There is a traditional debate in analytic aesthetics that surrounds the classification of film as Art. While much philosophy devoted to considering film has now moved beyond this debate and accepts film as a mass art, a sub-category of Art proper, it is worth re-considering the criticism of film pre-Deleuze. Much of the criticism of film as pseudo-art is expressed in moral terms. T. W. Adorno, for example, critiques film as ‘mass-cult’; mass produced culture (...) which presents a ‘flattened’ version of reality. Adorno worries about the passivity encouraged in viewers. Films are narrative artworks, received by an audience in a context, making the focus on the reception of the work important. The dialogue held between Adorno and Walter Benjamin post-WWII is interesting because, between them, they consider both the possible positive emancipatory and negative politicization effects of film as a mass produced and distributed story-telling medium. Reading Adorno alongside Benjamin is a way to highlight the role of the critical thinker who receives the film. Arguing that the critical thinker is a valuable citizen, this paper focuses on the value of critical thinking in the reception of cinematic artworks. It achieves this by reconsidering Adorno and Benjamin 's theories of mass art. (shrink)

There is a traditional debate in analytic aesthetics that surrounds the classification of film as Art. While much philosophy devoted to considering film has now moved beyond this debate and accepts film as a mass art, a subcategory of Art proper, it is worth reconsidering the criticism of film pre-Deleuze. Much of the criticism of film as pseudo-art is expressed in moral terms. Adorno, for example, critiques film as ‘mass-cult’, mass-produced culture which presents a (...) ‘flattened’ version of reality. Adorno worries about the passivity encouraged in viewers. Films are narrative artworks, received by an audience in a context, making the focus on the reception of the work important. The dialogue held between Adorno and Walter Benjamin post-Second World War is interesting because, between them, they consider both the possible positive emancipatory and negative politicization effects of film as a mass produced and distributed storytelling medium. Reading Adorno alongside Benjamin is a way to highlight the role of the critical thinker who receives the film. Arguing that the critical thinker is a valuable citizen, this paper focuses on the value of critical thinking in the reception of cinematic artworks. It achieves this by reconsidering Adorno and Benjamin’s theories of mass art. (shrink)

This article examines a neglected dimension of Bazin's work, namely his writings for the daily newspaper Le Parisien libéré. Four key points emerge from this corpus. First, Bazin goes beyond the film-reviewing norms of the day to analyse the intentions and achievements of the film-makers. Second, Bazin foregrounds the capacity of cinema to address the concerns of contemporary society. Third, as a result, he ascribes a particular value to films that actively engage with the new social realities of (...) post-war France. Four, Bazin remains blind to the misogynistic dimension of post-war French cinema, with its tendency to culpabilize women for the national disgrace of the Occupation. Ultimately, Bazin's newspaper reviewing represents a more socially aware vision of cinema than that promoted by more specialized cinema journals, yet his criticism remains caught within the gender ideology of his time. (shrink)

Introduction -- The dialectic's narrow margin: film noir between Adorno and Hegel -- On critical theory's dialectical dilemma -- a configuration pregnant with tension: Fritz Lang for critical theory -- Coda: the enjoyment of film in theory.

The successful study of film combines criticism, theory and practice. This book covers all three areas and guides the student towards an engaged form of creative expression and an active role as reviewer and critic. Beautifully presented, this ground-breaking text offers all students an integrated understanding of film criticism and production"--Provided by publisher.

Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures is the first book to collect manifestoes from the global history of cinema, providing the first historical and theoretical account of the role played by film manifestos in filmmaking and film culture. Focussing equally on political and aesthetic manifestoes, Scott MacKenzie uncovers a neglected, yet nevertheless central history of the cinema, exploring a series of documents that postulate ways in which to re-imagine the cinema and, in the process, re-imagine the world. (...) This volume collects the major European ÒwavesÓ and figures ; Latin American Third Cinemas ; radical art and the avant-garde ; and world cinemas. It also contains previously untranslated manifestos co-written by figures including Bolla’n, Debord, Hermosillo, Isou, Kieslowski, PainlevŽ, Straub, and many others. Thematic sections address documentary cinema, aesthetics, feminist and queer film cultures, pornography, film archives, Hollywood, and film and digital media. Also included are texts traditionally left out of the film manifestos canon, such as the Motion Picture Production Code and Pius XI's Vigilanti Cura, which nevertheless played a central role in film culture. (shrink)

