Abstract

All theories of fiction in film proceed on metaphysical assumptions, yet too frequently inquiries into these foundations are avoided for the pragmatics of the theory. Film theory has been largely dominated by an anti-realist metaphysical framework that positions the fictional contents of films in the minds of spectators, rather than as the objects referred to through filmic representation. As a result, film theory lacks a clear distinction between the fictional contents that spectators attend to and spectators' mental engagement with film. We have not learned one of philosophy's cardinal rules: not to confuse metaphysics with epistemology. The problem stems from the presupposition that spectators make-believe the fictions they attend to, rather than take the material representation as referring to the fictional contents. We lack a clear understanding of how things that do not exist can be represented and narrated in a primarily indexical medium. Moreover, if fictions are determined through engagement by readers and spectators, then we abandon a general theory of fiction altogether, since definitions of fictional modes become partially determined by the representational practices of the various media. Despite an apparent plausibility, anti-realist accounts are unable to meet the basic common-sense view that everyone that sees a certain film sees the same fiction. Certainly there can and should be differing views about what a fiction may be interpreted to mean by each individual that engages it, but this does not license relativism about fictional contents. In contrast, I advocate a realist metaphysical stance rooted in modal philosophy and the theory of objects. Only by first addressing what fictions are can theories of representation, narration, perception, hermeneutics, and spectatorial agency, for instance, be established. I conclude that if the theory of fiction can be rid of its spectatorial anti-realism, then we can locate across all media of fiction the same basic representational and narrational components. Narration and representation, then, are concerns for the study of the aesthetics and history of film, and not its ontology