Dysrecognition: Emotional Engagement and Estrangement at The Congress (2013)

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MA Research Thesis Film Studies

DYSRECOGNITION

Emotional Engagement and Estrangement at The Congress (2013)

Name: Lucia ten Berge University of Amsterdam Student number: 10221557 MA Film Studies

Supervisor: dr. G.W. van der Pol Date: 23 June 2015 Second reader: dr. A.M. Geil Word count: 22,998

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ABSTRACT

This thesis focuses on the problem of recognition in Murray Smith’s model of the structure of sympathy; a system that is said to be applicable to any feature film. To investigate this problem, Ari Folman’s 2013 film The Congress; that consists of both live action and animation, will be explored. The fact that this film was poorly attended leads to questions about the emotional engagement experienced by the spectator. The specific narrative structure of this film, combined with the mix of live action and animation, results in a structure of sympathy that deviates from Murray Smith’s version. In The Congress, the live action world is transformed completely into animation at some point. This particular combination of live action and animation could result in an alternative mode of spectatorial engagement that eventually causes the spectator to experience alienation from the characters. The central question then, is why this would happen specifically in this case, and what this means for theorizing spectatorial engagement. To investigate this, different theoretical approaches are applied to the film. The research will start off with an introduction to the concept of spectatorial engagement by exploring different approaches to the term. In chapter two, the position and context of the spectator will be studied. The third chapter is centred on the influence of expectations raised by the film on the engagement of the spectator. Subsequently, the levels of realism and artificiality are discussed to explore how the balance between the two can influence the emotional connection of the spectator with the characters. After focusing specifically on the narrative of The Congress, the former approaches will come together in a concluding chapter about engagement, which problematizes Smith’s structure, introducing an alternative to this structure. The conclusion will put the analysis in a broader perspective concerning spectatorial engagement and the revised structure of sympathy.

Key words:

cinema, spectatorship, emotional engagement, animation, realism, estrangement, recognition

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Smith, Murray. “Character Engagement.” Engaging 17 Characters: Fiction, Emotion and the Cinema. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1995. 105.

Figure 2. Gilliam, Terry. The Man Who Took Leave of His Senses. 2015. 19 24 February 2015. < http://bit.ly/1bCxnCM>.

Figure 3. “Reviews & Ratings.” The Congress. IMDb.com. 20 29 March 2015. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/board/nest/ 233522543?p=2>.

Figure 4. “Reviews & Ratings.” The Congress. IMDb.com. 20 30 March 2015. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/board/nest/ 233522543?p=2>.

Figure 5. The Congress (2013). Poster. 2013. The Congress. The Internet 33 Movie Database. Web. 2 February 2015. <http:// www.imdb.com/ media/ rm2314128384/tt1821641?ref_=tt_ov_i#>.

Figure 6. The Congress. Poster. 2013. The Congress (2013) Movie 34 Poster #3. SciFi-Movies. Web. 15 February 2015. <http://

scifi-movies.com/images/contenu/data/0003421/affiche-le- congres-the-congress-2013-3.jpg>.

Figure 7. The Congress. Poster. 2013. The Congress (Film). Wikipedia. 35 Web. 15 February 2015. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/

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Figure 8. “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.” Episode 3.19. Fringe. Fox. 36

15 April 2011.

Figure 9. Congress, The. Dir. Ari Folman. Drafthouse Films, 2013. 37

Figure 18. A revised version of Smith’s structure of sympathy. 67

Figure 19a. Selection of the revised version of Smith’s structure of 69 sympathy, emphasizing the role of recognition.

Figure 19b. Selection of the revised version of Smith’s structure of 70 sympathy, emphasizing the role of dysrecognition.

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INTRODUCTION

Can these computerized characters create in us the same excitement and enthusiasm, and does it truly matter? – Ari Folman (“Press”)

When Mary Poppins jumps into a chalk drawing on the street in 1964, something

remarkable happens: no longer do the rules of the real world apply, and anything becomes possible (“Plot Summary”). When Cinderella leaves the animated fairy tale world and enters live action New York City in 2007, she undertakes a sudden transformation into a ‘real’ person. This too allows for new possibilities: a new world with different rules. There are many forms of this combination of animation and live action (Bruckner 23). For

example, a film can (permanently or temporarily) shift from one to the other, there can be live action within an animated setting, or animation within a live action setting. But how does the spectator experience these changes emotionally? This paper argues that these transformations can affect both the way the spectator connects to the characters and the level of this emotional engagement. The question however, is how emotional engagement works in a film with both live action and animation.

The combination of live action and animation is by no means something new. Already at the beginning of the twentieth century there were experiments of live action interacting with animation. One of the earliest examples is The Enchanted Drawing, directed by J. Stuart Blackton in 1900 for Thomas Edison and Vitagraph Studios. A man is seen with an easel, drawing a cartoon face with several objects. The man takes the objects out of the drawing, uses them in real life, and puts them back in the drawing again. This seemingly simple example already hints at the potential of this hybrid type of film. Many experiments and developments have led up to an idiosyncratic, relatively small group of films that are not live action or animation, but both. As was said above, these films can be either hybrid (where live action interacts with animation) or shifting between the two modes. Another prominent example of a hybrid animation/live action film is Who Framed

Roger Rabbit (Zemeckis, 1988), in which the animated parts are seamlessly interwoven

with the live action world, creating a completely new world. This unique combination can be of great influence for the emotional engagement of the spectator. Especially when live

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action characters become cartoons, or cartoons become real actors, something changes for the emotional experience of the spectator.

The Congress (Folman, 2013) is a remarkable film within this group. The film breaks

boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, and between live action and animation. The narrative revolves around actress Robin Wright, who plays herself in a fictional story where she literally sells her image to be digitalized when her career is nearing its end. This means she does not have to act anymore, and her whole image would be owned by a distribution company called Miramount. She agrees, signs the contract, and her digital self takes over her acting career. Twenty years later, when this contract has ended, she is invited at a congress which takes place in an “animated zone”, meaning that everyone present will take certain chemical drugs to see the whole world as a cartoon. Boundaries between what is real and what is inside your head are constantly questioned, sometimes literally by the protagonist. The idea is that everyone creates the world around themselves depending on their cognitive and emotional state, so this world is different every time one enters it. Eventually, Robin must look for her son and daughter, one being in the animated world, the other in the “real” world. Because it is impossible to find her son, she goes back into the animated zone and becomes him instead to trace his steps, living their life all over again, this time in animation.