Philosophers on Film from Bergson to Badiou is an anthology of writings on cinema and film by many of the major thinkers in continental philosophy. The book presents a selection of fundamental texts, each accompanied by an introduction and exposition by the editor, Christopher Kul-Want, that places the philosophers within a historical and intellectual framework of aesthetic and social thought. Encompassing a range of intellectual traditions--Marxism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, gender and affect theories--this critical reader features writings by Bergson, (...) Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer, Merleau-Ponty, Baudrillard, Irigaray, Lyotard, Deleuze, Kristeva, Agamben, Žižek, Nancy, Cavell, Rancière, Badiou, Stiegler, and Silverman. Many texts discuss cinema as a mass medium; others develop phenomenological analyses of film itself. They reflect upon the potential of film to challenge dominant forms of ideology. The anthology considers the ways in which cinema can disrupt the clichés of capitalist images and offer radical possibilities for creating new worlds of visceral experience outside the grasp of habitual forms of knowledge and subjectivity. Ranging from the early silent period of cinema through the classics of European and Hollywood cinema to the early twenty-first century, the films discussed offer a vivid sense of these philosophers' concepts and ideas, casting new light on the history of cinema. This reader is an essential and valuable resource for a wide range of courses in film and philosophy. (shrink)

This article responds to critical views of John Rhym, Martin Rossouw, Ludo de Roo, and Annie Sandrussi on my 2017 book Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience. The article also takes up positive footholds from the analyses of Chiara Quaranta and Jason Wirth. The main topics addressed include Martin Heidegger’s ontic-ontological distinction; the notion of film-as-philosophy; being-in-the-world read as being-in-the-film-world; and questions surrounding the facticity and identity of the film viewer.

From the 1910s to the emergence of structuralism and post-structuralism in the 1960s, the writings of John Grierson, Siegfried Kracauer, Andre Bazin and Georg Lukacs dominated realist film theory. In this critical anthology, the first collection to address their work in one volume, a wide range of international scholars explore the interconnections between their ideas and help generate new understandings of this important, if neglected, field. Challenging preconceptions about 'classical' theory and the nature of realist representation, and in the (...) process demonstrating how this body of work can be seen as a cohesive theoretical model, this invaluable collection will help return the realist paradigm of film theory to the forefront of academic enquiry. ". (shrink)

This article explores the idea of film as a possible means for articulating original philosophical concepts, in Gilles Deleuze’s sense of concepts. The first of two parts, critically re-examines current ideas about film as philosophy in relation to Deleuze’s ideas on philosophy and cinema/art. It is common within the field of film-philosophy to trace back its central argument that film/cinema is capable of expressing original philosophy, to Deleuze’s cinema books. In and around these books, however, Deleuze (...) did not express such an idea and rather underlined sharp formal differences between cinematic thinking and philosophy. Cinematic thinking takes the form, he argues, of blocks of movement/duration whereas philosophy is defined as the art of creating concepts. Still, could a close critical scrutiny of and some creativity with Deleuze’s thought allow for taking a step he did not take? The second part of the article takes on the speculative question of whether it is possible to create a notion from within Deleuze’s thought as a whole, that allows for at least the theoretical possibility of articulating original philosophical concepts – as Deleuze defines them – in and through film, and what this would mean for our understanding of the concrete form of concepts. The article examines Deleuze’s concept of concepts, his descriptions of complicating intersections between philosophy and art, some partly conflicting statements on Godard over the years, aspects of his analyses of filmic thinking in Cinema 2 that can be seen to provide preliminary components for articulating concepts in and through film, and it discusses the place and function of words and texts in such filmic articulations. If the aim of the first part is to clarify Deleuze’s positions on film and philosophy the aim of the second part resonates with the Deleuzian/Nietzschean quest for formal renewal of philosophy. The overall aim is to re-problematize and provide subtle new means for conceiving of and discussing the notion of film as philosophy. (shrink)

I propose that the film Temptation, from 1946, presents us with a person, or type of person, who was once observed: she is very involved in evaluating the significance of highly specialist inquiries, in this case Egyptology, and evaluating borderline cases of literature, regarding which it is difficult to assess their long-term value. The film assists with addressing how The Golden Bough was actually received. An appendix proposes that the film is of interest to Derrideans.

"Tough, smart, superbly engaging, The Material Ghost is a terrific book." -- Edward W. Said In The Material Ghost , Gilberto Perez draws on his lifelong love of the movies as well as his work as a film scholar to write a lively, wide-ranging, penetrating study of films and filmmakers and the nature of the art form. For Perez, film is complex and richly contradictory, lifelike and dreamlike at once, a peculiar mix of reality and imagination. "The images (...) on the screen," he writes, "carry in them something of the world itself, something material, and yet something transposed, transformed into another world: the material ghost." "Dazzling... The sheer intelligence at work in these lucid pages is exhilarating." -- Alfred Guzzetti, Boston Book Review "A pleasure. Gilberto Perez is one of the smartest film critics writing anywhere." -- Jonathan Rosenbaum "Strikes an ideal balance between insightful analysis and graceful writing... A model of thoughtful criticism." -- David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor "Brilliantly polemical in his critique of cynical reason ('the official philosophy of late capitalism'), no less passionate in defending the truth-value of cinema, Perez seems to be the clearest heir to the great humanist critic André Bazin." -- Sight & amp Sound "The chapters on Keaton and Renoir are stunning, full of perceptive remarks the chapter on Godard is a persuasive rehabilitation none of the chapters is without memorable insights." -- Michael Wood, London Review of Books "Gilberto Perez's ambitious, abundant, and cultivated book--the fruit of decades of thinking and teaching -- accompanies readers on a journey of discovery into the wonder of film." -- Stanley Cavell "Few books of film criticism in the past twenty-five years have been so enjoyable or instructive... [Perez] has excellent things to say about authorship, about documentaries, about popular genres, about cinematic point of view and narrative technique, about actors, and above all about camera style... He makes us want to look once more at the remarkable pictures he discusses." -- James Naremore, Cineaste. (shrink)

