Final answer:
The chapter suggests that films affect our experience by how they handle viewer expectations, either meeting or challenging them to create a significant impact. This process involves the manipulation of various film elements such as characterization, plot, and editing focus.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement that best characterizes this chapter's treatment of viewer expectations is c) Our experience of any given film is affected by how that film manipulates expectations. This encompasses the idea that filmmakers have various methods at their disposal to meet or challenge the conventional expectations of their audience.
These methods are often executed through characterization, plot development, and editing focus, aiming to create an experience that can be emotionally and intellectually stimulating or reflective of societal beliefs. Films reflect the beliefs and values of society and often strive to manipulate expectations either by meeting them to provide comfort and satisfaction, or by challenging them to provoke thought and reflection.
An important takeaway from the chapter is that filmmakers may selectively meet or challenge expectations to create a rhetorically effective narrative that resonates with their audience, in terms of both genre-specific expectations and broader thematic significance.