Although the narrative about a mother in search of her children and striving for the preservation of identity and freedom comes across as quite engaging, Robin’s transition to the animated zone and the way she eventually embraces this alternate reality

communicates an extraordinarily depressing feeling to the spectator. The central question for this research is why, and more importantly how, The Congress succeeds or fails to emotionally engage its spectator1_{. In a broader perspective, this leads up to questions}

about the way spectator engagement is investigated in film theory, and why different approaches show similarities and differences with respect to emotional engagement. To answer the main question, the following subjects will be discussed. First, a number of theories about emotional engagement will be discussed to show developments,

differences and similarities in the ways this topic is studied. The second chapter will focus

1_{In this research, “the spectator” generally means an average Western European spectator. Regardless of}

gender or age, the spectator will be referred to as “he”. In chapter two, the focus will be specifically on the differences and similarities among spectators and their emotional attachment to fictional characters.

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on the role of the spectator. In addition to discussing the relevance of differences between spectators’ cinematic experiences, this chapter also emphasizes the distinction between the implied spectator and the real spectator. The main question this chapter investigates is in what way The Congress is a success or a failure for certain spectators and why. The third chapter will be about expectations and the genre of animation in particular. The question here is how much influence these expectations have on the way the spectator engages with the characters and the narrative world. How and by what factors are these

expectations raised? The last section discusses notions of realism and artificiality as aspects of animation. In The Congress, these concepts are present in both the narrative and the cinematographic techniques that are used for the film. The balance between immersion and artificiality is essential for the level of engagement of the spectator. The ratio of live action and animation and the level of realism of the animation are crucial here. Different forms of a combination of the two will be discussed to investigate what this means for the emotional connection experienced by the spectator. The fourth chapter consists of a closer analysis of the film, specifically centered on the dystopian narrative in relation to Smith’s structure of sympathy and the importance of the level of recognition. The fifth chapter will bring the former three together to form an overarching

meta-research about approaching spectator engagement in The Congress as a hybrid live action-animated film2_.

The main hypothesis of this research is that a complete conversion from live action to animation within a film might alienate the audience. However, this does not mean that this thesis argues that emotional engagement is impossible with animation films. Two aspects from this hypothesis are essential. Firstly, it is a shift from live action to animation. This means that real actors will change into drawn characters with only their voice and maybe some visual recognition left for the spectator to figuratively hold on to. Secondly, the conversion between the two is practically permanent. This means that the characters the spectator has got used to during the film disappear and do not come back in their live action form. Both are problematic when for example considering Murray Smith's structure

2_{In every chapter the three-layer structure of film, intertextuality and spectator is crucial. Every concept}

from this thesis is present in the diegetic world of The Congress, as well as on an intertextual level (for it is a film about film), and on the side of the spectator. While it is essential to be aware of their separateness; they are by no means interchangeable, The Congress shows how the three can be intertwined at the same time.

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of sympathy. The seemingly basic or superficial level of recognition, which means that the spectator knows who the characters are and recognizes them from scene to scene, can trouble the other levels of engagement. Alignment or allegiance are then obstructed by the most basic form of emotional engagement. When the audience does not really

recognize the characters anymore, the opposite of emotional engagement occurs and the spectator will experience alienation from the characters. Of course, recognition is

considered here as something both cognitive and emotional3_{. If this cognitive emotional} connection is obstructed, sympathetic engagement could become impossible.

3_{There seems to be a clear difference between knowing who someone is and feeling it emotionally, although} there is also something to be said for theories that overturn the presumed division between cognition and emotion (Badt 67).

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1. SPECTATORIAL ENGAGEMENT: THEORIES

I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it. – Federico Fellini (Kemp 22)

To start investigating the spectator’s emotional attachment to the characters of The Congress, it should first be clear what this notion exactly means and how it has been theorized within film studies. In which ways can the spectator connect emotionally to the character? What does this “connection” really mean? These questions are essential for analysing The Congress, because to investigate whether a spectator connects to a character and why (not), one has to clarify the different possible forms and levels of engagement. It might be the case that someone can relate to a character on one level, but is completely disconnected on another level.

Important distinctions considering the possible connections between spectator, film and characters are the ones between sympathy and empathy and between the mind and the body. Whereas cognitivism focuses on processes of thought in relation to bodily experiences, phenomenology focuses more on the complete bodily experience. This makes the two theories related, despite their different research methods. For this thesis, the aim is to combine the best of both theories by focusing on empirical research methods, as well as on the experience of the spectator4_{. A spectator can understand and support a}

character’s motives and therefore sympathize with him or her (Bruun Vaage 158). At the same time, the connection between spectator and character does not necessarily have to be based on a cognitive process of negotiation by balancing positive aspects against negative ones. A more direct connection is also possible; one that can be an almost completely physical experience. This chapter addresses the question in what ways the spectator can connect to the characters in a film, what types of emotional engagement are possible and if this connection is necessarily focused on the characters.

4_{Part of this combined method is a group discussion about The Congress with different spectators, focusing} on their experiences. The results of this discussion are described in the last chapter of this thesis.

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1.1 SYMPATHY: COGNITIVISM AND THE PROBLEM OF IDENTIFICATION

Its roots lying in psychoanalysis, the notion of identification is still often being used to describe the relationship between spectator and the characters in a film. Initially in film studies, psychoanalysis became the most important discipline to explain this relationship as well as the function of the apparatus (Creed 77). There were different directions taken within the psychoanalytical approach to film studies. Whereas early methodologies, inspired by the ideas of Freud and Jung, were mainly centred on hidden meanings and repressed emotions, in the 1970s the influences of Lacan and Althusser were more significant for what is often referred to as screen theory (Bordwell 16). Theorists like Jean-Louis Baudry focused significantly on cinema as an ideological apparatus (Creed 80). As to identification in particular, the influence of Lacan is crucial. When understanding cinema as a mirror, the spectator, like a child, identifies with himself as an object (Metz 45). This causes misrecognition, for the screen, functioning as the mirror in this sense, does not reflect the physical body of the spectator, and the body on the screen has no physical equivalent on the side of the spectator (Metz 45, 48).

