分心（distraction）是由二十世紀初德國理論家克拉考爾（Siegfried Kracauer）思考現代性與大眾文化的重要概念，他樂觀地看待現代社會的新興視聽媒體與科技感知。同時期的批評家對於複製傳播媒體感到憂心，貶抑因此興起的大眾文化，與其受資本主義邏輯改變的感知經驗。克拉考爾卻認為，在電影院受到各種聲光刺激而產生的分心模式，媒介的觸動重新結構感知經驗，賦予大眾重新看待世界的可能，分化中產階級亟欲鞏固的高尚藝術品味，瓦解極權體制規訓下理性進步的中心思想。克拉考爾懷抱著對新興媒體科技的社會理想，相信其有能力激發感知革命，重新賦予大眾動能，以大量複製、散播、流傳對抗專制政權的集體動員與監控。本論文受此概念啟發，進一步發掘分心的潛力，探索電影如何展現新興媒體重塑感知經驗的能力，特別是聽覺感受。比起影像來說，聲音更接近分心具有散播的介入與滲透性的特質，借由聲音轉向反思視覺為尊的感知歷史。
本論文從克拉考爾對現代性問題的思考，試圖理論化分心概念，並從電影院的銀幕外體驗延伸探索銀幕內的音像關係，並擷取聽覺與聲響文化研究，立定新的研究路徑，透過電影中運用的媒體科技，論述個體與社會的辯證關係，一方面現代性發展歷程的資本主義邏輯無可避免地改變群體經驗，另一方面在改變過程中，就是分心發生的所在，得以短暫脫離現實，進入某個時空斷點，連結個體記憶，創造新的感知模式，賦予重新拼湊的可能，進而觸動另一種世界觀。
分心有超越既有美學理論框架的潛能，賦予藝術新的社會使命與寫實理想，不僅實踐在1920年代的新興大眾文化與電影，更延續到1960年世界湧現鼓吹電影新浪潮推動的寫實運動，也將種子散播出去，對戰後世界各地的電影美學形式均有巨大影響，如1980年代的台灣新電影，以及1990年的中國獨立電影運動。本文將以楊德昌的《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》與賈樟柯的《小武》為例，試圖重新詮釋分心感知，分別探討音畫不協調、錯位，進一步發現看不見，卻無所不在的聲音與影像之間的複雜關係，與其構成的音像環境，如何產生看似不關聯、將時間片斷化的過程中，透現社會與個人的關係。

This dissertation seeks to examine technologically motivated distraction in modern life and explore how such experience may bring to light the human-technology relations in the contemporary filmic experience. Specifically, I center my discussion on the auditory experience of distraction in films. I will draw on the writings of Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin to contextualize the concept. I then focus on Kracauer’s work, in particular his perspectives on cinemas of distraction. I extend my understanding of distraction in relation to film sound see it as a radically new means of conveying sensory experience. I believe the way of using sound to illuminate distracted quality of film is crucial in this respect. In this regard, I analyze two contemporary Chinese-language feature films to illustrate the innovative use of distractive techniques.
In this study, I first review the conceptualization of distraction in Benjamin and Kracauer, looking at how distracted cinema viewing can stimulate technology-facilitated bodily experience of the mass audience. Departing from their understanding of distraction in terms of cinematic viewing experiences, I aim at the audiovisual techniques to discuss how they affect the characters’ perception of their fragmented world. To do so, I survey film sound studies, evaluating the ways in which the auditory media culture represented in or associated with film bespeak the impact of aural technologies on the human senses and knowledge-formation mechanism. In addition to reviewing works on film sound, I engage with sound studies in general that provide new ways of thinking about distraction and its possibilities. What these works articulate both conceptually and in practice are some of the possibilities of new media technologies that link sound and vision in a disjunctive way.
With these works in view, I analyze Taiwanese director Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day and Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s Xiao Wu in the second half of the study. I argue that these two movies employ the distractive techniques by using mediated sounds to connect with a new mode of listening experience, which in turn figures as a constitutive part of the main characters’ encounter with a structural transformation of the public sphere. The characters’ experience with these sounds reveals not only their existential crisis but also the social and political climate precipitating their sense of anxiety and alienation.