A New Methodological Approach

Abstract

This chapter outlines the need for a new methodological approach to the study of film. It argues that a spatial methodology, interpreted through the senses, is the best means of understanding the ways in which audiences respond to film beyond narrative. Narrative has for too long been the dominant framework for understanding films. This chapter argues that, though audiences read film on a narrative level, they simultaneously respond on another level also, namely through an engagement with aesthetics. The chapter outlines why the musical genre has been taken as a case study through which to understand this spatial methodology. The chapter details how new tools for analysis, such as virtual reconstructions, are important.