Identification does not always have to take place with a character or any human form for two reasons. Firstly, not all films continually show a human form that can be “identified” with. Metz names the example of geographical documentaries, which work just as well as films with human characters (47). Secondly, and this is the main reason for Metz, “identification with the human form appearing on the screen […] still tells us nothing about the place of the spectator’s ego in the inauguration of the signifier” (47). In other words, it is known where the ego is formed (by primary identification of the mirror), but where is the spectator situated in the process of identification? As an all-perceiving subject, the spectator is likely to identify with the camera instead (Metz 49). Interestingly, according to Metz the spectator has to identify with something or someone to

comprehend a film (46). So he argues that identification and comprehension are necessary for ‘social life’. Initially this seems reasonable considering how in film semiotics cinema is understood as a language. Then again, as director Fellini aptly argues in the quote above this chapter, why would it be necessary for a spectator to understand a film? Alternative theories of spectatorship go straight past the stage of evaluation and understanding to show how engagement is possible regardless of any level of comprehension. These theories will be discussed in the second part of this chapter.

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Cognitivist approaches discard the term identification as well, though the focus on understanding a film is still a dominant aspect. As was said earlier, the distinction between empathy and sympathy is of importance here. Both Noël Carroll and Murray Smith for example, explicitly lay emphasis on this distinction. Carroll dismissed the term

identification for its vagueness and inaccuracy (1990, 89). He discusses several options for what character-identification may mean:

..that we like the protagonist; that we recognize the circumstances of the protagonist to be significantly like those we have found or find ourselves in; that we sympathize with the protagonist; that we are one in interest, or feeling, or principle, or all of these with the protagonist; that we see the action unfolding in the fiction from the protagonist’s point of view; that we share the protagonist’s values; that, for the duration of our intercourse with the fiction, we are entranced (or otherwise manipulated and/or deceived) so that we fall under the illusion that each of us somehow regards herself to be the protagonist. (Carroll 1990, 89)

The problem according to Carroll, lies in the last sentence, a situation in which “the

audience comes to think of itself as identical to or one with the character” (1990, 90). This is problematic because a spectator is very well aware of the fact that he is not the

protagonist and that he is looking at a representation rather than at a real situation (Oakley 2). Consequently, the emotions of the audience and of the characters on screen are very different as well. For example, when a character is in danger the spectator would feel concern or suspense, while the character is utterly terrified (Carroll 1990, 91). So Carroll dismisses the term for two reasons: 1. a perfect symmetry between spectator and character is impossible, and 2. if only a partial correspondence between spectator and character is required, why would the phenomenon still be called identification (Carroll 1990, 94)? Carroll’s solution is the term assimilation, which refers to an external view of understanding a situation and knowing how a character feels without duplicating these feelings (1990, 95). This notion is very similar to the idea of sympathy, based on emotional evaluation, instead of the more instinctive and direct reaction of empathy.

Smith introduced an alternative theory of engagement that breaks the notion of identification down into three levels of engagement. Like other theorists, he found the term “identification” ill-defined, for it is too generic and vague to grasp the dynamic and complex emotions experienced by the spectator. Unlike Carroll, Smith does see some value

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in the term identification, which can be broken down into several degrees (1994, 39). The first distinction Smith makes, which he bases on Richard Wollheim’s work, is the one between central imagining, a full immersion into a character that is similar to empathy (and Carroll’s definition of identification), and acentral imagining or sympathy, where the distance between spectator and character is bigger (1994, 38). Smith offers an analysis of the various senses of identification and “a systematic explanation of emotional response to fictional characters” (1994, 34). This system is presented in the form of the structure of sympathy, consisting of three levels of engagement5_{. Even though it may seem like a} hierarchical structure, all three levels have their own crucial role to play in engaging the spectator.

The first level is recognition. Recognition seems like the most basic level,

constituting the foundation for emotional engagement: “for example, we would not find ourselves attracted to (and so could not become allied with) an inert bundle of traits” (Smith 1994, 40). So recognition means the spectator sees a character as an individual, a subjective human being. Yet also important is how recognition is based on the concept of continuity, with possibilities for developments and change (Smith 1994, 40)6_{. As this} research paper will illustrate, the level of recognition is in fact not as “basic” as Smith makes it seem in his structure of sympathy. Therefore, a revision of this model is needed and will be presented in the fifth chapter; a new structure that recognizes recognition’s problematic nature.

The next level in the structure of sympathy is alignment. This refers to the extent to which a spectator has access to the actions and experiences of a character (spatial

attachment) and his or her emotional state (subjective access) (Smith 1994, 41). Film critic Roger Ebert implicitly stressed alignment as fundamental to watching a film by saying “We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls. They allow us to enter

5_{Although Smith acknowledges that he mainly focuses on acentral imagining, the structure of sympathy does} draw on phenomena that are in fact forms of central imagining (or empathy) like affective mimicry and automatic physical reactions (1994, 39).

6_{However, Smith does not really further discuss how higher levels of engagement are connected to this basic} level of recognition. If this seemingly simple foundation falls away, engagement becomes impossible.

Especially important for an analysis of The Congress, recognition of a character as the same person from scene to scene may be essential for the emotional engagement of the spectator.

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other minds, not simply in the sense of identifying with the characters, although that is an important part of it, but by seeing the world as another person sees it” (Ebert).

The last part of the structure of sympathy is the highest level of engagement. Allegiance depends on “reliable access to the character’s state of mind, understanding the context of the character’s actions, and having morally evaluated the character on the basis of this knowledge” (Smith 1994, 41). In short: allegiance takes into account the moral evaluation of a character:

To become allied with the character, the spectator must evaluate the character as representing a morally desirable (or at least preferable) set of traits, in relation to other characters within the fiction. On the basis of this evaluation, the spectator adopts an attitude of sympathy (or, in the case of a negative evaluation, antipathy) towards the character, and responds emotionally in an apposite way to situations in which this character is placed. (Smith 1995, 188)

On the one hand it can be argued that psychoanalytical film theory always assumes a dysfunctional spectator with repressed emotional traumas that explain the way he or she relates to characters in a film (Plantinga and Smith 12). On the other hand, cognitive film theory like Smith’s structure of sympathy is really a nuancing decomposition of the concept of identification, something that partly rejects but also complements what was already said about the way spectators connect to film. Cognitivists see the human being as both a social creature and as having a survival instinct. Although the perception of the human being is very different from both perspectives, identification does seem very much in line with the idea of recognizing other human beings and similar characteristics, morals and motives, as well as the human being’s need to develop in conjunction with his

environment. Lacan’s Mirror Stage is after all thought of as a stage in the development of all human beings, and recognition would seem very much in line with his idea of the mirror image.

