Experiments and Compromises: Mind-Game Films in Contemporary American Cinema
Abstract
The article focuses on the phenomenon of the so-called mind-game films – films emerging from the end of the 1990s, which are characterized by, among others, complicated narrative, ontologically uncertain worlds, mentally unstable characters that focus the story. The author embeds the phenomenon of mind-game films in the context of changes in the aesthetics and production of contemporary American cinema and answers the question, why is it most present in the American film industry. Although narrative experiments aimed at arousing cognitive discomfort in the audience were already visible in the modernist cinema, it is the contemporary American cinema that made them acceptable to the wider audience. Szczekała concentrates also on the aesthetic and ideological aspects of the phenomenon, and analyses the most recurrent themes and narrative tricks, and specific to the mind-game films form of “cognitive identification”.
Keywords:
mind-game films, narrative, discomfortReferences
Bal, Mieke. Narratologia. Wprowadzenie do teorii narracji. tłum. E. Kraskowska, E. Rajewska. Kraków, 2012.
Google Scholar
Berliner, Todd. Hollywood Incoherent: Narration in Seventies Cinema. Austin, 2010.
Google Scholar
Bordwell, David. The Way Hollywood Tells It. Berkeley – Los Angeles, 2006.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520932326
Google Scholar
Bordwell. David. Narration in the Fiction Film. London – New York, 1985.
Google Scholar
Brown, William. Complexity and Smiplicity in „Inception” and „Dedicated to Ozu”. W: Hollywood Puzzle Films. red. W. Buckland. New York – London, 2014.
Google Scholar
Buckland, Warren. Introduction: Puzzle Plots. W: Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema. red. W. Buckland. Malden, 2009.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305708
Google Scholar
Elsaesser, Thomas. The Mind-Game Films. W: Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema. red. W. Buckland. Malden, 2009.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305708.ch1
Google Scholar
King, Goeff. Indiewood, USA: Where Hollywood Meets Independent Cinema. London – New York, 2009.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755697076
Google Scholar
King, Goeff. Quality Hollywood: Markers of Distinction in Contemporary Film. London, 2016.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755694983
Google Scholar
Mottram, James. The Sundance Kids: How The Mavericks Took Back Hollywood. London, 2006
Google Scholar
Ostaszewski, Jacek. Narrator niewiarygodny w filmie fabularnym. „Kwartalnik Filmowy” 71-72 (2010)
Google Scholar
Poulaki, Maria. Puzzled Hollywood and the Return of Complex Films, w: Hollywood Puzzle Films. Red. W. Buckland. New York - London, 2014.
Google Scholar
Smith, Murray. Zaangażowanie widza w postać. tłum. J. Mach. W: Kognitywna teoria filmu. red. J. Ostaszewski. Kraków, 1998.
Google Scholar
Thanouli, Eleftheria. Post-Classical Cinema: An International Poetics of Film Narration. London – New York, 2009.
Google Scholar
Waxman, Sharon: Rebels on The Backlot, New York – London, 2006.
Google Scholar
Authors
Barbara Szczekałakwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland
Doktorantka w Instytucie Sztuk Audiowizualnych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Interesuje się przemianami narracji filmowej w kinie współczesnym oraz narratologią kognitywną. Współredaktorka czasopisma „Ekrany”, PR manager Międzynarodowego Festiwalu Filmowego Etiuda&Anima w Krakowie.
Statistics
Abstract views: 156PDF downloads: 151
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Barbara Szczekała
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.
In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Barbara Szczekała, Experiencing Estrangement. Affectiveness of Contemporary Science Fiction , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 111 (2020): Senses and Affects
- Barbara Szczekała, A Feminist Film Narratology: Several Questions, Few Answers , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 119 (2022): (New) Film Theory
- Barbara Szczekała, Time Destroys Everything: The Phenomenon of Reverse Chronology in Film Narrative , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 86 (2014): Dimensions of Time
- Barbara Szczekała, Home Is the Most Dangerous Place for Women: Contemporary Hollywood and Domestic Violence against Women , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 129 (2025): Trauma
Similar Articles
- Mirosław Przylipiak, Pleasure on the Verge of Discomfort , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 110 (2020): Beyond Human Being
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
