Suture

Suture

Classical Hollywood narrative, editing, sound and mise-en-scene 'sutures' or positions the audience in certain ways making only one preferred reading (Reception Theory) possible, however unconscious the audience is of that position.

The theory stems from literary and film theories of Roland Barthes, Stephen Heath, Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman but formulated by Daniel Day in his "The Tutor Code of Classical Cinema" (1974).

According to these theorists, the audience "stitches" itself into a film by relating to characters or world views expressed in a film, and then filling in the temporal and spacial gaps between scenes with our imaginations.

This is made all the easier when means, techniques, codes and conventions of film are made invisible by the filmmakers.