Film critics and theorists often refer to the ‘worlds’ that films create, present, or embody,e.g. the world of Eraserhead or the world in Fanny and Alexander. Like the world of a novel or painting, the world of a film in thisprevalent use of the term denotes its represented content or setting, or whatever formaland thematic aspects distinguish it from other films in a pronounced and oftenimmediately recognisable way. Yet there is much more to be said in philosophical termsabout (...) films as, or as containing, worlds. This paper will argue that pursuing this subjectentails a needed re-evaluation of multi-faceted issues that are of concern to bothcontemporary film theorists and philosophers of film, including the relation betweencinematic representation and expression, reflexivity, the nature of film style andauthorship, and cinema’s relation to, and direct interaction with, other art forms. (shrink)

Ordinarily, what we experience does not jump from one place or time to another—we have to pass through all the intermediate times and places. But in films, what we experience can jump in both dimensions, both separately and together. This phenomenon has been memorably described in film criticism by Rudolph Arnheim and it has been deployed philosophically by Suzanne Langer and Colin McGinn. But discussion of space-time discontinuity remains hampered by the lack of attunement between film critical and (...) philosophical investigations. Without philosophy, the valuable insights of film criticism lack rigour and have been blunted by conceptual imprecision and confusion; without film criticism, the provocative claims of philosophy lack support, floating free of the evidence that a suitably sharp awareness of the details of particular films alone provides. This paper brings philosophy and film criticism to bear on each other so that we stand to make headway on the issue of film and space-time discontinuity. (shrink)

In this article, I claim that film matters to political theory not because of the stories films recount, but because the medium of film offers political theorists an image of political thinking that emphasizes the stochastic serialization of actions. I thus argue that the stochastic serialization of moving images that films project makes available for democratic theory an experience of resistance and change as a felt discontinuity of succession, rather than as an inversion of hierarchical power. In my (...) treatment of these issues, I rely on Hume's ontology of ‘broken appearances’ and ‘interrupted perceptions’, as well as Stanley Cavell's ontology of film as treated in The World Viewed. I elaborate the following four aspects of the relation between film and political theory: the action-image; discontinuity and the fact of series; actors, artificial persons and human somethings; and political resistance and an aesthetics of politics. The manner in which I proceed is to show the aspectual overlay between film and political thinking. Such a method of exposition suggests a further, methodological site where film matters to political theory: the stochastic serialization of moving images in film provides political theory with a genre for elaborating ideas that is not reducible to the analytics of causal argument. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy of film is a young field that is rapidly growing but that has as yet no distinct disciplinary presence within philosophy. Articles by feminist philosophers on film began appearing in aesthetics journals and anthologies in English only in the late 1980s and 1990s. In film studies, as in aesthetics more generally, disciplinary boundaries are fluid. Writers from many fields – literature, art, communications, cultural studies – make critical contributions on film, addressing philosophical issues and (...) drawing upon philosophical theories. Many questions discussed in the general field of film theory are philosophical ones, and among these are topics important for feminist philosophy and aesthetics: Is film an art, and if so why? What is the essence of film? How does film depict subjectivity? What is the nature of our emotional reactions to and interest in film? How is the photographic nature of film used in constructing realistic or other forms of representations of the world? How is ideology at work in the Hollywood production system and in the circulation of filmic images in the popular culture industry? It would be not only difficult, but arbitrary and misleading, to restrict the label or practice of “feminist philosophy of film” to professional philosophers. It is best to approach this subject, then, by situating it in relation to other fields, including feminist film theory, film theory in general, philosophical work on film, and feminist aesthetics. Feminist philosophy of film is rapidly expanding as philosophers with diverse interests turn their attention to film. The inclusion of feminist essays by philosophers in two anthologies on film in the mid‐1990s, together with the appearance of the first issue of the journal Film and Philosophy, suggest that this field is on the brink of a period of rapid growth and change. I will discuss possible new directions of growth, and connections with feminist philosophy broadly considered in the conclusion. (shrink)

