ABSTRACT
The act of watching any feature film is accompanied by interest. The nature and intensity of that interest are such that one is tempted to speculate on the mechanisms behind the phenomenon. Films hold their audiences spellbound, bewitched, fascinated, mesmerized, and captivated. These are the terms used not only by the advertising copywriters but also by professional film critics—who are by nature more reserved in their judgments—and film theorists. The regular filmgoer would have no quarrel with the terminology. He or she would freely admit to becoming wrapped up in the plot and finding it difficult, if not impossible, to detach himself or herself from the spectacle on the screen. The germ of an explanation may well lie in the characterization of this phenomenon as emotional: the intense interest in the action on the screen is the result of or even part of an emotion, and this very fact makes it difficult to suppress.
