Belief

I remember being in a cinema in Coventry back in around 1980 enjoying a new science fiction movie. During a dinner sequence on board the spacecraft a crew member’s chest explodes and a life form escapes. The film, of course, was 'Alien' and I was totally absorbed as the story unfolded. I was there in the hunt to find the creature.

And the point of that intro is that for the next ninety minutes or so I had completely surrendered my belief in the here and now. I was in the there and now. So many films have had that effect on me (well, except for Batman and the rest of the Marvel stuff) and I presume on all of us.

Alien

So, why do we lose the sense of where we are during a film. What makes us suspend belief and enter another place for its duration.

Years ago I read that being involved in a film is like being in an hypnotic trance so I had a dive into google and found this (apparently written by a ‘bot’):

‘When you watch a movie, you are not typically in a state of hypnosis. Hypnosis is a trance-like state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility, often induced by a hypnotist. While watching a movie, you are engaged in the storyline, visuals, and audio...which can create a sense of absorption or "being lost" in the story. This absorption can sometimes be compared to a hypnotic state...your critical thinking may be temporarily suspended as you become engrossed in the film.’

There is also this from another site:

'Filmmakers have developed techniques that capture our sensations, thoughts, and feelings. Philosophers and film theorists have thought deeply about this...yet few scientists have delved into empirical analyses of our movie experience-or what Arthur P. Shimamura has coined "psychocinematics." This volume introduces this exciting field.' Which may be interesting but is also £97.

But this state of trance/hypnosis is not confined to film. I wouldn’t mind betting that most of us have been so deep in a book that we lose touch with time. The most recent vivid experience of this for me happened a couple of years ago when I was reading ‘The Martian’ by Andy Weir. Not only was I unaware of time but my heart was bumping as I was getting to the end. At 2-30 am. That is belief.

The Martian

I do not find this sense of surrendering my belief in the here and now in the theatre or music. Different sensations do occur and I do find great pleasure in attending such events. Having said that it was at an outdoor theatre event at Williamson Park that I experienced the effect of breaking the fourth wall, that separation from actors and me as an audience who wants to believe in the reality of the performance.

It had been belting down all day and we turned up in Lancaster with our flasks (tomato soup), cheese sandwiches, waterproof jackets and overtrousers only to find that the evening’s show had had to be cancelled. The first time the actors had cancelled that season. They were as bereft as we were and wandered round what was left of the crowd apologising. But that was the thing. The actors were talking to us in character with costumes still on. That sort of shattered my belief in the play.

Williamson Park

But never mind, with poetry I always have the belief that clouds have silver linings.

Williamson Park, Lancaster

Hot soup on a wet evening
three of us plus Tim
sit on the steps
watch the rain falling down
fall past the Butterflies
down past the Folly
down past the bushes
where the Play’s not played
dry on the steps
and watching the water
drowning Morecambe
and into the Bay
and then in the rainfall
there’s the actors
dripping with something
that looks like rage
it has to be bad
for them to cancel
it has to be bad
to want them to
but when they’re passing
they stop to talk
to the three of us plus Tim
and just that gesture
makes the evening
the floodlights drift away
for those ten minutes
we’re part of it all
as Julia chats with Shakespeare
Olivier laughs with Paul
me I fall for the actress
and Tim can’t wait to go home.

Winning poem in Borders Poetry comp approx 2007

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.