This book discusses feature films that enrich our understanding of doctor-patient dilemmas. The book comprises general clinical ethics themes and principles and is written in accessible language. Each theme is discussed and illuminated in chapters devoted to a particular film. Chapters start with a discussion of the film itself, which shares details behind the making of the film; critical reception; casting and other facts about production. The chapter situates the film in a history of medicine and (...) medical sociology context, analyzes ethical issues raised in the film from a clinical ethics lens, and explains to readers how to use each film as a teaching aid for clinical ethics. Readers will understand how each film in this collection served to bring particular clinical ethics issues to the public’s attention, or reflected medico-legal issues that were part of the public discourse. The book is a perfect instructor's guide for anyone teaching bioethics, healthcare ethics, medical sociology, medical history, healthcare systems narrative medicine, or nursing ethics. (shrink)

Film Theory addresses the core concepts and arguments created or used by academics, critical film theorists, and filmmakers, including the work of Dudley Andrew, Raymond Bellour, Mary Ann Doane, Miriam Hansen, bell hooks, Siegfried Kracauer, Raul Ruiz, P. Adams Sitney, Bernard Stiegler, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. This volume takes the position that film theory is a form of writing that produces a unique cinematic grammar; and like all grammars, it forms part of the system of rules that (...) govern a language, and is thus applicable to wider range of media forms. In their creation of authorial trends, identification of the technology of cinema as a creative force, and production of films as aesthetic markers, film theories contribute an epistemological resource that connects the technologies of filmmaking and film composition. This book explores these connections through film theorisations of processes of the diagrammatisation of cinematic matters of the filmic world. (shrink)

This essay is my review of the classic TV series, Route 66. It was a classic “buddy movie,” with two young men who tour the country in a gorgeous 1956 Chevy Corvette, staying in various towns and working at various blue-collar jobs. The acting was generally superb, and the scripts were mainly written by the fine script writer Stirling Silliphant, and produced by the famous producer Herbert Leonard. I suggest that this 50-year-old series tells us a lot about cultural change (...) in America during that time. I suggest also that it helps demonstrate that the charge made by a famous cultural critic of the time—Newton Minow, who was Chairman of the Federal Communications Corporation from 1961 to 1963—that this period of commercial TV was a “vast wasteland” was not merely arrogantly elitist, but was in fact patently false. The 1950s and early 1960s saw many amazingly good series in a wide variety of genres. (shrink)

The subject of the study is Bernardo Bertolucci's film "The Last Emperor", in particular, the coloristic of the film and the psychology of the image of the main character, which is largely revealed through the color palette and individual artistic details. The object of research is the language of cinematography, cinematographic artistic techniques. Despite the sometimes shocking images and plots, Bertolucci's films were highly appreciated by the international community and domestic film critics due to their artistic solution (...) and topical issues affecting the problems of class struggle and anti-fascist themes. The author of the article examines the image of the main character of the film, Aisingero Pu Yi, the last emperor of China and Manchukuo. The film is based on real historical events taking place in the first half of the 20th century, so the dramatic collisions of the character are not perceived by the viewer as some kind of abstract problem. Against the backdrop of the complex historical changes that China has faced, many questions of the formation and self-determination of the individual are being raised. The image of Emperor Pu Yi is revealed gradually through a comparison of two storylines and the color scheme of the film, since it is the color palette that helps to subtly and meaningfully convey the psychological content of the character. The main research methods are analytical and comparative-historical. The composition of the film and the dynamics of the change in the color palette of individual episodes are analyzed, which makes it possible to trace the evolution of the image. The author comes to the conclusion that it was the coloristic solution of the film that allowed the creators to convey the national color and historical atmosphere of China of a certain historical period and show a vivid image of the protagonist on the screen. (shrink)

"The Film Theory Reader brings together a range of key theoretical texts, organized thematically to emphasise the development of specific critical concepts and theoretical models in the field of film theory.

This article considers film as a form of artificial intelligence (AI). This non-anthropocentric hypothesis was first formulated in 1946 by filmmaker and theorist Jean Epstein and regards film as the thinking performance of a technical apparatus, the cinematograph, which is a manifestation of machine thinking based on the holistic entanglement of thought and world, film and philosophy. The article pursues an enquiry into ‘thinking’: one of the most prominent and oldest topics considered in philosophy, and also essential (...) to art and film. Thinking is not only characterised as a sense (like sight or taste) but as a creative and, ultimately, intra-active act. The possibility of film as AI is approached not only from a Deleuzian angle, long appraised by film-philosophy, but also through questions recently raised by theories of artistic research and the speculative-materialist turn in contemporary philosophy. The latter have as a common denominator a strong critique of anthropocentrism in Western philosophy; the article enquires into this criticism from different angles and applies it to the main hypothesis of this analysis – to regard film as a form of AI. (shrink)

This chapter offers a critical discussion of the idea of filmosophy or film as philosophy. I explore the debate surrounding the idea of “film as philosophy”, distinguishing this approach from more traditional philosophy of film, and suggesting that it has a long history going back to key figures in early film theory. I then focus on the seminal work of Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze, often described as the inaugurators of film-philosophy. Finally, I examine recent (...) proposals concerning the idea of “film as philosophy”, which argue for a more transformative relationship between philosophy and cinema, and offer some concluding reflections on how we might respond to some of the objections raised against this approach. (shrink)

