Mood and Ethics In Narrative Film

The affective power of narrative film strongly plays into ethical criticism. ¹ For example, if films can elicit moral emotions—sociomoral disgust or admiration, for example—this can confirm, enliven, or alter the perspectives of viewers on the film’s subjects and on actual persons or events to which the fiction is thought to refer. ² Thus Blood Diamond (2006), a film about “conflict diamonds” and the fighting that occurs in Sierra Leone over the valuable diamond fields, may elicit anger about the cruel tactics and practices of the rebel forces (the R.U.F.) in Sierra Leone, and also about the consumer market (primarily in the United States) that not only ignores but profits from the worst effects of the diamond trade on Africa. ³