Although the term “identification” has been almost completely discarded by cognitivists, the word itself does seem very close to the highest level of emotional engagement in newer models like Smith’s structure of sympathy. Within every new approach to film studies, traces of former theories remain visible. For example, David Bordwell pointed out how Culturalism still showed many similarities with subject-position

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theory, even though a shift from the former to the latter is visible in the last two decades of the twentieth century7_{(6). One of these similarities is the use of the term identification} as an overarching concept that covers all processes of representation (Bordwell 17). He offers the solution in the form of middle level research, which is less about what films mean and more about how films work (Bordwell 29). From this perspective, the relation between spectator and characters will possibly always remain something that needs investigation. Instead of letting go of the term entirely, identification could still be seen as an overarching concept that can be understood in several different ways. As will be shown later on in this chapter, its potential still shows in its numerous traces within various contemporary approaches to spectatorial engagement.

Figure 1. Character Engagement: central and acentral imagining (Smith 105)

7_{With subject-position theory, also often referred to as screen theory, Bordwell refers to film theory inspired} by Lacanian psychoanalysis and Athusserian theories of ideology, where the spectator is assumed to be created or positioned as a subject, instead of the other way around. Culturalism came into being in response to the objections to subject-position theory, especially concerning the spectator’s agency and the need for a more historical approach. However, the notion of identification remained prevalent within both theories.

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1.2 EMPATHY: MIMICRY, AFFECT, AND EMBODIMENT

One of the focuses of Metz was still on understanding a film as something essential for the spectator. Likewise, cognitive models like Carroll’s notion of assimilation and Smith’s structure of sympathy are centred on thinking processes that evaluate certain emotions regarding the connection between the spectator and a character. However, a more direct connection between spectator and film is also possible. “[W]e can no longer say ‘I see, I hear, but I FEEL, ‘totally physiological sensation’” (Deleuze 1989, 158). As this section will point out, this too can be linked to the idea of identifying with something besides what is human-like. Up until now, emotion and sympathy have been central to this chapter, for the main question of this research is about the emotional engagement of the spectator. But one cannot consider emotion without looking at what precedes this reflective mechanism. Smith did make a distinction between empathy and sympathy, though he focuses mainly on the latter. Figure 1 shows his structure of sympathy, with on the left the process of central imagining, or empathy. Smith argues that this phenomenon is not entirely separated from acentral imagining, but rather acts as a basis for this and as a parallel process that functions in line with the structure of sympathy (Smith 1995, 103).

Jennifer Barker discusses empathy as a bodily experience and argues, against Linda Williams, that all genres (and not just horror, pornography or melodrama) can be

understood as ‘body genres’, for every response a spectator experiences with a film is necessarily a physical one (73-74). Amy Coplan uses the term emotional contagion, defined by psychological research, as an automatic and unintentional affective process of mimicry that occurs while watching a film (27, 35). However, the choice of the word emotion to describe an affective process may be poorly chosen, for within film studies emotion and affect are emphatically understood as two separate stages of the spectator’s reaction (Bruun Vaage 175). As argued by Deleuze: “Emotion is contextual. Affect is situational: eventfully ingressive to context. Serially so: affect is trans-situational” (Massumi 217). Affect does not necessarily have to do anything (yet) with emotion. The affection-image Deleuze described, is the close-up; a close-up of the face. And this isolated face, abstracted from its context or functions in everyday live, does not have to be a real face (Deleuze 87).

Barker too argues that empathy and mimicry occur not just with on-screen

characters, but rather with the film itself. She dismisses empathy in the sense of sharing a character’s location and subjectivity (which sounds a lot like Smith’s level of alignment)

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and emphasizes instead on how empathy exists between the body of the spectator and ‘the body of the film’, even in non-narrative films and films without human forms (Barker 75). The process of watching a film is therefore understood by Barker as an embodied experience between the spectator and the film, both moving interactively with each other in a muscular, reactional way. This is similar to Vivian Sobchack’s phenomenological notion of experiencing a film, which like Barker’s, goes against the psychoanalytic idea of a

transcendental subject with an all-encompassing view. For theorists like Baudry and Metz, the eye (and definitely not the body) had a central position, taking everything in (Sobchack 1992, 271). For Sobchack, the act of seeing is always an embodied one. For her “the eyes are part of the whole body, and what the eyes take in, the body does also” (Sobchack 1992, 271).

Figure 2. The Man Who Took Leave of His Senses, by Terry Gilliam

This inevitable connection of the senses and the inescapability of the sensual experience as a linked whole is aptly illustrated in figure 2. On 24 February 2015, director Terry Gilliam, befittingly known for his use of animation within live-action films, posted this drawing on

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Facebook. It is titled "the man who took leave of his senses". Though it seems like a simple humorous drawing, this picture illustrates very aptly the idea of a phenomenological cinema experience. Not only does the image show how all the senses are connected, the man escaping his body through the back of his suit is no longer a man. What remains is a mere phantom, incapable of both physical and cognitive experiences. The lived body consists of a sensuous whole of experiences and emotions that cannot be understood apart from each other. As opposed to psychoanalysis focusing on the eye, this image illustrates a non-hierarchically linked structure of senses. The conclusion seems to be that no man can take leave of his senses, nor can one sense be given a status of higher

importance than another.

Carl Plantinga disagrees with the claim made by Sobchack that the film itself has a body. In his view “spectators have bodies, but films are structures artifacts in the viewing of which spectators are invited to have an embodied experience (Plantinga 2009, 117). Barker does nuance her statement a little when she stresses that although the movements of the film and the spectator are very different due to their very differently built bodies, a communication of muscular gestures exists between the two (Barker 78). An example of this physical connection occurs when the spectator hears a sound off-screen, turning his head in that direction, and the film cuts to the anticipated shot of the sound’s source (Barker 81). Other examples are the close-up and the zoom, responding to the need for a closer look, or the crane shot that creates distance or an overview (Barker 81). Muscular empathy as a basis for the embodied relationship between the spectator and the film could be important for the way spectators sympathize with certain characters as well. As Barker aptly puts it, the spectator feels for certain characters precisely because he feels with them: the spectator’s emotional sympathy derives from his muscular empathy (92). Comparable to Smith’s model in figure 1, empathy is once again understood as the basis for sympathy.

Here too, a surprising continuation of ideas from semiotics and psychoanalysis is visible. Firstly, the communication of the film with the spectator through gestures refers yet again to film as a language (although here it is emphatically a body language). Secondly, the connection between spectator and film is once more emphasized as something that does not necessarily concerns human characters. Also, the idea of total

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immersion and experiencing a film as a rollercoaster ride (where spectators mimic the film, holding their breath, lose grip of reality and communicate with the film in a muscular way) seems like a seamless combination of apparatus theory and phenomenology. Instead of historicizing film studies as an exclusively evolutionary process, the continuation through seemingly separate theories shows how they actually complement each other, how the combination of these theories certainly can work for a contemporary analysis of concepts like the spectator’s emotional engagement.

