The spectator thinks: cinema, education and film reception in the classroom

Abstract

What are the external repercussions of a representation that is diegetically constructed? How a film can be understood by the audience? What a cinema experience is able to mobilize? By means of a research-action method and from the perspective of Hermeneutics, Cultural Studies and theories of perception, which places the spectator as an active agent in the understanding and communication process, this article seeks to reflect on cinema spectatorship in its educational dimension, taken as object the reception of Through the Olive Trees (1994), by the iranian film-maker, Abbas Kirostami, from the classroom experience, in a postgraduate course at a public university. After an introductory and conceptual discussion on the relation between reality and fiction, and between cinema and education, the students’ interpretations were analyzed, revealing the active, imaginative, educational and formative character of the cinema experience.