This book addresses a very real gap in existing introductory texts that define, explore, and apply key theoretical concepts within the field of film studies.' Alison L. McKee, Assistant Professor, Department of Television-Radio-Film-Theatre, San Jose State University, USA 'This is the book that film students have long been waiting for: a clear, well-written and accessible introduction to film theory. Lucid theoretical exposition and case study film analysis offer readers the most intelligible summary of theory that (...) I have yet encountered.' Paul Sutton, Head of Media, Culture and Language, Roehampton University Film theory has a reputation for being difficult. It is challenging, it takes time and it can frequently leave students feeling inadequate and frustrated. Furthermore, theory can often seem intimidating and oldfashioned and therefore it can be difficult to appreciate its modern-day relevance. Understanding Film Theory aims to disassociate theory from these negative connotations and bring a fresh, modern and accessible approach to the discipline. Each of the fifteen chapters provides an insight into the main areas of debate by introducing key ideas and thinkers. Taking the application of theory as its central theme, the book incorporates a number of exciting and innovative features: 'Reflect and Respond' sections encourage readers to engage critically with theoretical concepts, while seminal texts are concisely summarized without oversimplifying key points. Throughout the book the authors illustrate why theory is important and demonstrate how it can be applied in a meaningful way, with relevant case studies drawn from both classic and contemporary cinema including: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Run Lola Run (1998), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), Old Boy (2003), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Mamma Mia! (2008) and Avatar (2009). Additional case studies address key genres ('swashbucklers' and the film musical), film movements (Dogme 95), individual actors (Christian Bale, Judi Dench and Amitabh Bachchan) and directors (Alfred Hitchcock and Guillermo del Toro). Understanding Film Theory is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to film theory. It is the ideal entry point for any student studying film, using clear definitions and explaining complex ideas succinctly. Christine Etherington-Wright is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at University of Portsmouth (UK) where she teaches a course on Film Theory. She is the author of Gender, Professions, Discourse (Palgrave, 2008). Ruth Doughty is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at University of Portsmouth (UK). She is one of the co-founding editors of the journal Transnational Cinemas and co-edited Sound and Music in Film and Visual Media (2008). (shrink)

From 1968 to 1991 the acclaimed film theorist Christian Metz wrote several remarkable books on film theory. These books set the agenda of academic film studies during its formative period. Metz's ideas were taken up, digested, refined, reinterpreted, criticized and sometimes dismissed, but rarely ignored. This volume collects and translates into English a series of interviews with Metz, who offers readable summaries, elaborations, and explanations of his sometimes complex and demanding theories of film. We also discover (...) the contents of his unpublished manuscript on jokes, his relation to Roland Barthes, and the social networks operative in the French intellectual community during the 1970s and 1980s."--Back cover. (shrink)

This book considers ethical issues arising in professional and business settings and the role of individuals making decisions and coping with moral dilemmas. It starts by elaborating on critical thinking and on normative ethical theories, subsequently presenting the structure and cinematic elements of narrative film. These two avenues are tools for evaluating films and for discussions on various ethical problems in contemporary business, including: the corporate and banking financial machinations (greed, fraud, social responsibility); workplace ethical challenges (harassment, violence, inequity, (...) inequality); professional and business ethical challenges (corruption, whistleblowing, outsourcing and downsizing); and personal responsibility and identity challenges due to career pressures, loss of privacy and cyber harassment, and job structure changes in light of changing technology. Readers can benefit from engagement in filmic narratives, as a simulated environment for developing a stance towards ethical challenges. (shrink)

Many of the most popular and critically acclaimed horror films feature grief as a central theme. This article argues that horror films are especially suited to portraying and communicating the phenomenology of grief. We explore two overlapping claims. First, horror is well suited to represent the experience of grief, in particular because the disruptive effects of horror “monsters” on protagonists mirror the core experience of disruption that accompanies bereavement. Second, horror offers ways in which the experience of grief can be (...) contained and regulated and, in doing so, may offer psychological benefits for the bereaved. While our focus will be squarely on film, much of what we say applies to other media. (shrink)

This book attempts to answer the questions, posed by T.J. Demos (in Against the Anthropocene, 2107): how do we find a way address the planetary harm and the issues it raises within the field of Film Studies? How do we construct a theoretical model that allows us to visualize the ecological transgressions brought about by the growth-model of capitalism which is heavily endorsed by mainstream narrative cinema? By turning to the Regenerative model set out in Kate Raworth's book Doughnut (...) Economics (2017) and adapting its fundamental principles to a study of narrative cinema, Film Ecology proposes to show how, by using this model, we can usefully plot and investigate films according to criteria that are not genre/star/auteur-led, nor indeed embedded in anthropocentric theoretical models, but principles which are ecologically based. The hope is that this approach will inspire film practitioners, film theorists, critics and analysts, film students and film lovers alike to consider how they might integrate this Doughnut model into their thinking or work as part of their process. (shrink)