1.3 (MIS)RECOGNITION IN THE STRUCTURE OF SYMPATHY

To summarize, there are clearly many ways in which a spectator can experience a connection to a film. While even in cognitivism traces of the psychoanalytic idea of identification are visible, some discrepancies deserve further attention within this research. Although the structure of sympathy comes across as a very inclusive way of exploring character engagement, the level of recognition is taken too much for granted. One aspect that received too little attention is the difference between how recognition is constructed as a product of the film itself and how the spectator interprets this

construction of recognition. The differences among spectators and the difference between the perspective of the spectator and the perspective of the filmmaker will be discussed in the second chapter of this thesis.

The basic level of recognition as a level of engagement described by Smith goes against Metz’s idea of identification that can also be with other aspects like the camera (Metz 49). Smith described the indispensable level of recognition as identifying a character as a human being, but there is also still something to say for Metz’s idea of identification with other things than human-like characters. This idea returned in theories about

affective responses and phenomenology. The aspect of recognizing emotions without the cognition of human faces will be further explored in chapter three.

Within Smith’s structure of sympathy, the level of recognition is the most

underexposed area of all three levels. The structure is understood as developing in a linear way, ignoring the possibility of other structures. For example, recognition does not have to take place at the basis of the structure of sympathy. Engagement might very well be possible without recognition of human beings or faces. In the world of gaming, a first person shooter never really shows the protagonist while playing, yet players do act

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through, and emphasize with, the character. The aspect of the avatar and its connection to central imagining, empathy and recognition will be further discussed in the fourth chapter. Although this thesis focuses on emotional engagement to characters, it is important to consider all of the possible connections in order to investigate why and at what level spectatorial engagement fails or succeeds in The Congress.

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2. Expectations: THE SPECTATOR and the film

Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation. – Walt Disney (Chong and McNamara 22)

The first chapter was centred on theories about spectatorial engagement, or the possible ways in which the spectator can connect with a fictional character or with the film. But who is the spectator? It seems like a subject that is difficult to touch upon, for many theorists address this problem with a short passage covering their awareness of

differences between spectators. This thesis contained such a passage in the introduction as well. It almost seems as if few theorists truly want to discuss different kinds of

spectators, so everyone just adds a short clause like “the spectator within this research refers to the average spectator, male and female and of an average age”, to subsequently not discuss these differences among spectators any further. In other words; their focus is hardly ever on different kinds of spectators. The central question of this chapter is not only in what way The Congress forms an emotional bond with certain spectators and why, but more importantly, if certain differences among audiences really are of importance for the way spectators become emotionally engaged with the characters of The Congress.

2.1 ANIMATION IN THE CONGRESS: WHO’S WATCHING AND DOES IT TRULY MATTER?

When doing research into differences among spectators, there is still relatively little to find about age differences. Again influenced by psychoanalytic film theory, the focus has been mainly on the male gaze and the differences between male and female spectators. When searching for literature on children as spectators, there is not much to find aside from the

negative effects of film and television on children8_{. Once more, the psychoanalytic idea of}

the powerful apparatus pulling the strings of the audience seems prevalent. For this research it is really not of much importance what the effects of a film are on the child spectator, but rather the idea of how children and adults connect emotionally to fictional

8_{Both traditional and more modern work has been written about the influence and effects of media on} children, one of the oldest examples being the extensive collection from UNESCO published in 1961. Often rooted in sociology and psychology, most of these disputable studies are focused on the violent or sexual nature of the content (Barker and Petley 1).

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characters in different or maybe similar ways, and the question if these comparisons are even relevant for spectatorial engagement in the case of The Congress. On the one hand, it seems like one cannot ignore the differences between children and adults as spectators of an animated film. Animation is often understood as a genre (or medium) that aims at children. The origins of this presumption date back even to the origins of cinema itself. In his book Understanding Animation, Paul Wells emphasizes Reynaud’s invention of the Praxinoscope as particularly significant for the development of animated film, and with that the preconceptions about animation. He argues: “[T]he Praxinoscope soon became a popular children’s toy, and anticipated the fate of a great deal of work in animation by being dismissed as a novelty and relegated to a children’s audience” (Wells 2). The expectations of animated films are thus commonly raised according to general rules of a children’s (animation) film. Yet at the same time, the basis for spectatorial engagement with any sort of film might be rooted in commonalities within the audience, rather than in their individual experiences. If a theorist would always exclusively consider the implied spectator of classical Hollywood cinema being a white middle-class heterosexual

adolescent male, many other possible interpretations and experiences are being ignored (Harvey 43).

Even if the targeted audience of animation would consist mainly of children, who is to say adults cannot experience an animated film the same way? To state it most simply: every adult has been a child once. In his book, Wells argues that adults too can relate to animated characters, not just in a retrospective way as a childhood experience, but also because animated films and television programmes generally aim at both children and adults with respect to the content (225-6). Later on in his chapter about animation and the audience, Wells concludes by emphasizing that “any text is open to subversive use or different kinds of reading, and […] animation may be enjoyed differently under different conditions” (241). So conversely, who is to say that children would be excluded from understanding and appreciating content aimed at an adult audience? On a narrative level animated films might target children by posing subjects or Proppian characters and

functions that children could relate to9_{. Nevertheless, a successful animated film can be}

9_{Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale offers a formalist approach as a basis for any narrative structure, so} these characters and functions are not just limited to animation films (25). However, the fairy tale as

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“accessible to even the youngest child, yet it respects the intelligence of the most literate

and cultivated adult” (McCarthy 138)10_._{A basis of common ground between different}

spectators leaves room for theories that could go in any direction, and emotional

engagement as a cognitive concept can be seen as an example of such a foundation within film studies.

Noël Carroll wrote “The Power of Movies” in the mid-1980s, an article that can be seen as a prelude to his later work that discredits conventional methodologies like

psychoanalysis, and his and Bordwell’s 1996 collection of essays called Post-Theory:

Reconstructing Film Studies, which can be seen as a further case for cognitivism in film

studies (Plantinga 2002, 17). In his 1985 article Carroll investigates what makes motion pictures the dominant mass art, asking why responses to classical Hollywood cinema are so

widespread and intense (1985, 80)11_{. According to Carroll, “the power of movies” resides}

in their graspable clarity for mass audiences by reason of three factors. Firstly, movies are

pictorial representations that refer to their referents by means of displaying their recognizable resemblances. Secondly, the audience is guided by means of variable

framing. Through cutting and camera movement, the filmmaker makes sure the audience perceives the right things at the right time. Finally, movies involve erotetic narration, which means that the narrative is centered on questions and answers. Because the audience makes sense of the world and every human action through narrative, they can relate to the narrative. All three elements make movies generally accessible and easy to follow, but these three stages are also surprisingly in line with Smith’s structure of sympathy.

