suspension of disbelief

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I find suspension of disbelief a rather weird concept. To be involved, moved etc by a story we need to suspend our disbelief, ie forget that it's actually just a story invented by a novelist/screenwriter/whoever. But at the same time, we don't really "believe" it. If there's a house on fire in a film we're watching, we don't actually believe we're in any danger from it. We don't run out of the cinema. You might say we what we're doing is "make-believe", like children when they pretend that mud pies are real pies or whatever. And yet that doesn't explain the very real, quite involuntary fear we feel when watching a good horror movie... I find the very notion that we can be scared out of our wits by a movie, and yet at the same time know that it's not real, quite weird.

Any thoughts?

― Malone Lives, Wednesday, 14 December 2005 15:36 (twenty years ago)

Not this morning.

Oh, and I do run out of cinemas all the time.

― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 14 December 2005 15:38 (twenty years ago)

The Neverending Story

― Rumpie (lil drummer girl parumpumpumpu), Wednesday, 14 December 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

It's interesting, and there's been a lot written about this subject. See here, for instance:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/fict-par.htm

― jz, Wednesday, 14 December 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

We're empathising, aren't we? We cry and scream and laugh because we emotionally relate to what's no screen, but we know there is an impenetrable wall between us and the action. Both aspects of the reaction are instinctive.

Where it breaks down is old ladies in the street thumping Dirty Den with their handbags. Where it becomes intriguing is when they thump Simon Cowell or Nasty Nick. Reality TV indeed.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 14 December 2005 15:57 (twenty years ago)

We're empathising, aren't we?

Yeah, we are, but that doesn't solve the problem of suspending our disbelief. We watch a movie, and we know it's not true, but we're still moved by it. Compare this with, say, an online diary you read, that purports to recount the trials and tribulations of someone's life. You're moved by it when her mother dies of cancer etc. Then you find out that it's all fabricated. It's lost its magic for you, you can't be moved by it any more because you know it's not real, you even feel angry for being duped. What's the difference between the online diary and the movie? Both are not real, but one moves you and the other doesn't as soon as you know it's not real.

Not very well expressed, sorry.

― Malone Lives, Wednesday, 14 December 2005 16:08 (twenty years ago)

We watch a movie, and we know it's not true

Actually I think we do forget for the entirity of the movie that it's fake. We enter that universe and leave behind reality. Doesn't make sense, I suspect.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 14 December 2005 16:14 (twenty years ago)

To say that we suspend disbelief in a story is not necessarily to say that we believe in it in the same way that we believe Blair is prime minister. Narrative fiction might be a sort of dream reality we can sometimes enter into.

― jz, Wednesday, 14 December 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

Whereas Blair being prime minister is a sort of nightmare reality we'd like to sometimes get away from. OT, sorry.

Narrative fiction does have to have it's own reality. Whilst we might willingly suspend disbeleif regarding the specific events etc. of the narrative, and we may even be persuaded to suspend disbeleif of things we know to be impossible in our reality (dragons etc.), if a narrative breaks it's own internal logic the empathy is immediately borked.

― Zora (Zora), Wednesday, 14 December 2005 17:50 (twenty years ago)

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