Film and Television

Between medieval sapienza and the duty of silence...because it can be harmfull for other, takes care to transmit and inform in a cultural way.

Aristotle's Poetics has been the basis for theories of entertainment for over 2,000 years. But the general approach it uses has led to a number of gaps, contradictions, and difficulties in predicting the success of books, plays, movies, and entertainment as a whole, so much so that sayings like "there are no rules, but you break them at your peril," and "in Hollywood, nobody knows anything" have become widespread and accepted. -/- However, it turns out that a model of entertainment (...) that defines literary conventions by the pleasurable feelings they release in the brain, and then equates them with outside experiences that people subconsciously attach to the literary work, in the same way that we can be conditioned to feel love when we view our wedding rings, can actually resolve almost every seeming contradiction in Aristotle's ideas and traditional theories of storytelling when compared to real-world results. -/- Furthermore, this approach can be extended to the other major forms of art, including painting, music and even video games, leading to a "Non-Aristotelian" theory that modifies the fundamental aspects of each of these fields, but in a natural and necessary way, which strengthens both our understanding and our ability to predict the success or failure of art in the future. -/- My work as a vlogger and writer, mostly done via my Youtube channel "StoryBrain," has been viewed over 6 million times, and written about in MovieMaker magazine, Creative Screenwriting magazine, on the front page of major sites like Reddit, Roger Ebert online, and in international newspapers like the Sydney Morning-Herald in Australia and Fotogramas in Spain. My work is also the subject of a chapter of the currently-in-release book "Neuro-Design," by Kogan Page publishing, called "The Neuro Movie Analyst." This paper is a detailed introduction to the theory of Emotional Indiscretion which I have talked about in my work. (shrink)

This paper takes the Status Loss Theory (introduced and explained in the first "How Humor Works" paper), and applies it to 40 real-world examples, including memes, radio and TV shows, movie and comic book tropes, song parodies, humor sayings, stand-up comedy cliches, known psychological quirks of humor, and more, to demonstrate the theory's potential to function as the first clear, complete, logical, and simple basis for defining, studying, and understanding humor in all of its forms.

A short, clear and complete theory that explains the origins and properties of the human humor instinct, which has been the subject of incomplete research for thousands of years. The paper's theory uses evolutionary psychology and a basic informal equation, and unites the findings of the previous theories, including explaining the logical basis behind many types of humor as well as the common sayings associated with it.

This paper introduces the "Status Loss Theory of Humor," as detailed in "How Humor Works" and "How Humor Works, Part II" , in a single page. This theory has the potential to fully, clearly, and naturally explain the human humor instinct, and has made predictions that are being confirmed by other studies.

In Solaris, within the limits of heterotopic experience, several theoretical and ontological questions are examined through approaches on each character. Berton declares one of the main philosophical themes of the movie when he tells Kelvin: "You want to destroy that which we are presently incapable of understanding? Forgive me, but I am not an advocate of knowledge at any price. Knowledge is only valid when it's based on morality." The ocean does not mean anything as an object, it simply exists. (...) The ocean is not found in any of the human experimental approaches. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15910.68169 . (shrink)

Tarkovsky s’est opposé au montage et a considéré que la base de l’art cinématographique (l’art du film) est le rythme interne des images. Il a considèré le cinéma comme une représentation des courants distinctifs ou des ondes de temps, transmis dans le film par son rythme interne. Le rythme est au cœur du « film poétique ». Un rythme comme un mouvement dans le cadre (« la sculpture dans le temps »), pas comme une séquence d'images dans le temps. Le (...) temps passé dans le cadre exprime quelque chose de significatif et de vrai, qui dépasse les événements eux-mêmes et est reçu différemment par chaque spectateur. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30568.62727. (shrink)

Filmul Solaris (1972) al lui Andrei Tarkovski poate fi abordat prin prisma filosofiei minții, a întrebărilor esențiale în acest domeniu. Aceste întrebări se referă la personalitate și suferință, care acoperă cel puțin perioada de la Rene Descartes la filosofii moderni, precum Derek Parfit și Hilary Putnam. Solaris apare ca un vehicul adecvat pentru a explora provocările filosofice. De altfel, filmul Solaris al lui Tarkovsky permite multiple interpretări semantice. În același timp, Solaris prezintă un exemplu excelent despre modul în care spațiile (...) heterotopice pot exista în termeni cinematografici. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30893.23521. (shrink)

