Film and television are major parts of everyday aesthetic experience, but not much is known about viewers' aesthetic experience of motion picture media. We explored how interest and confusion in response to film were predicted by people's cognitive appraisals and level of expertise. People who varied in expertise viewed 10 film clips taken from submissions to a local film festival. For each film, people gave ratings of interest, confusion, and their relevant appraisals. Expertise was measured with a preliminary Aesthetic Fluency in Film scale. Multilevel models showed that appraising a film clip as complex and comprehensible predicted interest, a finding that replicates past interest research. Additionally, appraising a film clip as complex and incomprehensible predicted confusion. Experts in film found the films more interesting and less confusing overall, and their interest was more strongly predicted by complexity.
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