NalCamera Personality in Cinema: Subjective Agency of Sobchack’s Embodied Vision in Narrative Framing

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-603-1_3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Embodied Vision; Camera Subjectivity; Phenomenology of Film

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of camera personality in cinema, focusing on how the camera acts not merely as a passive recorder but as an expressive, feeling entity that participates in the emotional and narrative structure of film. Drawing upon Vivian Sobchack’s phenomenological framework of embodied vision, that positions the camera as a subjective agent, one that perceives, reacts, and empathizes with characters and situations on screen. By analyzing selected scenes from Tokarev (2014), Marriage Story (2019), and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017), this research investigates how specific camera behaviors, such as shakiness, stillness, movement, and eye-level dynamics, function as embodied responses to narrative tension, character psychology, and affective atmosphere. The film selection is intentional, as each represents a distinct mode of camera movement that produces different forms of “camera personality,” rather than relying on a single repetitive technique or homogeneous genre. This enables a comparative analysis of how varied cinematic approaches construct different embodied experiences and emotional intensities, demonstrating that camera movement alone can generate multiple perceptual and affective configurations. The methodology adopts a phenomenological lens that prioritizes lived experience, bodily perception, and sensory engagement, as articulated by Sobchack, supported by insights from Merleau-Ponty, Mulvey, Deleuze, Grodal and Plantinga. Camera in cinema can be experienced as a surrogate body, a subject that not only observes but also feels with the characters, thereby deepening audience immersion and emotional resonance. Camera is not as a neutral observer but as an active, affective participant in cinematic meaning-making, whose embodied presence plays a crucial role in how film narratives are emotionally and perceptually framed.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Naldo Yanuar Heryanto
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/04
TI  - NalCamera Personality in Cinema: Subjective Agency of Sobchack’s Embodied Vision in Narrative Framing
BT  - Proceedings of the International Moving Image Cultures Conference (IMOVICCON 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 21
EP  - 32
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-603-1_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-603-1_3
ID  - Heryanto2026
ER  -