Replies to Commentators on Movies on Our Minds

in Projections
Author:
James E. Cutting Cornell University, Ithaca, NY jec7@cornell.edu

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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7338-846X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2023.170109
Keywords:
complexity; cultural change; evolution; narration; narrative; popular cinema; technological change
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Abstract

What a pleasure it is to have colleagues read Movies on Our Minds: The Evolution of Cinematic Engagement, to understand it, and to offer some praise and a panoply of diverse and penetrating criticisms. The perspectives and qualms raised in the four commentaries in the special section of this issue are well-worth considering in detail. My first reply concerns relations between cinematic narration and narrative, the second explores constraints on cinematic complexity and its assessment, the third addresses possible consequences of changing movie structure and our increased cognitive processing speed, and the fourth ramifies concepts I use to account for the historical changes in popular cinema.

Contributor Notes

James E. Cutting is Susan Linn Sage Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, where he taught in the Psychology Department from 1980 to 2020. He has published four books and over 150 scientific articles and chapters on perception, cognition, and the arts. His latest book Movies on Our Minds: The Evolution of Cinematic Engagement (Oxford Press) appeared in 2021. Orcid: 0000-0002-7338-846X. Email: jec7@cornell.edu

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Projections

The Journal for Movies and Mind

Cover Projections
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
16
Keywords:
complexity; cultural change; evolution; narration; narrative; popular cinema; technological change
Print Publication Date:
01 Mar 2023
Online Publication Date:
01 Mar 2023
Copyright:
© The Author/s 2023

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