The term “dividual” aims to present a critical view of the Western conception of persons and artworks as individuals. It is used in Euro-American anthropology in order to analyze the practical and ethical interferences between single persons and communities mainly in non-Western cultures. It is also used by Gilles Deleuze in Cinema 1. The Movement-Image in order to describe the aesthetic and self-affective character of films: since the filmic images cannot be temporarily fixed and individualized, he calls them “dividual”, much (...) like contemporary plurivocal musical compositions. He reads their articulations as transitions between temporarily varying semiotic combinations; thus, they are not “‘divisible or indivisible’, but ‘dividual.’”(14) Referring to this Deleuzian concept, I want to delve into different films under this aesthetic perspective, exposing their character of mutual allusions and formal adaptations: from a docufiction by Jean Rouch to feature films by Jean-Luc Godard, Med Hondo and Jean-Pierre Bekolo. These films dividuate themselves due to their aesthetic interferences and the curious observation that certain European film styles were “invented” in an African context. (shrink)

Serge Daney is widely recognised in his homeland as the most important French film critic after André Bazin. In a career devoted to criticism for Cahiers du cinéma and later Libération, including a key period as editor during the transition from the journal’s PCF and then Maoist phase beginning in 1973, Daney also held a lecturing position for a spell at the University of Paris, Paris III, La Censure. He was a significant public intellectual and featured in several documentaries, (...) including Claire Denis’ film Jacques Rivette – Le veilleur. From 1985 to 1990 Daney presented a programme on cinema on the radio station France Culture. Following the publication of a book on Haitian politics in 1973 under the assumed name Raymond Sapène, Daney’s journalism was collected in several volumes. He left Libération in 1981 to establish Trafic, a journal which, since his death from Aids in 1992, has continued his legacy. The only book-length English translation of Daney’s writings to date – Postcards from the Cinema – is of the posthumously published Persévérances. (shrink)

Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy is an accessible and thought-provoking examination of the way films raise and explore complex philosophical ideas. Written in a clear and engaging style, Thomas Wartenberg examines films' ability to discuss, and even criticize ideas that have intrigued and puzzled philosophers over the centuries such as the nature of personhood, the basis of morality, and epistemological skepticism. Beginning with a demonstration of how specific forms of philosophical discourse are presented cinematically, Wartenberg moves on to (...) offer a systematic account of the ways in which specific films undertake the task of philosophy. Focusing on the films The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Modern Times, The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Third Man, The Flicker, and Empire, Wartenberg shows how these films express meaningful and pertinent philosophical ideas. This book is essential reading for students of philosophy with an interest in film, aesthetics, and film theory. It will also be of interest to film enthusiasts intrigued by the philosophical implications of film. (shrink)

Too often we relegate criticism of films to merely a rational or cognitive treatment of possible interpretations or meanings of the film under review. This is short sighted. After exploring the nature of the critical film review, this paper examines some of the potential vices that are found in film criticism today (such as “cerebralization,” “narrative fixation,” and “anticipatory blindness”), and highlights some of the virtues of a good film critic (such as “context sensitivity,” “aesthetic experiencing,” (...) and “value maximization”). (shrink)

Now that well-paying jobs in film criticism have largely evaporated, while blogs, message boards, and social media have given new meaning to the saying that "everyone's a critic," urgent questions have emerged about the critic's status and purpose. In Film Criticism in the Digital Age, ten scholars from across the globe, as well as critics and bloggers, come together to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the seeds of its rebirth (...) in a new form. (shrink)

The Language and Style of Film Criticism brings together original essays from an international range of academics and film critics highlighting the achievements, complexities and potential of film criticism. In recent years, in contrast to the theoretical, historical and cultural study of film, film criticism has been relatively marginalised, especially within the academy. This book highlights the distinctiveness of film criticism and addresses ways in which it can take a more central place within the (...) academy and develop in dynamic ways outside it. The Language and Style of Film Criticism is essential reading for academics, teachers, students and journalists who wish to understand and appreciate the language and style of film criticism. (shrink)

Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy is an accessible and thought-provoking examination of the way films raise and explore complex philosophical ideas. Written in a clear and engaging style, Thomas Wartenberg examines films’ ability to discuss, and even criticize ideas that have intrigued and puzzled philosophers over the centuries such as the nature of personhood, the basis of morality, and epistemological skepticism. Beginning with a demonstration of how specific forms of philosophical discourse are presented cinematically, Wartenberg moves on to (...) offer a systematic account of the ways in which specific films undertake the task of philosophy. Focusing on the films The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Modern Times, The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Third Man, The Flicker , and Empire , Wartenberg shows how these films express meaningful and pertinent philosophical ideas. This book is essential reading for students of philosophy with an interest in film, aesthetics, and film theory. It will also be of interest to film enthusiasts intrigued by the philosophical implications of film. (shrink)

Critically examines how radical political theory and its application to film analysis can provide insight to the aesthetic self during political upheaval and conflict.

