Background: The Kuleshov Effect is the ability of the human mind to draw a connection between two discreet (and irrelevant) things. The Russian/Soviet filmmaker Lem Kuleshov performed an experiment to test this by taking a shot of an actor with a neutral expression and cutting in different things (a bowl of soup, a girl playing, a funeral, etc.). People who watched the footage commented on the actor’s ability to portray the appropriate emotions (hunger, joy and grief respectively) when in fact the actor never changed his expression (and AFAIK had no idea that there would be these other shots edited in).
Any university/college psychology library should have a copy, though they may not let you see it unless you are an alum. I have not seen that film in years, but I remember it, we used it for Theories of Irrationality 404…
Huh. I’ll have to check that out. I always assumed from the fact that none of my film studies profs. ever offered it at a screening that it didn’t exist. To think that psychologists had it this whole time…
Did the segment of the excellent documentary on film editing on Bravo* last weekend spark this question? If not, they did a recreation of the effect with a modern actor.
Some googling finds several comments that the footage no longer exist. Phlosphr, was it definitely the original you saw or could it have been one of the millions of recreations that have been done since?
*Think it was Bravo; maybe A&E or some similar channel.
Didn’t see it. Was just pining for my days of being a film student…
I suppose it wouldn’t be too difficult to rig up a version on my own, but knowing what the effect would be, I don’t think I could watch it with an appropriately unbiased mind.
I seriously doubt it was the original. I should have mentioned that in my post, but we used it to illustrate phenomena people had irrational perceptions about. We used it in concjunction with James Randi stuff as well as UFO and crop circle info.