According to Metz and Baudry’s spectator theory, the spectator is anchored in the cinema, making eye contact with the screen. They argue that the camera lens resembles perspective, linking viewing to the Renaissance period and providing viewers with a vanishing point for observation. Nevertheless, they did not consider the possibility that watching a film encompasses visual engagement and a phenomenological experience.
The concept of “intentionality” in film challenges the idea that films are material objects to viewed. In her article, Vivian Sobchack discusses how the body as a means to perceive films, suggesting that film serves as an “embodied medium.” Viewers engage with films as if they were a subject. In the act of experiencing the film, the observer connects with the screen and is influenced by it. The viewing body enables synaesthesia and coenesthesia, where vision and hearing dominate but not constrain the experience. Sobchack critiques a third presupposition from “Phenomenology and Film Experience,” which claims that film is just something to watch. She contends that films are symbolic transports and interactive entities with viewers. Sobchack’s exploration of intersubjectivity in cinematic experiences underscores the embodied and reciprocal connection between viewers and films.
After reading Sam’s responses to this week’s episode, I have several thoughts, but I need time to organize it. I agree with Sam’s insightful point what you feel is actually what your brain thinks. In embodying the medium, the phenomenology film experience, as proposed by Sobcheck, ignores the distinction between thinking and perceiving.（To continue, I will keep thinking. I might finish this paragraph during the spring break.）
However, Sobcheck’s purpose in proposing synaesthesia and coenaesthesia is not to emphasize the difference between the brain and perception. On the contrary, she treats the audience as individuals with complete senses, as individuals who will get goosebumps when they see the horror scenes in “Saw” and whose hands will twitch when they see Ada playing the piano in The Piano. Baudry and Metz’s problem is that in the Mirror Stage, the spectator degenerates into an infant whose muscles have not yet fully developed while possessing mature vision. Similarly, if a person is only emphasized on the brain, then it is also a kind of degeneration.
shuqin Yan 
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