Abstract

This brief, well-written book expands Weiss’ philosophy of art to include the making of films, and in doing so helps one to better understand much of his philosophy as a whole. For example, the shift from Modes of Being to Beyond All Appearances can partly be understood as the fuller appreciation of what actualities are that has followed from Weiss’ further reflections on the status of art objects. The book presents an argument which is shaped by an exemplary structure, divided into three parts. Part I begins with a definition of film as "... a created visual ordered whole of recorded incidents, providing one with a controlled emotional introduction, primarily to Existence...". The first half of this definition is developed by isolating five essential parts appropriate to any art film: 1) the script, 2) performers, 3) "cinemakers," 4) montagists, and 5) the director. This analysis of part and whole is bolstered by showing how each part can obscure all the others, thus leading to five varieties of art film. None of these, however, is as likely to be great art as is a sixth, in which "... a scriptist makes a film intelligible, a performer gives it focus, a cinemaker enables it to be seen and heard, a montagist distinguishes it from the outcomes of all other efforts, and a director unifies it.".