Toward a Theory of Point-of-View Editing: Communication, Emotion, and the Movies

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to advance several hypotheses about what is called point-of-view editing in film and television. The first hypothesis is that point-of-view editing succeeds as an instrument of representation due to its exploitation of an innate human tendency to follow glances to their targets. The second hypothesis is that, in large measure, point-of-view editing communicates emotion effectively due to its reliance upon cross-cultural patterns of facial recognition. And the third hypothesis is that point-of-view editing is a particularly suitable device for mass-media entertainment-such as the movies and television-because of its enlistment of generic perceptual