Local Emotions, Global Moods, and Film Structure

Until recently there were only scattered essays and one book attempting to apply cognitivist assumptions to film and emotions.l The very question seemed strange: how could cognitivism, with its emphasis on rational processes, hope to explain the irrational world of filmic emotion? Yet in the past few years several landmark books have appeared which pose compelling answers to that question.2 It now seems easier to discuss a cognitivist perspective on film emotions. Overturning long-held Romantic notions about the opposition between emotion and cognition, a cognitivist can emphasize emotions as a structured complement to cognitive processes. Emotions, to this way of thinking, motivate people to move more quickly toward their goals. Whether the goal is to remove oneself from a threatening lion's presence or to achieve intimacy with a loved one, emotions provide us with an impetus that logical deliberation alone cannot provide. Emotions are not dysfunctions that interfere with our rationality; instead they are functional processes. Emotions, to the budding cognitivist perspective, are functional action tendencies that motivate us toward goals and that are shaped by our situational expectations.' While I agree with the thrust of this argument, I believe we must ask, In what ways is it productive and counterproductive to view the emotion system with these assumptions? The relatively straightforward fit between traditionally cognitivist concepts (such as goals and expectations) and the functionalist explanation of emotions is tempting. Before we embrace a parIicular understanding of the emotion system to guide our investigations into film, however, we should investigate if our current cognitivist assumptions I('ave out important parts of the emotion system. The emotion system is more complex-messier, if you will-than such lillld ionalist assumptions would indicate. While retaining a cognitivist un1ll'I'stallding of emotions as structured phenomena, I wish to muddy the wnll'l'S by porI raying thl' 1'lIl11l ion system as based on a looser connecting 'I i