The master's thesis examines the relationship between the film image and bodily perception in the context of the political organization of sensuality in the contemporary media environment. It is based on the assumption that perception is neither neutral nor merely individual, but is historically, socially, and politically shaped, and that mass media and the film industry significantly contribute to the normalization of violence, selective empathy, and perceptual numbness.
The theoretical part is based on the phenomenological understanding of the body (Drew Leder), theories of alienation (Karl Marx, Laura U. Marks, Susan Buck-Morss), the critique of representation of violence (Susan Sontag, Hannah Arendt, Michael Haneke), Deleuze's theory of image-time, the concept of haptic visuality by Laura U. Marks, and the philosophy of the technical image (Walter Benjamin, Vilém Flusser). Special emphasis is placed on the breakdown of the sensory-motor scheme, which enables the emergence of the image-time and a different way of perception, in which the body is directly activated to co-create a non-clichéd image. The research also relates to understanding film as a space of belonging and a shared experience of the world (Adam Szymanski).
In the practical part, theoretical concepts are applied to the formal analysis of the films Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and Dream and Silence (2012). The analysis shows that certain film forms interrupt automated viewing modes and thereby activate the senses. The film thus proves to be a space of embodied perception and a potential medium of resistance against the instrumentalization of images, perceptual numbness, and the normalization of violence.
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