Cinema, like art more generally, is both an artistic genre and a politico-economic institution. On the one hand there is film, a medium which disseminates moving images via the projection of light through celluloid onto a screen. Individual films or "movies," in turn, are discrete aesthetic objects that are distinguished and analyzed vis-à-vis their form and content. On the other hand there is the film industry-the elaborate network of artistic, technical, and economic apparatuses which plan, produce, market, and (...) display films to audiences. Since its inception, both the aesthetic and political aspects of cinema have been subject to various forms of theoretical analysis which have been subject to critique in turn. In this paper I offer a brief survey of these analyses and critiques followed by a sketch of an alternative approach to film theory. Drawing upon the ideas of Foucault and Deleuze, this "anarchist" film theory seeks to present a viable critical methodology while at the same time elucidating the liberatory potential of film. (shrink)

Film theorists talk enthusiastically these days in terms of semiotics, sutures, and systems of meaning. I think we can usefully frame these theories by some evidence as to how some actual readers make actual theories from an actual film. To that end, I would like to explore here what three people, Agnes, Norm, and Ted, said about The Story of O. It seems to me that if any film should demonstrate the fixity of semiotic and other codes, (...) surely a pornographic film should.You might call this essay, then, the story of this I storying three other I’s storying The Story of O.1 “Storying” is Audrey Grant’s verb, and by it she intends the representing of an event in your own mind and telling somebody about it.2In this essay, then, I propose to tell you how I represent in my mind how these three individuals represented in their minds The Story of O.Sometimes we felt or thought about the film more or less alike, and sometimes we squarely contradicted one another. I want to ask two questions of these responses. First, how can we relate their variety to the singleness of the film? Second, how can we relate their variety to the generality of any codes that govern the seeing of films? Norman N. Holland is Milbauer Eminent Scholar at the University of Florida. His most recent book, The I , develops a widely useful model for thinking about humans’ perceiving, interpreting, reading, and generally I-ing. His most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry is “Interactive Fiction” in the September 1984 issue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.2 (2001) 35-48 [Access article in PDF] Film, Freud, and ParanoiaDalí and the Representation of Male Desire in An Andalusian Dog Ignacio Javier López An Andalusian Dog, one of the most universally acclaimed films in cinema history, is frequently mentioned by critics as a privileged point of reference for the Surrealist rebellion. The film remains enigmatic to this day. Criticism has concentrated on the validity and (...) effectiveness of its images to exemplify the avant-garde attack against social conventions and against the exclusive dominance of rationality in epistemology and social discourse. But this contextual approach does not take account of the script's fragmented narrative, which finds support in Freud's psychoanalytical theories and articulates a radical proposal for identity and culture. Largely neglected by critics, this narrative has been highly influential in the history of cinema. An Andalusian Dog is central to a long list of films that explore different aspects of the irrational, among them Jean Cocteau's Le sang du poète, Hunt Stromberg's The Strange Woman, Guy Debord's script Howling in Favor of the Marquis de Sade, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs, and Philip Kaufman's Quills. This impressive list underscores the need for an interpretative critical effort that accounts for the authors' proposal in the context of the Surrealist reaction to convention and tradition.Conventionally An Andalusian Dog has been viewed as a film about sexuality; I suggest that sexuality appears in the film as the pretext for a discussion of the threat sexual desire poses for male identity. In this respect, the film develops ideas that begin to appear in paintings completed by Dalí after his initial contact with Freud's works in the mid-1920s. These paintings display male identity as a fragile form of subsistence unfolding between two alternate forces, desire and fear: the desire for sexual realization and the opposed fear that sexual intercourse will conclude in disease and ultimately in death. Given the scarcity of Buñuel's production prior to 1929, I suggest that Dalí's monumental production of paintings during these years served as a preliminary visual point of reference for the design of some of the images in An Andalusian Dog.By concentrating on Dalí's work, I do not mean to suggest that he deserves exclusive credit for the film; a careful examination of Buñuel's writings clearly indicates that the movie included most of his interests as well. Nonetheless, I would like to correct what has become a common trend in the study of An Andalusian Dog. In the early 1940s, Buñuel and Dalí's friendship came to an abrupt end, and in the following years each claimed sole authorship for the ideas in the film. The conflict between the two artists contaminated critical attitudes, which were guided exclusively by Buñuel's pre-1929 writings on cinema. The recurrence of images in the filmmaker's subsequent work was employed to confirm critics' initial intuitions that the film was exclusively Buñuel's. As a result, Dalí's name became increasingly dissociated from the movie, as is illustrated by the absence of the painter's name on the cover of the English edition of the script. However, the antagonism that separated the artists more than ten years after An [End Page 35] [Begin Page 37] Andalusian Dog premiered in Paris on June 6, 1929, should not be a consideration in our critical understanding of this work. Although Buñuel directed the movie and deserves to be recognized for his undeniable input, we should not forget that he eagerly sought the painter's cooperation in writing the script. Moreover, contrary to Buñuel's later practice of frequently altering the initial script during the course of the film's production, An Andalusian Dog closely follows the original plan. This furthers the idea of the importance of Dalí's contribution, and, despite the opposing claims made by both artists in later years, it certainly appears... (shrink)

