Um, I thought I'd get back to the subject of the thread.
My favorite examples are in Spellbound and The Hunt for Red October. Spoilers!
As the hand turns towards the villain in Spellbound and he fires the gun, the screen goes red for a split second.
And in Red October, as the climactic missile approaches its target and the camera, you can see the red star painted on its nose, but so quickly that it's essentially subliminal (at2:02 in the video).
Neither of these are actually subliminal cuts per se, but they have the same effect.
For me, the last word on subliminal cuts is the season 3 Columbo episode, Double Exposure, with Robert Culp. It's one of the first writing credits of the legendary Stephen J. Cannell, based if I remember right on a thesis he wrote in college about subliminal cuts. One of my very favorite episodes.
Subliminal stuff is a gimmick. It's not done much -- if at all -- because it doesn't work with everyone.
But for those people it does work on, it is hugely effective, My story about the subliminal in the Excorcist recounted in an earlier post is a good illustration of this.
I accept that subliminals may not work on everyone but I suspect it is more effective than not overall. Remember in the old days of commercials on TV, each advert used to be punctuated by a quick flash of a star-shape? That was designed to make the viewer subconsciously aware that the advert was changing.
And it is probably done more than you think, it just isn't publicised very much - I suspect because people will react and claim they are being brainwashed. For example, take Close Encointers - remember how that starts, black titles crashing into a bright desert scene? Well, actually it isn't a straight cut - there is a single frame of white directly after the credits, for impact. I'm sure there are a lot of directors who do that sort of thing.
I must be misinformed, because I thought that the general consensus on subliminal messaging for a long time now was that it frankly doesn't work. The famous cinema Coca-Cola and popcorn claims back in the '60s were later admitted as marketing hoaxes.
I see no scientific consensus that it ever worked, and many results were from flawed methodologies.
I see no scientific consensus that it ever worked, and many results were from flawed methodologies.
That's pretty much what I've always heard. Passing legislation against putting a few frames of a picture of popcorn in a film playing in a theater was a major overreaction. People need to calm down sometimes....