---- I ---- Once upon a time, there was a most elegant lady who had a most majestic dog on leash standing but distracted by something other than the dog. The dog struggled impossibly but forcefully to loose free and chase a most ordinary rabbit. ------ II ------ Another time the elegant lady dines at a fancy restaurant. Then she was walking on the sidewalk when she encountered an ordinary homeless in the state of minimal energy giving all in to (...) gravity. She gave him her left-over. He nodded or something. Then she cheerfully and vigorously and most innocently and heartwarmingly and charmingly wished the homeless guy a GREAT night. ----- III ----- IF the rabbit and the homeless guy are the same ordinary entity, and the elegant entity is to represent acutely concentrated political power and the Majestic entity is to represent the free market THEN a fair contract would be: ask for food and security and shelter in exchange for mindless work and give up money or capital and the privilege of procreation. Excursus: cryptocurrency features the rabid dog. (shrink)

The Prosecutor in Camus’ novel claims to have peered into Meursault’s soul but found nothing human in there. But the nothingness attests to Meursault embodying something like a musical instrument through which the world plays its music. Meursault does not initiate anything that in the presence of standing conditions causes a change in environment—aside from physical needs which are also immensely flexible and dependent on existing circumstances. He himself constitute the standing conditions awaiting external factors to cause any change. Meursault’s (...) radical indifference and acceptance towards the world and authenticity (his speech and his deed are perfectly coordinated) (his thought and his speech are the same except situation where out of consideration for others he keeps silent) indicates that he has no sickness unto death undergoing life or in anticipation of his death. What the prosecutor announces amounts to Meursault’s existence preceding his essence (given his openness to the world despite his acute rationality and understanding of his environment). But if existence precedes essence, the method precedes existence. He roams the world already equipped with a method. ------------ Abstract II: ---------- What is something that it is not a being? The question implicates there be something that it is not a being but that into which beings as a whole in one's existence slipped into in sickness unto death. Meursault brings to consciousness (of the chaplain) the sickness unto death separated from absurdity by a transparent sheet. Something to which he himself was not susceptible out of his own life-affirmative reasoning. (shrink)

The question that "how one should live?" constitutes the ultimate question of philosophy according to Aristotle. According to Camus "there is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." The riddle and our predicament is that these two questions are exactly one and the same question. [Why?] ------ [Because for example] Nietzsche, in claiming that "the beggars should be entirely abolished ... truly it is annoying to give to them and it is annoying one not to give to (...) them", has spectacularly failed to notice that there is another logical option: simply to abolish the observer. (Especially that nowadays we witness live-stream misery of other human beings comfortably numb.) The option also resolves the problematic that "if I must love my fellow man, he had better hide himself, for no sooner do I see his face than there is an end to my love for him". (shrink)

A Cultural Criticism --- Clearly there can be nothing more praiseworthy than conferring virtues on things. Then the most celebrated strand of ecstasy of communication can be identified as the factor responsible for conferring an extra virtue to an already virtuous. This is problematic because, according to Nietzsche, one virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one's destiny to cling to. Excessive communication is the antipode of authenticity. Because where there is (...) reinforcement there is lack. (For instance: talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself). (shrink)

Does browsing the world through a screen change a person, especially in the context of COVID-19? Recent studies indicate that self-care, psychological well-being, and empathy may suffer. The “Californian ideology” privileges expression of the self even as digital technology tends to interrupt the modern trend towards elaborating distinct selves via texts that convey knowledge. Meanwhile, digital browsing may be fracturing attention and empathy. -/- As these changes proceed, legislators react to a medical and social crisis. Relaxation of business, community center, (...) and school closures prevailed, under pressure from advocates of liberty, jobs, and pro-market economics. A rival set of regulatory reforms would prioritize fighting the virus and providing more relief to its victims as being forms of care for others. In the international domain, nationalist ideology and economic warfare intensify disparities in access to medical care, imported goods, and livelihoods. At stake is how best to take beings into care. (shrink)

is literature a kind of redemption from ourselves?

actor progressing social life and scale on screen.

the event, on the evening of time, should be a place in our society for optimism?

semiology of social and global transformations on public relations and, by consequence, of human intimacy.