A new orthodoxy suggests that André Bazin's work had little influence in anglophone countries until decades after his death. This article cites a wide range of evidence, mainly from British publications, in order to challenge this view. Starting with the critics who were associated with the ground-breaking magazine Movie in the early 1960s, it notes also Bazin's early impact in America via the magazine Film Quarterly and the high-profile critic Andrew Sarris. Moreover, Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey, two of (...) the most prominent British theorists commonly associated with an anti-Bazinian ‘Screen Theory’ of the 1970s, are shown to have been both continuously respectful of, and influenced by, Bazin's work. In short, it is argued that Bazin's influence on anglophone film culture has been continuous and formative rather than sporadic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.1 (2006) 104-110 [Access article in PDF] Film Studies, the Moving Image, and Noël Carroll Edward Sankowski Department of Philosophy University of Oklahoma Engaging the Moving Image, by Noël Carroll. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003, 420 pp., $45.00 hardcover. Noël Carroll is the leading writer today about philosophy and film studies among those with an Anglo-American analytic philosophy emphasis. He (...) needs to be read in a larger intellectual context also, as a leading interdisciplinary writer about film. On the positive side, he has expanded the resources of Anglo-American analytic philosophy (and has at the same time contributed work of distinction to scholarship in related areas). He profits from the virtues of analytic philosophy as well as putting to good use his broad acquaintance with other scholarship. He is refreshingly innovative, sometimes operating with valuable results beyond the current conventional borders of the discipline of philosophy in his choice of topics about film (or better, in his view, about the moving image). A collection of his essays written in the second half of the 1990s, Engaging the Moving Image, is thus very welcome. It is fascinating and often persuasive reading.The essays take up a wide range of topics, including (but not limited to) critiques of, and constructive proposals about, film studies. Carroll especially criticizes film studies writing that focuses on "the film medium." "Forget the Medium!" he urges, in the first essay. This is associated for him with attacks on "mediumistic essentialism" (xiii). Indeed, for him the criticism of essentialism is a favorite theme. Many other overlapping topics of great interest are also explored in Carroll's approach. These include the "naturalistic" study of film communication, horror films, film evaluation, the criticism of (Continental) "Big Theory" in film studies, the nature of documentaries, "moving-picture dance," the relationship between TV and film, Siegfried Kracauer on film, Eisenstein on nation building, the political subtext of American Westerns with plots involving Mexican revolutions, and "prospects for film theory," which are discussed in a lengthy concluding piece.While Carroll is characteristically often on the attack, and seems to relish polemics, he is far from predominantly a negative, critical critic. He often formulates fruitful questions for constructive inquiry in a characteristically [End Page 104] clear and reasonable way. He is, however, perhaps not at his strongest in these essays in furthering discussions of what is arguably most moving about "moving images." By this is meant the aesthetic and emotional heights and depths of what films can offer, as art or in other ways. But what he says about movies is sensible, carefully done, and repays repeated study. (One example is Carroll's instructive "cognitively oriented" discussion of emotions in "Film, Emotion, and Genre.")Greatness in film, as in other arts, sometimes makes it more difficult to be reasonable. Carroll's account of evaluation, "Introducing Film Evaluation," notably has a self-avowedly limited scope. That account, as Carroll says, focuses on "evaluating films in terms of whether they are good, bad, better or worse specimens of a kind or category." He writes that "We may also wish to evaluate genres" (162). But beyond genres, the greatness of some films seems well beyond the comparative evaluation of genres. While Carroll writes that his account of evaluation is only introductory and abbreviated, it nonetheless also seems too driven by the desire to emphasize the possibility of agreement about evaluation and to counter radical skeptical worries rather than to understand why evaluation of the very good or great film might matter to us beyond fixing the captured butterfly in its place by assigning a film to a genre.Carroll has seen a lot of movies and read a lot of film theory and other writing about film or the moving image. Some of the theory is awful, in his view, but some of it he considers valuable, and what he claims is plausible on both scores. Carroll thinks and writes incisively about many topics. He is eclectic on principle, but eschews obscurity and pretension. What emerges... (shrink)

Popular film has become a significant venue for meaning‐making in modern society. Like religion, film provides models for understanding and behaving within the social world. Like religion, film reinforces this content through emotional resonance. Myths slip under a viewer's intellectual defenses in the non‐threatening guise of entertainment. In a mainstream culture skeptical of religion, film presents an alternative mechanism for the transmission and processing of “religious” ideas and ideals.