Tom Gunning’s Cinema of Attractions

In Tom Gunning’s chapter, “The Cinema of Attraction[s]: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde,” he discusses this idea of the ‘cinema of attractions’ as the dominant mode of filmmaking before 1906. This way of filming is one in which the director is simply trying to show something, not unlike a side show at a carnival. This sort of filming is present in many of the works we viewed, such as Mary Irwin Kiss, Serpentine Dance, Boxing, Baby Fed, Train Arriving at a Station, Sioux Ghost Buffalo Dance, etc. These films have little to no narrative and often show the viewer something they may not have been able to see in real life.

This sort of presentation is inherently objectifying in that the viewer looks, the performer performs, and there is no attempt at connection. The, Sioux Ghost Buffalo Dance, is exemplifying the problematic nature of this sort of presentation. Tom Gunning argues that this sort of film making didn’t disappear with the introduction of the monolithic narrative techniques of the early 19th century, it simply went underground into realms like avant-garde cinema.

In discussing Eisenstein’s earlier theatrical analysis he states his definition of the sort of attraction he is talking about, “An attraction aggressively subjected the spectator to “sensual or psychological impact.” (p. 384) This is clearly present in films of the time, such as, Train Arriving at a Station, where the audience was said to experience intense fear of bodily harm.

Do you believe this lens can be applied to films today? Is it present at least in part in dominant cinema? Why, or why not? If so, where? And if this is the goal of a film today is it often considered mainstream filmmaking or more underground?