Symbolic violence from TV, due to false regulation on content, in Spain, Portugal, Canada, France and US.

the journal of everyday life, between success and resiliation, shine and shadow, clarity and sadness.

Autonomy as a desonesty, i.e., exogamic behaviour does not betray family values.

the young generation seeking for a better future.

for a better literature, to understand literary tradition in Portugal.

from sensation to imposition of media tought.

wine and wisdom, a path to self realization and fulfillment.

God in me, God of Me, do I need a Lord, cannot be myself a Lord, a God?

nevrosity for the dense social relations in urban context.

goin to the south, of the mind, of the southern of Europe, not Algarve, but to a place in my mind.

Anemia, the syntoms of a great disease in the heart of society.

This essay is part of a doctoral dissertation presented to the Department of Philosophy, University of São Paulo, in 1993, named 'Genealogy of the Real' . Its core idea is a Nietzschean approach to a masterpiece among philosophical inspired movies, namely, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, which surely touches deep groundings of the concept of truth and reality.

James Turner has argued that views of purgatorial post-mortem salvation face a dilemma on the basis of their motivating intuitions vis-à-vis the second coming of Jesus (i.e., the parousia). Namely, they can accept that some persons experience “abrupt purgation” (undermining a key reason for affirming purgation), they can posit all who are not already saved at the second coming are damned (a view which is highly distasteful to purgatory advocates), or they can deny the parousia (a position which is unorthodox). (...) I offer a way of defusing this problem by constructing a second-chance soteriology on which persons in post-mortem purgation experience a state of psychological time dilation. In so doing, I first articulate the problem at hand before turning to relevant examples from fictional media and the neuropsychology of dreaming to support my constructive efforts. Finally, I apply this solution to a pre-existing soteriological model which already uses such resources so as to demonstrate its usefulness: namely, my own compassionate exclusivist view. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that the films of Andrei Tarkovsky are particularly suitable for inducing feelings of the numinous. This suitability is a formal rather than semantic feature of his films, and is tied indelibly to what film scholars call ‘suture’. I with a summary of what film theorists mean by ‘suture’, before providing a principled defence of the Merleau-Pontian suture theory outlined by George Butte. Second, I will demonstrate that, in spite of the strength of Butte’s formulation, the (...) numinousness of Tarkovsky’s films pose an analytical challenge to his suture theory. Finally, I will then provide my own extension of Butte’s suture theory, arguing that, by virtue of the formal properties they possess, we encounter Tarkovsky’s films more like religious objects than ordinary films. The tenor of these encounters is why Tarkovsky’s films are appropriate loci for feelings of the numinous. (shrink)

Durante las últimas tres décadas, el ensayo de Walter Benjamin "La obra de arte en la época de su reproductibilidad técnica" puede haber sido citado con más frecuencia que cualquier otra fuente, en áreas que van desde la teoría de los medios de la nueva izquierda hasta los estudios culturales, desde el cine y la historia del arte hasta la cultura visual, desde la escena artística posmoderna hasta los debates sobre el destino del arte, incluido el cine, en la era (...) digital. En el contexto de estas invocaciones, el ensayo no siempre ha adquirido nuevos significados ni se ha vuelto menos problemático que cuando fue escrito por primera vez. (shrink)

This article offers a political reading of Mossmouth's UFO 50, a collection of 50 retro-style games that evoke the aesthetics and design principles of 1980s gaming. Drawing on Fredric Jameson's concepts of the ‘nostalgia mode’ and the ‘utopian impulse’, I argue that UFO 50's nostalgia is not a superficial longing for the past, but a political gesture that challenges the current state of the video game industry. By creatively appropriating the past, UFO 50 critiques the complacency of modern game production (...) and consumption, urging us to imagine alternative futures and reclaim the creativity and risk-taking that characterised earlier eras of game development. However, through its meta-narrative, the game also cautions against uncritically preserving the past, reminding us that, while we can learn from them, every historical period is flawed. Ultimately, UFO 50 is a critically nostalgic work that refuses to accept the present conditions of the gaming industry. (shrink)

This edited volume brings together authors from a wide variety of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. A historian first investigates understudied samizdat literature, a film critic then analyzes Balkan cinema via psychoanalysis, a psychologist examines contemporary European border policies, and a political scientist analyzes the Confederate-memorial debate. Philosophers consider the space of those memorials, ethno-national narratives in India, the Anthropocene and the mind’s historical imaginary, and the notion of home. Literary critics examine recent developments in modes of storytelling (...) and images of Orientalism. What emerges is a new understanding of history, memory, and time. (shrink)

A review of Clive C. Nwonka & Anamik Saha (eds.), Black Film British Cinema II, London, Goldsmisths Press, 2021, by Frédéric Lefrançois.

