Close to the action: goosebumps through close-ups and literal speech
At least half of people experience goosebumps when listening to certain music. Goosebumps often set in when the chorus begins or the music reaches a climax. But people also get goosebumps when they watch films. And in very specific places, says Eugen Wassiliwizky. He researches such goosebumps moments at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt:
“If you have goosebumps in a film, then a close-up is disproportionately used in these moments, i.e. a close distance from the camera to the actor’s face. This can be measured objectively.”
People even get goosebumps when they read poems, and again there are very specific moments. Eugene Wassiliwitsky:
“What we see is that the goosebump moments accumulate toward the end of lines, the end of stanzas, and the end of the entire poem.”
In some poems, such as ballads, literal speech also occurs. These parts are also typical goosebumps moments. Eugene Wassiliwitsky:
“When one person is speaking to another in a ballad, it is much more likely that you will experience goosebumps in these literal speech sections than in the narrative-descriptive parts of the ballad.”
Goosebumps as a protective mechanism
But why do people get goosebumps when they hear music, poems or films? Goosebumps actually have a protective function: they protect us from the cold by activating the small muscles at the hairline and at the same time ensuring that the hair stands up and forms an insulating air cushion. But why with music, with poems, with emotional moments? Eugene Wassiliwitsky:
“One idea is that it is a certain protective mechanism. It is a protective mechanism for the body. The body activates it emotionally even when it feels threatened. That’s why our credo that goosebumps contain some kind of negative emotion to get it started.”
Threat or farewell to the usual
In other words: Goosebumps moments also arise in films, music or poems in places that are characterized by a special tension, where not everything is all well and good, but where negative emotions also come into play, which are then particularly moving. Maybe a threat or a conflict or a big moment in which something new begins but which involves saying goodbye to something old. Even if such moments are nice, there can be negative accompanying emotions to which the body then reacts with goosebumps, it is believed. But the phenomenon is still not fully understood today.
There are many goosebumps in the film “Titanic” with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, not least caused by the clever use of music.
imago/United Archives
2024-01-20 21:03:56
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