Emotional engagement and cognitivism may seem like two incompatible concepts on the surface; generally one does not think of emotions as a mental process; it does not seem to belong to the mind, but rather to the heart. But then again Smith’s and Carroll’s work illustrates how emotion and cognition are linked much closer than one might initially think. Going back to Carroll’s three concepts, a clear comparison can be drawn. Pictorial

discussed by Propp is most evidently visible in animated films for children, the best known example being Disney’s oeuvre.

10_{McCarthy specifically wrote her book about Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films, but this quote can essentially} be applied to any successful animated film, because for a film to be a success is to reach a large and

widespread audience.

11_{Carroll specifically uses the term “movies” instead of film or cinema, to refer to classical Hollywood} cinema, because of the widespread and intense success this particular sort of film.

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representations are based on recognition, and form a basis for the accessible

understanding of a widespread audience. Recognition in Smith’s structure is the basis for the engagement of the spectator. Variable framing guides the spectator to focus on what is important, but also, in doing this, it helps him to “follow” the protagonist, showing her every move and motive. One could thus argue that variable framing makes alignment possible by enabling spatial attachment and subjective access through the camera. Last but not least, the erotetic model of narrative as a universal way to comprehend every human action through questions and answers, might not immediately resonate allegiance in Smith’s sense. Yet the idea that later scenes in the film make sense in the context of earlier scenes provides cognitive clarity that can enable the spectator to make a morally based evaluation of a character (Carroll 1985, 89, 96).

So all three levels of engagement and the three reasons for the success of movies together contribute to widespread and intense engagement that is based on a more universal than divergent cognitive experience. Carroll’s focus is unmistakably on commonalities of mass-movie audiences, instead of their individual experiences:

For only by focusing on cognitive capacities, especially ones as deeply embedded as pictorial representation, practical reason, and the drive to get answers to our questions, will we be in the best position to find the features of movies that account for their phenomenally widespread effectiveness; since cognitive capacities, at the level discussed, seem the most plausible candidate for what mass-movie audiences have in common. […] Thus, the power of movies must be connected to some fairly generic features of human organisms to account for their power across class, cultural, and educational boundaries. The structures of perception and cognition are primary examples of fairly generic features of humans. (Carroll 1985, 101)

Carroll is by no means arguing that spectatorial engagement is a downright universal experience. This particular aspect also happens to be one of the main critiques of 1970s screen theory, which assumed a homogenous audience. Especially from a cultural studies point of view, these differences are a key focus of researching audiences’ experiences. Carl Plantinga questions the generally assumed opposition between cognitive film theory and cultural studies at the end of his book Moving Viewers, arguing that the main reason for this supposed conflict is their difference of views on the nature/nurture debate, where cognitivism roots for nature and cultural studies favours nurture (2009, 224). He opts for a

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combination of theories, a mediation that is central for this thesis as well12_{. Exploring the}

individual differences in the experience of spectators when watching a film on the basis of extra-filmic factors like gender, age, race, or class, is one direction in which cognitive film studies might develop (Plantinga 2009, 224). Particularly when researching emotional engagement, differences among spectators might appear very important on the surface. Emotional engagement seems like something very personal, even while being aware of the

fact that there are many processes at work to make the film work on this level. “Making

the film work” within the context of exploring spectatorial engagement would mean that the spectator feels positive emotions for the protagonist(s) and negative emotions for the antagonist(s)13_._{Nevertheless, by addressing the audience’s cognitive faculties Carroll}

exposes the most basic foundation for spectatorial engagement, that which makes film such an effective, pervasive medium. Especially in the case of animated films the issue of age differences appears to be of little consequence for the way spectators relate to characters. For this reason other aspects of spectatorship need to be explored to investigate the way spectatorial engagement in The Congress fails or succeeds.

2.2 THE IMPLIED SPECTATOR: ADDRESS AND RECEPTION, SPECTATORS AND VIEWERS

In addition to the audience’s expectations of a film (which will be discussed in the next chapter), the filmmaker also has expectations of his audience. There are two important distinctions or paradoxes, articulated by Judith Mayne in her book Cinema and

Spectatorship, that concern the way spectatorship has been studied and question the

notion of ‘the spectator’. The first one is the paradox of cinema as a homogeneous institution and the heterogeneity of different spectators. As opposed to ‘classical’ film theories cinema cannot be seen as either an ideological instrument or a challenge to ideology (Mayne 156). The second distinction is the one between the ideal (or implied)

12_{Besides this combination of cognitivism and cultural studies, Plantinga’s whole book is articulated from a} “cognitive-perceptual” point of view, as he characterizes it. By combining aspects from cognitivism and psychoanalysis, like his unusual choice of still exploring the idea of the unconscious, Plantinga responds to various critiques of cognitivism as focusing exclusively on logical and rational processes (2009, 8).

13_{According to the structure of sympathy, this is translated into experiencing alignment and allegiance for a} ‘good’ character and only recognition for a ‘bad’ character. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, like for example perverse allegiance, where the spectator sympathizes with a character whose moral values are not in line with those of the spectator (Smith 1999, 217). However, these processes do work within the same system of emotional engagement.

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spectator who is being addressed, and the actual audience. As Mayne argues, “it is one thing to assume that […] the various institutions of cinema do project an ideal viewer, and another thing to assume that those projections work” (159). Whereas the notion of

address aims at an ideal spectator, reception concerns an actual spectator or, more

precisely, the viewer14_{. In other words, it is important to note the difference between the}

expectations of the filmmaker and the actual reception(s) of a film. Especially in The

Congress, this distinction is crucial for the discussion of whether the film works on the level

of spectatorial engagement.

So who is this addressed, ‘ideal’ spectator of The Congress? By making the spectator aware of the processes that are at work to engage or alienate him from the characters, he is at the same time pushed away from the diegetic world and pulled into the world of the filmmaker: a world in which the ideological construction that film is, is being exposed. The concept of media literacy is thus very important, because the film appears to aim at a spectator who can be aware of the cinematic processes that are at work to create meaning and convey ideological discourses through film. When a spectator ignores these processes, or fails to understand the way The Congress reflects on them, his emotional engagement with the characters can be completely different from that of the implied spectator. So the film could possibly succeed and fail at the same time, depending on the spectator.