Through an examination of Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men, this book demonstrates the ability of cinematic fictions, and other complex narrative fictions, to contribute to meeting the climate challenge by shaping the desires of audiences. What if there was a single feature film that showed us everything we need to know about climate catastrophe culture? What if that same film also made the philosophies of Slavoj Zizek, Mark Fisher, Francis Fukuyama, and Fredric Jameson accessible? Identifying the climate challenge as a (...) cultural challenge, this book provides an unprecedented criminological analysis of both Children of Men and Fisher's oeuvre from 1998 to 2022, and demonstrates the capacity of cinematic narratives to shape climate catastrophe culture. Seeking to be part of the solution to the climate challenge, it is the first criminological study to link the capacity of cinematic fictions to shape desire to solutions to the climate crisis. It is also the most detailed, and most rigorous criminological case studies of a cinematic work to date. Anthropocide: An Essay in Green Cultural Criminology will be of great interest to students and scholars of green criminology, cultural criminology, narrative criminology, film theory, philosophy of film, and ecocriticism. (shrink)

Cyberpunk—thể loại nổi bật với các khung cảnh dystopia ngập ánh neon và nhân vật nổi loạn được tăng cường công nghệ—đang tìm thấy không gian biểu đạt mới trong quảng cáo vi phim.

The article employs the concept of the “Resonance Relationship” to examine the theoretical and practical tensions inherent in the process of artistic creation as it pertains to the practice of film montage. A re-reading of the film Blow-Up will facilitate an examination of the interplay between the two conceptual poles of control and uncontrollability as they manifest in artistic practices. The study will be supported by an analysis of various perspectives on interrelated issues, including the “photographic zoom” as described by (...) Walter Benjamin, Walter Murch’s approach to montage, and the concept of the “aporia of art” as articulated by Theodor W. Adorno in his Aesthetic Theory. (shrink)

This paper examines the film "Cloud Atlas" (2012), directed by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, and Lilly Wachowski, through a philosophical lens. It explores the narrative structure and creative choices of the film, comparing it to the original book by David Mitchell. The analysis focuses on the film's editing and its impact on the portrayal of time, while drawing on Gilles Deleuze's concept of “the fold” and Pierre Klossowski's notion of “vicious circle”. By investigating these philosophical ideas, the paper offers a (...) deeper understanding of the suppression of time in the film and the persistence of essential gestures. It concludes by highlighting the significance of Philosophy and Film research in providing possible insights into complex philosophical concepts and artistic creations. (shrink)

This article examines some work by the Oaxaca-based Mexican experimental filmmaker and video artist Bruno Varela in order to explore the sense of Gilles Deleuze’s view that modern political cinema is characterized by a “missing” people, to which the adequate response is the people-sustaining or people-generating trance. I argue that the element missing from Deleuze’s discussion is how the typical way for a people to go “missing” under capitalism involves the obfuscation of their labor, an idea that sustains the materially (...) grounded trance in Varela’s Papeles Secundarios (2004) and Cuerpos Complementarios (2022), drawn from the filmmaker’s experience as casting director of Iranian artist Shirin Neshat’s production of her video installation Tooba (2002) in Oaxaca. The article discusses the “baroque critique” involved in Varela’s elliptically representing the workday of the non-professional Oaxacan actors employed in Neshat’s production, understood here as a critique articulated using the detritus of that production. The result is a paradigm of trans-temporal playfulness on film that also challenges the claims to trans-temporal experience sought in Neshat’s work. Thus, the article also locates these arguments within debates about whether films can “do philosophy”, including a hypothesis about the obfuscations of labor lying behind why making-of documentaries—and their capacities to critique the philosophical pretensions of their original subjects—have not figured more centrally in those debates. (shrink)

Spanish version of essay on the film ¡Aoquic iez in Mexico! / ¡Ya México no existirá más! (Annalisa D. Quagliata Blanco, 2024).

