Where Film Meets Philosophy

The formal techniques two classic French filmmakers developed to explore cinema's philosophical potential.

The formal techniques two classic French filmmakers developed to explore cinema's philosophical potential.

Film, Philosophy, and Reality: Ancient Greece to Godard is an original contribution to film-philosophy that shows how thinking about movies can lead us into a richer appreciation and understanding of both reality and the nature of human experience. Focused on the question of the relationship between how things seem to us and how they really are, it is at once an introduction to philosophy through film and an introduction to film through philosophy. The book is divided into three parts. The first is an introduction to philosophy and film, designed for the reader with little background in one or the other subject. The second examines the philosophical importance of the distinction between appearance and reality, and shows that reflection upon this distinction is naturally provoked by the experience of watching movies. The final part takes a close and careful look at the style and techniques of Jean-Luc Godard’s groundbreaking film Breathless in order to illustrate how such themes can be explored cinematically. The book addresses topics such as: Film: what it is and how to understand it The methods and concerns of philosophy The nature of cinematic appearances The history of metaphysics The relationship between cinema and life The philosophical relevance of film techniques. With a glossary of key thinkers, terms, and concepts, as well as sections on suggested films and further reading, this textbook will appeal to lecturers and students in undergraduate philosophy and film courses, and in courses focused on Philosophy of Film, Philosophy and Film, or Film-Philosophy.

This handbook brings together essays in the philosophy of film and motion pictures from authorities across the spectrum. It boasts contributions from philosophers and film theorists alike, with many essays employing pluralist approaches to this interdisciplinary subject. Core areas treated include film ontology, film structure, psychology, authorship, narrative, and viewer emotion. Emerging areas of interest, including virtual reality, video games, and nonfictional and autobiographical film also have dedicated chapters. Other areas of focus include the film medium’s intersection with contemporary social issues, film’s kinship to other art forms, and the influence of historically seminal schools of thought in the philosophy of film. Of emphasis in many of the essays is the relationship and overlap of analytic and continental perspectives in this subject.

Inspired by the philosophy of Wittgenstein and his idea that the purpose of real philosophical thinking is not to discover something new, but to show in a strikingly different light what is already there, this book provides philosophical readings of a number of ‘arthouse’ and Hollywood films. Each chapter contains a discussion of two films—one explored in greater detail and the other analyzed as a minor key which reveals the possibility for the book's ideas to be applied across different films, registers, and genres. The readings are not only interpretive, but they offer a way of thinking and feeling about, with, and through films which is genuinely transformative. Rupert Read’s main contention is that certain films can bring about a change in how we see the world. He advocates an ecological approach to film-philosophy analysis, arguing that film can re-shape the viewer’s relationship to the environment and other living beings. The transformative 'wake-up call' of these films is enlightenment in its true sense. The result is a book that ambitiously aims to change, though film, how we think of ourselves and our place in the world, at a time when such change is more needed than ever before.

Exploring Mamardashvili's extensive philosophical output, as well as a range of recent Russian films, Alyssa DeBlasio reveals the intellectual affinities amongst directors of the Mamardashvili generation - including Alexander Sokurov, Andrey Zvyagintsev and Alexei Balabanov.

Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience uses the philosophy of Martin Heidegger as a framework for addressing key issues in the philosophy of film. This study grapples with the question of how we can reconcile film as a popular entertainment medium with Heidegger’s own various critiques of popular media and culture throughout his career. Shawn Loht also explores topics such as the ontology of film and moving images; the phenomenological character of the viewer experience; film conceived as an art medium; and the function of films as vehicles for philosophical thought. He further discusses important concepts from Heidegger’s philosophy--Dasein, existentiality, world, art and poetry, and the nature of philosophy. The first four chapters take up these issues from a theoretical perspective. The remaining chapters provide robust application of the theoretical material to the films of three contemporary filmmakers: Terrence Malick, Michael Haneke, and David Gordon Green. As the first single-author monograph that takes up Heidegger’s relevance to film, Phenomenology of Film will be of particular interest to philosophers of film and specialists of film and media studies working in the intersection of phenomenology and film or phenomenological approaches to issues in popular culture.

Hysteria is alive and well in our present time and is apparently spreading contagiously: especially the second decade of the twenty-first century has displayed an ever-increasing interest in the term. A quick Google search opens the gates to sheer endless swathes of discussions on hysteria, covering almost every aspect of public discourses. The arts—as it is often in such cases—seem conspicuously involved in and engaged with this hysterical discourse. Surprisingly, while the strong academic interest in hysteria throughout the twentieth century and most prominently at the turn of the century is well known and much discussed, the study of how these discourses have continued well into twenty-first-century art practices, is largely pressing on a blind spot. It is the aim of this volume to illustrate how hysteria was already well established within the arts alongside and at times even separately from the much-covered medical studies, and reveal how those current artistic practices very much continue a century spanning cross-fertilization between hysteria and the arts.