The film clearly consists of two sections. The first part of the film forms quite an evident critique of the film industry, where identities fade away and real actors have to make way for their virtual counterparts. By means of modern techniques, actors can now be scanned completely to form a digital copy that can do anything the actor cannot or does not want to do. In other words, the legal rights of the actor’s image are transferred to the distribution company, which, from then on until the contract ends, will “own” the actor. The consequences for the actress are the loss of control over her image, and the fact that she may never act again. On the website of The Congress Ari Folman states the

following: “As an optimist, I think the choice for a human actor will win out and I hope The

Congress is our small contribution to that goal (“Press”). So the first part already paints a

14_{The difference between the implied or “ideal” spectator and the actual spectator is made even clearer} when formulated as juxtaposing the spectator, which is a theoretical term, and the viewer being an empirical one, based on reception rather than address, using Mayne’s words.

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picture of an undesirable future of the entertainment industry, of the notion of identity (loss) and reality. The second part of the film, which is evidently based on Lem’s dystopian novel The Futurological Congress, continues with this criticizing tone. However, this part completely contradicts Folman’s earlier quote. Twenty years after Robin signs the contract that takes over her acting career and her identity, the world has changed radically. Not only are actors being scanned and digitized, people now take drugs to experience the world in a whole different way by shaping it before their eyes. The world as everyone experiences it is in fact merely a colourful perception filter that clouds the grey, worn out reality. This means that everything is now animated, literally. Including Robin. When she enters the “animated zone” she, as well as the world around her, becomes a cartoon. In an interview on YouTube, Ari Folman discussed the way spectators can and will continue to relate to the character of Robin Wright throughout the film (Wheat). According to the director, the spectator would still feel emotionally engaged with Robin no matter what, that the audience will follow her even though she becomes a cartoon. This time Folman seems to be saying that the choice for a real human actor will not always win out, that a

cartoon can evoke the same intense emotions and engage the spectator the same way an

actor can. This might indicate that Folman is well aware of the fact that his controversial film aims at two different goals that might be incompatible to achieve at the same time.

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The Congress is a film about film. The intertextual layer criticizing the film industry

is one way to reach an audience and the film might succeed in conveying this criticism to

certain spectators (figure 3). The next chapter will expand on the idea that, by exposing a

film’s artificiality, the audience can be pushed away and enabled to look at the film from a different angle. A break with immersion that moves the spectator away from the film leaves room for communicating criticism to the audience. In his book The Futurological Congress, Stanislaw Lem aptly posed the following question: “...how can I use a method to discredit that very method, if the method is discreditable (40)?” This is surprisingly similar to one question the film eventually raises for this chapter: how can a filmmaker criticize film by means of a film and still make it work as a film? The Congress is still a film. Does a film really have to succeed in engaging the spectator to succeed as a film? Looking at discussions on message boards for The Congress on the IMDb-website, the answer appears

to be yes; an emotional bond between the spectator and the characters does seem

necessary for making the film a success, just like the consistency of a two-part structure like The Congress (figure 4).

Figure 4. Message board for The Congress on IMDb.

So is spectatorial engagement determinative for the success or failure of a film? And what does it mean for a film to be a success in this context? On the one hand, The Congress can of course be appreciated for different reasons:

1. On a narrative level: emotional engagement

a. Emotional engagement: sympathy and empathy b. Being pulled away from the film: alienation

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2. On an extra-filmic level: intertext and reflexivity a. Enjoying the film’s narrative complexity

b. Appreciating the film’s criticism of the entertainment industry 3. On an aesthetic level: appreciating the film’s style

4. On a theoretical level: appreciating the problematic nature of the film’s failure

The first level of appreciating The Congress applies to any spectator, for it forms the foundation of the filmic experience. Without this basis, any appreciation would be an empty one. The second level can be understood as the implied, media-literate spectator, the one who breaks through the immersion of the narrative, who experiences a sense of distanciation to appreciate the film’s intertextual references and its reflexive layer. The third level can be applied to any spectator and combined with any of the other levels. Appreciating the film’s aesthetic style, especially with animated films, can contribute to the level of emotional engagement to characters, but it can also contradict this first level when it increases the distance between spectator and film. The fourth and last way to appreciate the film is also an odd one out, for the film can be appreciated especially because of its failure on other levels (specifically on the level of spectatorial engagement). This level implies the film scholar as a spectator, appreciating the film’s problematic nature as a fruitful research subject for a thesis like this one.

But does The Congress (or film in general) have the ability to succeed on these different levels at the same time, or does one achieved goal deem the other impossible?

The latter seems more plausible, for to criticize the film industry and to succeed as a film within that very industry at the same time may be called cannibalistic to some degree. The difference between the implied spectator and the actual audience of The Congress exposes the different ways a film can be a success or a failure: it can be appreciated as criticizing spectatorial engagement or it can engage the spectator, but can it do both at the same time? This might require a rather schizophrenic spectator, because the two ways of appreciating a film like this one seem incompatible. In short: even though a basis of

common ground between spectators is essential for engagement and the success of a film, the film’s success can originate in other areas than spectatorial engagement, and it can differ per spectator after all when considering the aim of the filmmaker.

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3. EXPECTATIONS: ANIMATION AND Realism

We know that they are … drawings, and not living beings.

We know that they are projections of drawings on a screen. We know that they are … ‘miracles’ and tricks of technology, that such beings don’t really exist.

But at the same time: We sense them as alive. We sense them as moving.

We sense them as existing and even thinking.

– Sergei Eisenstein (Wells 223)

When do I see a photograph, when a reflection? – Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly (223)

By outlining the distinction between the implied spectator and the actual audience, the last chapter has focused for a great part on the filmmaker’s expectations of the spectator. Of course, the expectations of the spectator on the other hand, are inherently connected to those of the filmmaker (Aurier and Guintcheva 15). These expectations are raised by a number of causes. This chapter will consider different possible foundations of the

expectations the film raises for the spectator. For example, the designated genre of the film can function as a label which implicitly suggests comparisons with other films within that genre. The director, actor(s) or the medium (of animation in the case of The Congress) are other important influences for raising expectations (Aurier and Guintcheva 15)15_{. This} thesis argues that these anticipations of spectators are of great influence to the way they engage with a film and its characters. In what way do the spectator’s expectations and preconceptions affect this level of emotional engagement?