Analysis in English of Annalisa D. Quagliata Blanco’s experimental feature film ¡Aoquic iez in Mexico! /¡Ya México no existirá más! (2024).

The paper presents an analysis of David Cronenberg’s 2022 film Crimes of the Future, dedicated to the transformation of human nature amidst technological progress. Drawing inspiration from leading contemporary thinkers like Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Maurice Merleau Ponty, Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway, and Timothy Morton, the research extends to Cronenberg’s other films to provide a deeper comprehension of his creative vision. Central to the discussion are the humanitarian issues posed by these movies, namely the metamorphosis of human corporeality, the blurring (...) boundaries between the natural and artificial, and the ethical dilemmas arising from biotechnological interventions in human physiology. The key themes in Crimes of the Future are contextualized within modern frameworks of dark ecology and posthumanism and interpreted through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s body without organs, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, and Foucault’s biopolitics. Crimes of the Future offers a multifaceted reflection on humanity’s future amidst profound transformations of both physiology and environment. Through an in-depth analysis of the film and Cronenberg’s oeuvre at large, new topics emerge for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of philosophy, bioethics, sociology, and psychology, exploring how human nature and identity evolve in an era of dynamic technological advancement. (shrink)

El artículo presenta los resultados de un análisis de la película de David Cronenberg “Crímenes del futuro” (2022), que aborda la transfor mación de la naturaleza humana bajo la influencia del progreso tecnológico. Este estudio se basa en ideas de pensadores contemporáneos destacados como Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway y Timothy Morton. La investigación también analiza otras películas de Cronenberg para proporcionar una comprensión más completa de su visión creativa. El autor identifica los principales temas (...) humanísticos que abordan estas películas, a saber, la transformación de la corporeidad humana, la difuminación de los límites entre lo natural y lo artificial, y los dilemas éticos que surgen de las modificaciones biotecnológicas del cuerpo humano. Las cuestiones clave en “Crímenes del futuro” también se exploran en el contexto de los conceptos modernos de “ecología oscura” y posthu manismo. El artículo analiza la interpretación de la corporeidad en la pelí cula a través del concepto de “Cuerpos sin Órganos” de Deleuze y Guattari, la fenomenología de Merleau-Ponty y la biopolítica de Foucault. “Crímenes del futuro” ofrece una reflexión multifacética sobre el futuro de la humanidad en medio de transformaciones radicales tanto del cuerpo como del entorno. El análisis de la película, y más ampliamente de toda la obra de Cronenberg, identifica nuevos temas prometedores para la investigación interdisciplinaria en la intersección de la filosofía, la bioética, la sociología y la psicología. Estos temas exploran cómo la naturaleza humana y la iden tidad se están transformando en una era de rápido avance tecnológico. (shrink)

It is commonly proposed that since the mid-2000s, the slasher subgenre has been dominated by unoriginal remakes of "classics". Consequently, most original slasher films have been ignored by academics (and critics), leaving the field with a limited understanding of this highly popular subgenre. This book corrects that mischaracterisation by analysing contemporary slasher films that sincerely attempt to innovate within the subgenre. I argue that these films reflect broader cultural turns towards sincerity, optimism in the face of crisis, and an emphasis (...) on felt experience that are indicative of a metamodern sensibility. This is the first book to use metamodernism to analyse film in a sustained way, and the first academic work to use metamodernism to examine horror. The Metamodern Slasher offers readers new ways to understand the slasher film, the horror genre, and also the cultural moment we find ourselves in. (shrink)

Beneath the stylized violence and thrilling car crashes, the Mad Max films consider universal questions about the nature of human life, order and anarchy, justice and moral responsibility, society and technology, and ultimately, human redemption. In Mad Max and Philosophy, a diverse team of political scientists, historians, and philosophers investigates the underlying themes of the blockbuster movie franchise, following Max as he attempts to rebuild himself and the world. -/- This book guides you through the barren wastelands of a post-apocalyptic (...) future as you explore ethics and politics in The Wasteland, the importance of costumes and music, humankind's relationship with nature, commerce, gender, religion, madness, and more. (shrink)