ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 examines the mental process of “tracking” and the creation of a flow of attention by a person’s hard-working working memory that functions both in the moment and beyond and before. The concept of tracking derives from P.F. Strawson’s notion of “reidentification,” identified as a set of mental structures that Strawson employs in establishing a “descriptive metaphysics” of the world. I believe that Strawson’s ideas apply equally to a spectator’s mental construction of a descriptive framework for his or her comprehension of a film world. Reidentification permits a continuous recognition of things in spite of inevitable and persistent ellipses and fragmentation present both in the world and in a film world.
Adjustments and expansions of Strawson’s notion of reidentification have been made by Evans, Millikan, and, I believe, for film narration by Wilson. I identify four areas where reidentification and tracking are important for understanding color consciousness. I argue that there are tight connections between color patterns and patterns of thinking and also between narrative structures and what we believe to be nearly true about a narrative, i.e., patterns of near possibility, both while watching a film and through reassessments after it ends.
There are three main aspects to an analysis of color tracking involving the selection of a scale of analysis, a type of color pattern to follow, and a type of linkage to follow that connects a color pattern either to narrative structure or to narration and point of view. I illustrate these aspects in the case where a color appears to reappear as the same color by analyzing a painting and two films.
