they're all pretty possible, viable, and certainly interesting. 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:44.800 So one would be changes in audience expectation. You know, 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.760 audiences today are accustomed to highly effective editing techniques that 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.200 have been perfected over time, such as, like I mentioned earlier, 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:56.200 the preservation of eyelines to enforce continuity of of perspective 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.119 and reverse shots. Yeah, yeah, I think this is this 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:00.680 is a big one, And I mean it comes down 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:02.440 to like some of the basics of what we said 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.159 earlier about how at least for many of us and 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.800 certainly for me, like trying to watch an actual Kolashaw 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.560 film is very difficult. Like it's just film has come 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.879 has evolved so much since then, um, and and the 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:19.840 effects are subtle in a way that you really the 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.160 film only has to be even halfway competent to really 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.200 just draw you in and create the illusion. Right, So, 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:28.720 uh so the author's right quote. It may be that 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.679 a modern audience, by virtue of increased media exposure relative 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.320 to cool a shows day, has become accustomed to a 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:40.080 more systematic and complex set of associational cues, such as 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.480 those supplied by the continuity system of editing, and is 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.399 correspondingly less likely to respond to a montage sequence that 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.280 employs a blank face and minimal, if any associative cues 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:56.000 within shots. So maybe the bar for perceiving emotion in 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:58.879 films has has gone up, you know, it's just harder 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.320 to do now. And at the time that Kolashov did 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.560 his experiment, allegedly maybe the audiences were just we're just 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:10.320 more it was easier for them to project to that emotion. 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:12.440 Now that there could be a number of ways to 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:15.080 read that. One way is is thinking about how much 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:19.879 exposure modern audiences have to modern editing techniques. Um. The 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:23.000 other way, I guess, and the authors don't really favor 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:25.760 this explanation. They say another way of looking at it 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.000 is naivete on the part of the early audiences. There's 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:32.359 some kind of projection going on, because maybe early film 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.760 audiences were just so bewildered by moving pictures that they 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:40.480 almost like hallucinated projections of emotion. Uh. The authors don't 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:43.080 think this is a very good explanation for one thing, 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:45.960 because they argue that a lot of the stories that 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:49.240 are used to to illustrate the sort of bewilderment of 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.280 early film audiences like that, you know, the semi mythological 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:55.320 things about the audiences running away from the Loomi air 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.080 train and stuff that they say that, I mean, there 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:00.720 were sort of events of this kind, but they have 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:05.439 been mythologized in a way that over emphasizes how naive 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.160 early audiences were, and that a lot of these kinds 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:11.200 of reactions may have just been audiences playing along there 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:13.679 at the theater, having a good time, and they're playing 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:16.920 along with what the suggested reaction was supposed to be. 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:19.280 That's true once you especially when you're dealing with a 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:22.879