Inter-medial observations on the 'reflected' or 'deconstructed' illusion

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject American Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1.0, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Amerikanistik und Anglistik), course: Postmodern Cinema, language: English, abstract: In this self-study journal I aim to collect some comparative and inter-medial ideas on how illusion – here defined as different perspectives on reality in the arts - is reflected within the media of film, painting and literature. The perception of reality (especially in the medium of film) remains up to the present moment a controversial, and still largely unexplored topic in the fields of philosophy, neuroscience and film theory; therefore the intent of this ‘self-study journal’ is to focus on a small selection of examples of modern and postmodern film, literature and the visual arts (photography and painting). As well, I will explore a few selected quotations from manifestos in the tradition of early 20th century avant-garde and also will make brief reference to earlier periods. When we accept the ‘reality’ that is shown to us in the movies, we are giving ourselves over to the illusion of cinema, that is being created by talented cast and crew in the production and carefully honed in post-production by skillful editing. The power of the illusion in cinema is to take us for the time being into another world, and ideally we forget for the moment that we are still sitting in a dark room with a large screen. In the medium of literature our imagination takes control of the world presented by the author’s words and is translated into a uniquely imagined reality that is created by the readers own imagination and recollection of memories. Like in the cinema, if a book grabs us we tend to forget our presence in the (‘real’) world for the time reading the book.