Film and the New Psychology: Phenomenology and Pragmatism on the Objectivity of Emotional Qualities

Integrating examples from filmmaking, results from experimental psychology and phenomenological and pragmatic conceptions of emotion and perception, I argue that emotional qualities accrue to situations in the world and hence do so objectively. I contend, contra common presumption, that facial expressions can be faked, for we should otherwise be unable to explain how faces often reflect the emotional qualities of situations, and how, in particular, even the faces of performers wearing masks can convey them. Relating Dewey and Merleau-Ponty’s accounts of perception and emotion to ideas developed by 20th century physicists, I conclude that properties are effects of interrelations, and hence that the Kuleshov effect, used by filmmakers for over a century to determine by the context of shots how audiences perceive the emotional expression of a face, need not be an illusion.