The Perception of Motion Pictures
Reading the Visual – Dr Daniel Chandler
MC10220
Matthew Ruckwood
03/05/2005
The Perception of Motion Pictures
“Why, when we look at a succession of still images on the film screen, are we able to see a continuous moving image?”
During the late 1970s and early 1980s a small group of film scholars radically broke away from the time-honoured explanation of how the human eye (and mind) perceived the apparent motion in cinema. They abandoned the notions of ‘persistence of vision’ and the Phi phenomenon that had pervaded film writing for almost a century and instead sought after a more accurate, less inadequate reason for the illusion of motion in motion pictures. Namely, these film scholars were the duos of Bill Joseph and Susan J. Lederman and
Joseph and Barbara Anderson, both of whose accounts on the matter were published in
The Cinematic Apparatus in 1980, but which have remained largely and peculiarly ignored ever since.
Their compellingly convincing, scientifically accurate research and explanations should have drastically altered film academia. But it didn’t. The fundamentally flawed
‘persistence of vision’ theory and the misunderstood Phi phenomenon continue, even to this day, to be applied and referred to in film discourse, in both analytical and formal discussions of the medium.
Why should this be? And where exactly does the truth lie behind how the viewer perceives motion in film, if not in the desperately clung-to concepts of ‘persistence of vision’ and Phi? This is what I aim to discuss.
At the heart of the ‘myth of persistence of vision’, as Joseph and Barbara Anderson dub it, lies the basic question referred to at the beginning of this essay. The term offers an
Page 1
Reading the Visual – Dr Daniel Chandler
MC10220
Matthew Ruckwood
03/05/2005
easily understandable concept, held on to because of, frankly, ludicrous grounds such as its supposed elegance and even ‘poetry’ (Herbert nd: WWW Document).
What,
MC10220
Matthew Ruckwood
03/05/2005
The Perception of Motion Pictures
“Why, when we look at a succession of still images on the film screen, are we able to see a continuous moving image?”
During the late 1970s and early 1980s a small group of film scholars radically broke away from the time-honoured explanation of how the human eye (and mind) perceived the apparent motion in cinema. They abandoned the notions of ‘persistence of vision’ and the Phi phenomenon that had pervaded film writing for almost a century and instead sought after a more accurate, less inadequate reason for the illusion of motion in motion pictures. Namely, these film scholars were the duos of Bill Joseph and Susan J. Lederman and
Joseph and Barbara Anderson, both of whose accounts on the matter were published in
The Cinematic Apparatus in 1980, but which have remained largely and peculiarly ignored ever since.
Their compellingly convincing, scientifically accurate research and explanations should have drastically altered film academia. But it didn’t. The fundamentally flawed
‘persistence of vision’ theory and the misunderstood Phi phenomenon continue, even to this day, to be applied and referred to in film discourse, in both analytical and formal discussions of the medium.
Why should this be? And where exactly does the truth lie behind how the viewer perceives motion in film, if not in the desperately clung-to concepts of ‘persistence of vision’ and Phi? This is what I aim to discuss.
At the heart of the ‘myth of persistence of vision’, as Joseph and Barbara Anderson dub it, lies the basic question referred to at the beginning of this essay. The term offers an
Page 1
Reading the Visual – Dr Daniel Chandler
MC10220
Matthew Ruckwood
03/05/2005
easily understandable concept, held on to because of, frankly, ludicrous grounds such as its supposed elegance and even ‘poetry’ (Herbert nd: WWW Document).
What,
References: Anderson, Joseph & Barbara (1993): 'The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited ', Journal of Film and Video 45(1): 3-12; [WWW document] URL http://www.uca.edu/org/ccsmi/ccsmi/classicwork/Myth%20Revisited.htm Ascher, Steven & Pincus, Edward (1999): The Filmmaker’s Handbook. Monaco, James (1981): How to Read a Film.