Search Results (6)

Against the backdrop of the dialogue between theology, cinema, and image culture more broadly, this article explores Paul Schrader’s 2017 film First Reformed as an experiment in cinematic theology. His 1972 work Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer outlines the contours of a cross-cultural, cross-religious model of spiritual cinema and remains an influential text within both film studies and theology. While much of his career as both a director and screenwriter has embraced a broad spectrum of themes, from the psychological pessimism of Taxi Driver (1976) to the deep Christology of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), First Reformed sees Schrader return to his theory of a sacred cinema through the themes of spiritual crisis, ecological indifference, and the politicization of Christianity. Through a theological and hermeneutical reflection on the film, its visual and narrative grammar, and its influences, this article explores Schrader’s cinema as model of divine intimacy that redeems in an indifferent world. Full article

In this text, the author analyzes the convergence between Christian culture and relevant films of Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense filmography. Rather than focusing on Hitchcock’s status as a Catholic director, he makes an empirical analysis that allows him to find certain visual analogies between the Christian imaginary and the frames of certain films of the master of suspense. This article understands cinema as a kind of mental, psychological, or spiritual cartography/geography, and this is how it connects to the theme of space, where cinema is not just as analogous to physical space but the experience of viewing as a space. The Christian iconography of death, understood as participation in an eternal time, helps to understand the projection of the concept of suspension of judgment in constructing suspense that is not only iconographic but also spatially ontological. The author also suggests an epistemological connection between the mysterious nature of space in medieval art and architecture and the aesthetics of perfect crime in films. The allegory of Christ’s Passion will be seen as a recurring thread in Hitchcock’s visual analogies. His cinema and his particular way of seeing reality through space continue to demonstrate the validity of his art in writing new episodes in Western culture. Full article

Background: Several subjects affected by cancer experience a significant level of multidimensional disease. This longitudinal study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of psycho-oncological support using Cinema as an emotional mediator and to promote perceived well-being by personalized psychological treatment. Methods: Thirty women diagnosed with gynecological cancer watched 12 movies and participated in a psychotherapy group co-conducted by two psychotherapists. Patients completed nine questionnaires at T0 (baseline), T1 (3 months) and T2 (6 months). Results: Patients observed significant improvements (CORE-OM: p < 0.001) in psychological well-being. The results showed statistically significant differences, even in several other dimensions, such as Anxiety (STAY-Y1-2: p < 0.001), Empathy (BEES, p < 0.001), Coping (COPE: p < 0.001), QoL (QLQ-C30, p: 0.026), couple relationship (DAS, Satisfaction: p: 0.013; Cohesion: p: 0.004) and alexithymia (TAS-20, Difficulty Identifying Feeling: p: 0.002; Externally-Oriented Thinking: p: 0.003). Conclusions: The data show that cinema, as an innovative psychological approach, could be a valid instrument to support patients in oncological pathways as well as facilitating the process of recognizing themselves in other patients and communicating about their own feelings. Full article

This study explains the change in meaning that psychology has given to the relationship between religiosity and psychological well-being since the beginning of the 20th century, dating it back to the deep change introduced by post-modernity. Guilt is interpreted as a paradigm of this change in meaning, and the reflection that the different ways of understanding guilt have had on the screen is analyzed. The Content Analysis of a sample of 94 films showed 5 modes of expression of guilt that can be placed on a continuum from the traditional Judeo-Christian model that serves as a benchmark—harm-repentance-penitence-forgiveness—to the removal of guilt as a requirement for self-realization. The other three models emerge between these two poles: the absence of guilt as a psychiatric pathology; the resignification of the guilty act for the reduction in dissonance; and idealized regret at no cost. Studying guilt-coping models of the films allows us to infer the hypothesis that a large part of the current positive view of religiosity in psychological well-being is related to a culture that does not demand psychological suffering as a requirement for a full experience of spirituality. Full article

Nowadays films occupy a significant portion of the media products consumed by people. In Russia, cinema is being considered as a means of individual and social transformation, which makes a contribution to the formation of the Russian audience’s outlook, including their attitudes towards topical social issues. At the same time, the question of the effectiveness of films’ impact remains an open question in psychological science. According to the empirical orientation of our approach to the study of mass media influence, our goal was to obtain new data on the positive impact of films based on specific experimental research. The task was to identify changes in the attitudes of young people, as the most active viewers, towards topical social issues after watching a specifically selected film. Using a psychosemantic technique that included 25 scales designed to identify attitudes towards elderly people, respondents evaluated their various characteristics before and after watching the film. Using a number of characteristics related to the motivational, emotional and cognitive spheres, significant changes were revealed. At the same time, significant differences were found in assessments of the elderly between undergraduate students and postgraduate students. After watching the film, postgraduate students’ attitudes towards elderly people changed in a positive way, while undergraduate students’ negative assessments only worsened. The revealed opposite trends can be explained by individual differences of respondents, which include age, educational status as an indicator of individual psychological characteristics, the experience of interaction with elderly people and, as a result, attitudes towards elderly people at the time before watching the movie. The finding that previous attitudes mediate the impact of the film complements the ideas of the contribution of individual differences to media effects. Most of the changes detected immediately after watching the movie did not remain over time. A single movie viewing did not have a lasting effect on viewers’ attitudes, and it suggests the further task of identifying mechanisms of the sustainability of changes. Full article

Background. Exposure to fictional suicide scenes raises concerns about the risk of suicide contagion. However, researchers and clinicians still lack empirical evidence to estimate this risk. Here, we propose a theory-grounded tool that measures properties related to aberrant identification and suicidal contagion of potentially harmful suicide scenes. Methods. The items of the Movies and Video: Identification and Emotions in reaction to Suicide (MoVIES) operationalize the World Health Organization’s recommendations for media coverage of suicide, and were adapted and completed with identification theory principles and cinematographic evidence. Inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s kappa) and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) were estimated and optimized for two series of 19 and 30 randomly selected movies depicting a suicide scene. The validity of the scale in predicting identification with the suicidal character was tested in nine unknowledgeable participants who watched seven suicide movie scenes each. Results. The MoVIES indicated satisfying psychometric properties with kappas measured at 0.7 or more for every item and a global internal consistency of [α = 0.05]. The MoVIES score significantly predicted participants’ strength of identification independently from their baseline empathy ((β = 0.20), p < 0.05). Conclusions. The MoVIES is available to scholars as a valid, reliable, and useful tool to estimate the amount of at-risk components of fictional suicidal behavior depicted in films, series, or television shows. Full article