Die Hard as an Emotion Symphony: How Reptilian Scenarios Meet Mammalian Emotions in the Flow of an Action Film
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Abstract
The article analyzes how action films use different emotional sources of arousal to create narrative tension and suspense in the PECMA flow (i.e., the mental flow of perceptions that activate emotions, cognition, and action). It analyzes how different emotions link to each other or contrast each other in the narrative flow that one metaphorically might call an emotion symphony. The flow may create a time-out experience because of the way in which the action-oriented flow recruits consciousness in full, similar to the way in which music creates flow experiences, as discussed by cognitive music aestheticians. The article discusses how the flow supports character simulation and how it uses a small set of scenarios (HTTOFF scenarios) to drive the flow. To illustrate the symphonic flow, it makes a close reading of John McTiernan’s Die Hard (1988).
Contributor Notes
Torben Grodal is Professor Emeritus at the University of Copenhagen. In addition to having written books and articles on literature, he has written Moving Pictures: A New Theory of Genre, Feelings, and Cognition (Oxford University Press, 1997), Embodied Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture, and Film (Oxford University Press, 2009), and a Danish introduction to audiovisual theory and analysis entitled Filmoplevelse (Samfundslitteratur, 2007), He has also published articles on film, emotions, narrative theory, art films, video games, and evolutionary film theory. E-mail: grodal@hum.ku.dk