Minute 2


The minute explained:
When I watched it the first time, I was automatically drawn into this video. I don’t know why, but I was actually quite sad, even disappointed, when the minute was over. Because I wanted to know what comes next. What happens in this mysterious film factory.

My experience:
So I watched this minute again, and again, and again. I followed the spinning of the film wheels and thought about what they could mean. After watching the minute a couple of times, I first payed attention to the introductory text which interrupts the footage. It says: “Hypnotic Pictures presents – A Bill Morrison Film”.
What caught my eye was the word hypnotic. And then I realized that Bill Morrison did not leave the introductory minute up to chance. It made sense. The spinning of the wheels is indeed hypnotic.

My questions:
So I thought I wanted to explore this word and the phenomenon in more detail. I asked myself: Can film actually be hypnotic? Can footage like this create a form of hypnosis? Or could even films in general be hypnotic in a certain way?

What is Hypnosis:
When we think about hypnosis, we probably think about being hypnotized. Imagine your eyes are following the swinging of a pendulum and at the same time, your mind enters a different state. Isn’t that similar to watching these film wheels spin? There is a thing you focus your visual attention on and this thing is moving in a circular and predictable way.
But hypnosis does not have to be done with a pendulum. The idea of hypnosis is to achieve an altered state of mind. This state of mind can be induced by a hypnotist, by dancing or in other ways.
In the media, hypnosis is often portrayed as a tool to gain control over people, make them do something funny, bark like a dog instead of talking, or make them forget how to tell time. That is entertaining, but not the true purpose of hypnosis.
What hypnosis is actually good for is to overcome fears or addictions. Professionals can help people quit smoking, overcome the fear of spiders and their test anxiety, for example.
This works because hypnosis opens the door to the subconscious.
Through hypnosis, we can enter a trance. The hypnotic trance is a state of mind in which a person is truly relaxed, not quite asleep, but still awake, not fully awake, though. This trace is similar to meditation. The special thing about this trance is that the attention is extremely limited and focused on very few things at a time. So whatever is processed under hypnosis can have a great impact.


Hypnosis and movies:
So, what does hypnosis have to do with films that we watch in our everyday life? I think there are many parallels.
When we come home from a long day at the university or work, we want to sit down and watch something, maybe a series, maybe a movie or just a short video. But why is that?
I think one reason is that watching a film gives us a chance to escape the real world for a bit. Film is perfect for that. It is like a switch: World off – Netflix on. Or something like that. This sudden switch is indeed very similar to entering the state of hypnosis. A professional hypnotist is able to induce hypnosis with the snapping of his finger. And the person is in a different state of mind right away.
So, lets talk about how it feels like to watch a movie or film. It releases tension – much like the physical tension that is released under hypnosis. I’m sure you have all seen pictures of people who were hypnotized. They don’t sit upright; they look almost like they are asleep. When we sit on our couch, watching something, we might look a bit like that. Truly relaxed.
But not only our body is relaxed, but also our mind. We no longer think about the day we had, or all of or other problems, at least for a while. As said before, a relaxed focus is the secret to hypnosis. I think we can very well argue, that while watching a film, we do enter a state of relaxed focus, if not even a trance. Our attention is extremely focused on what we see and hear in the movie, and not much around us matters.

Hypnosis and Children:
While we might get distracted sometimes while we watch a film, there is a group of people where this phenomenon can be observed most obviously. Children! Have you ever watched a child watching TV. It is actually very funny. What they all have in common is that they definitely look like they were hypnotized by whatever they were watching.
They really do tune out everything else in their environment and are 100% focused on the screen. Talking to them does not make sense because they will not even hear you. And their eyes are following the movement on the screen.
Tu sum it up, I think that moving pictures do have a hypnotic element to them, not only footage as this one in minute two, which can be hypnotic in a very literal sense, but also films in general which we watch every day. They help us to transcend into a different sate of mind and escape reality for a short time. With that said, I’m looking forward to being hypnotized by the other minutes of this film, today and in the coming weeks.

Rebecca Leicht