The first distinction that can be made regarding these expectations is the one between the first half of the film, which leads up to Robin being scanned, and the second half, which indicates more of a dystopian vision of the future that is based on the first part. The expectations of the spectator for the first part of the film can be mainly based on performance, authorship and the film’s presentation. The spectator’s awareness of the director, the actress and the designated genre and visual representation on a website like

15 Although animation is generally understood as a genre, for this paper it is important to perceive it as a medium as well. In the next paragraph animation in The Congress will be discussed as a medium within the context of realism, remediation and hypermediacy.

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the Internet Movie Database all fall under this category. The second part of the film raises expectations concerning genre and adaptation, because the film is partly based on the novel The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem. The question regarding these two interconnected parts is if the film can live up to any expectation at all.

3.1 GENRE AND VISUAL (RE)PRESENTATION

Although genres are often seen as something obvious, the notion of genre has always been problematic in film studies because the definitions of, and boundaries between genres are principally unclear (Altman 7). Robert Stam names several significant problems with generic film labels (128-9). Extension refers to genres that are too broad or too narrow to be of use. The second problem concerns normativism, which means that there is a too strict preconception of what genres are and do. Another issue is that genres are

sometimes thought of as monolithic; as if a film can only belong to one genre. The fourth problem Stam points out is biologism, an essentialist idea of genres as evolving through a life cycle, when in fact they do not move in such a linear way, but are always up for reconfiguration (129). Other issues with the notion of genre are Hollywood centrism and the inattention to acinematic features that

contribute to genre as well. So where does this leave The Congress? On the Internet Movie Database the film is labeled as both animation and science fiction. The latter already suggests a specific kind of narrative (i.e. that of a dystopian future), which will be discussed in the next chapter.

The film plays with many issues regarding genre and the three levels of diegesis,

intertextuality and the spectator by turning around several concepts. This is related to the visual representation of the film and the way the

film is marketed by means of film posters for Figure 5. Promotional poster for The Congress

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expectations of the genre and the visualization of this, concerns science fiction. Science fiction as a genre is literally being ridiculed by characters in the film. Robin Wright does not

“do” science fiction, says her agent (portrayed by Harvey Keitel), yet The Congress can be understood as science fiction with its subject of futuristic settings and likewise technology. This is noticeable in the first film poster, which is used for the film on IMDb’s website

(figure 5). The poster shows no signs whatsoever that

hint at an animated film. The cool blue colors and the abstract triangle-patterned dome surrounding Robin Wright suggest more of a science fiction-oriented film. When looking at this poster, not many spectators would expect a film that is for a large part animated. On the other hand, science fiction as a genre opens up many possibilities, so a spectator might expect that

Figure 6. An alternative film poster anything could happen in a film like this. A poster like for The Congress the one shown on the left seems to raise more accurate

expectations, although the combination of live action and animation is worked out differently in the film (figure 6).

Another example of the film playing with the idea of genre as a classifying tool is the ways in which the interpretation of animation as a genre is completely turned around. Besides the fact that spectators could expect a children’s film when they see the label “animation” connected to a film (as figure 7 illustrates), the notion of animation is literally

about bringing something to life, breathing life into it or giving it a soul16_{. In The Congress,}

the opposite happens. When Robin and the world surrounding her become a cartoon, it seems to represent the end of life itself. In the narrative world, the real Robin disappears

from the screen to live on in an animated pseudo-reality, which is basically a colourful veil

that clouds the real world. Her scanned image takes over her career, as a mere projection of the real thing that becomes more important than the real thing. For the spectator of

16_{The word animation originates from the Latin words animus and anima, referring to: rational soul, mind,} life, mental powers, courage, desire, living being, anger, spirit, or feeling. The Proto-Indo-European root ane- in turn means “to blow” or, “to breathe” (Online Etymology Dictionary).

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The Congress, the opposite happens. The

audience follows Robin as she becomes animated, knowing that this is the real Robin Wright now, and the Robin Wright that looks like the live action character is actually a virtual copy. But even the animated, ‘real’, Robin is just an avatar, a projection of Robin Wright who, in turn, is a fictional version of the real actress bearing the same name. So this is one point where the level of recognition already gets quite complicated.

On a narrative level, the first half of the film

raises expectations for the spectator about Figure 7. Promotional poster for The Congress

the other half. These expectations however, are as presented on Wikipedia

never really fulfilled in the second half. Using

Carroll’s term of erotetic narration, it is fair to say that certain questions that are raised in the first part of The Congress are left unanswered. Because the genre is labelled as science fiction (and because, for example, a novel kind of technology is introduced at the

beginning of the film), the spectator might expect to see the effects of this interesting development. The film increases the curiosity of the spectator up until the point that Robin is actually scanned inside the dome. At this point, the interest of the spectator is awakened in such a way that it would be very unsatisfying and even disappointing to not see the way this technology is used. After the scan, the film skips twenty years of Robin’s life: twenty years that cover the complete development of the scan’s success. Of course there are some short references to Robin’s virtual counterpart becoming a huge success, but the twenty-year gap between the scanning and the congress forms a rupture that is just too big to overcome in this sense.

3.2 ANIMATED RECOGNITION

The style of the animation in The Congress is very different from Folman’s 2008 animated documentary Waltz with Bashir. For this film, animation was used as a post-production effect that transforms live action footage into animation. This technique called

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interpolated rotoscoping gives the film its distinct animated look (Sacco). Because the style is very detailed despite its comic book-like appearance, recognizable aspects of the actors are kept intact. This not very often used technique also showed up in the adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly (Linklater, 2006), where more well-known faces from Hollywood are animated but still recognizable.

Even more relevant in this is the 2011 Fringe episode “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide”. This episode of the science fiction television series is also partly animated in the same style as A Scanner Darkly and Waltz With Bashir. In this episode, with many references to films like Inception (Cameron, 2010), the animated world entered by the main characters (by means of taking drugs!) is completely shaped by someone's consciousness, comparable to the way this is done in The Congress (figure 8)17_.

Figure 8. Walter (John Noble) realizes the world has turned animated in this Fringe episode.

Like Robin, the main characters are looking for someone by tracing their steps in an

animated mind-made reality. This remarkable episode deploys the medium of animation as a tool for representing identity. In The Congress, a completely different animation style is used. The simplistic and at many times psychedelic cartoon style reminds more of films like

17_{The scenes in which the main characters enter protagonist Olivia's consciousness, represented by a}

dystopian version of New York (complete with zeppelins and zombies) strikingly resembles scenes from Inception where the characters invade someone's mind as well. The citizens that inhabit this subconscious realm behave in a similar way as seen in Inception, turning against the main characters when the host's subconscious senses the intrusion.