ABSTRACT
Spectatorship and audience studies can be controversial with analysis accused of either ignoring the specific experiences of particular audience members, or ignoring the specific characteristics of individual films. Major areas of debate in film theory and film practice has been around the characteristics and aims of realism. Contemporary audience studies in film studies have been shaped by the idea of reception studies — how the film is received and interpreted by audiences. Spectator traditionally referred in film theory to a passive individual spectator who was forced into a specific viewing position by the film language – such as cinematography and editing. Many of the ideas about the relationship between the spectator and film come from theatre, specifically from the work of the playwright Bertolt Brecht who aimed to disrupt that conventional relationship through alienation techniques. The revelation of information in the narrative can function to position the spectator and is evident in the concept of omniscient and restricted narration.
