Experiencing Space

In the last chapter I examined the structural qualities of texture, how the patterns and rhythms of films evoke feeling, and how we can discuss narrative and genre as textural. This chapter will deal with perhaps the most immediate sense of the concept, the materiality of texture, contemplating tactility and sensation in relation to the surfaces in the spaces we see on-screen. Texture in film offers the impression of touch, of a material impact on the body. Films are filled with experiences of space, they have tangible properties which evoke responses to surface, shape, fabric, colour and depth. Andrew Klevan, writing about Charles Affron’s discussion of Greta Garbo’s performance in Queen Christina, observes: ‘Affron illustrates how attention to performance may enhance the density of our interpretations because we are responsive, like Garbo in the bedroom, to physicality and texture’ (2005: 11). Taking a lead from this example, I will explore the potential for unravelling such responsiveness that attention to texture brings to close analysis of film. Bodies in films are responsive to the texture of the places they inhabit, as film viewers are responsive to the texture of the spaces presented to them, and as experienced by the bodies on-screen.