Untangle the complex web of philosophical dilemmas of Spidey and his world—in time for the release of The Amazing Spider-Man movie Since Stan Lee and Marvel introduced Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962, everyone’s favorite webslinger has had a long career in comics, graphic novels, cartoons, movies, and even on Broadway. In this book some of history’s most powerful philosophers help us explore the enduring questions and issues surrounding this beloved superhero: Is Peter Parker to blame for (...) the death of his uncle? Does great power really bring great responsibility? Can Spidey champion justice and be with Mary Jane at the same time? Finding your way through this web of inquiry, you’ll discover answers to these and many other thought-provoking questions. Gives you a fresh perspective and insights on Peter Parker and Spider-Man’s story lines and ideas Examines important philosophical issues and questions, such as: What is it to live a good life? Do our particular talents come with obligations? What role should friendship play in life? Is there any meaning to life? Views Spider-Man through the lens of some of history’s most influential thinkers, from Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant to Nietszche, William James, Ayn Rand, and Alasdair MacIntyre. (shrink)

_An engaging look at the philosophical underpinnings of Earth's Mightiest Heroes_ Avengers assemble! Tackling intriguing dilemmas and issues that no single great philosopher can withstand, this powerful book enlists the brainpower of an A-list team of history's most prominent thinkers to explore the themes behind the action of Marvel Comics' all-star superhero team. Arms you with new insights into the characters and themes of _The Avengers_ Deepens your appreciation both of _The Avengers_ comics and the Joss Whedon movie (...) adaptation Answers the philosophical questions you've always had about Earth's Mightiest Heroes, including: Can a reformed criminal become a superhero? Can an android love a human? If a hero beats his wife, is he still a hero? Helps you think differently about the members of the superhero team—Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the others This thought-provoking book will help you understand this band of superheroes better, whether you've followed the Avengers for years or are a Joss Whedon fan just getting to know them. (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)

What do horror films reveal about social difference in the everyday world? Criticism of the genre often relies on a dichotomy between monstrosity and normality, in which unearthly creatures and deranged killers are metaphors for society's fear of the "others" that threaten the "normal." The monstrous other might represent women, Jews, or Blacks, as well as Indigenous, queer, poor, elderly, or disabled people. The horror film's depiction of such minorities can be sympathetic to their exclusion or complicit in (...) their oppression, but ultimately, these images are understood to stand in for the others that the majority dreads and marginalizes. Adam Lowenstein offers a new account of horror and why it matters for understanding social otherness. He argues that horror films reveal how the category of the other is not fixed. Instead, the genre captures ongoing metamorphoses across "normal" self and "monstrous" other. This "transformative otherness" confronts viewers with the other's experience-and challenges us to recognize that we are all vulnerable to becoming or being seen as the other. Instead of settling into comforting certainties regarding monstrosity and normality, horror exposes the ongoing struggle to acknowledge self and other as fundamentally intertwined. Horror Film and Otherness features new interpretations of landmark films by directors including Tobe Hooper, George A. Romero, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Stephanie Rothman, Jennifer Kent, Marina de Van, and Jordan Peele. Through close analysis of their engagement with different forms of otherness, this book provides new perspectives on horror's significance for culture, politics, and art. (shrink)

Projecting Illusion offers a systematic analysis of the impression of reality in the cinema and the pleasure it gives to the film spectator. Film provides a compelling experience that can be considered as a form of illusion akin to the experience of day-dream and dream. Examining the concept of illusion and its relationship to fantasy in the experience of visual representation, Richard Allen situates his explanation within the context of an analytical criticism of contemporary film and critical theory. He (...) argues that many contemporary film theorists correctly identify the significance of the impression of reality, although their explanation of it is incorrect because of an invalid philosophical understanding of the relationship between the mind, representation and reality. Offering a clear presentation and critique of the central arguments of contemporary film and critical theory, Allen also touches on fundamental issues in current discourses of philosophy, art history and feminist theory. (shrink)

The major essays of the distinguished and prolific Australian-born film critic Adrian Martin have long been difficult to access, so this anthology, which collects highlights of his work in one volume, will be welcomed throughout film studies. Martin offers in-depth analysis of many genres of films while providing a broad understanding of the history of cinema and the history of film criticism and culture. These vibrant, highly personal essays, written between 1982 and 2016, balance breadth across (...) cinema theory with almost encyclopedic detail, ranging between aesthetics, cinephilia, film genre, criticism, philosophy, and cultural politics. Mysteries of Cinema circumscribes a special cultural period that began with the dream of critique as a form of poetic writing, and today arrives at collaborative experiments in audiovisual essays. Throughout these essays, Martin pursues a particular vision of what cinema has been, what it is, and what it still could be. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, many philosophers have been increasingly inclined to consider science fiction films as philosophical exercises that center on the nature of human consciousness and existence. Albert Camus' philosophy of the absurd, however, has almost never been employed as a constructive perspective that can illumine unexplored aspects of these films. This is surprising, since science fiction films seem to be packed with visions and dialogues that echo the Sisyphean universe. Cosmos and Camus endeavors to (...) set foot on this uncharted terrain. Its first part aims to introduce the main components of Camus' absurdity in such a way that it can be easily applied to the analysis of the films later. Equipped with these Camusean essentials, it delves into an in-depth analysis of two first-encounter films (Contact and Arrival) and two AI films (A.I. and Her). These analyses yield more than an insightful reflection of the absurd contents in science-fiction film. Indeed, imaginative collisions with nonhumans seem to tell us a lot about the nature of the absurd in the human condition, as well as raising the question of whether absurdity is exclusively a human matter. Ultimately, the interpretation of the films illuminates the films themselves just as much as it illuminates, challenges, and expands Camus' concept of absurdity, thus contributing to our current understanding of what the absurd reality is and how we can either live with it or transcend it. (shrink)

Introduction -- Time and matter: temporality, embodied subjectivity and film phenomenology -- Knowing and nothing: Chris Marker, subjective temporalities and vocalic bodies in the future tense -- Agnès Varda's Trinket box: subjective relationality, affect and temporalised space -- Burlesque gestures and bodily attention: phenomenologies of the ephemeral in Chantal Akerman -- Threatened corporealities: thinking with the films of Philippe Grandrieux -- Conclusion: rethinking cinematic subjectivity and beyond.

This book rethinks the discussion of sport as a cinematic subject. Arguing for the vitality of the sports film as distinctively 'modern' genre, the book looks at its innovative potential to capture twentieth- and twenty-first-century sport in all its complexity. Written in an accessible style and illustrated throughout, the book integrates work and ideas from film studies with thinking from sports psychology, philosophy, data theory and ecocriticism. In its detailed analyses of a wide-ranging group of films, the book shows (...) how film, from fictional works to biopics to experimental documentaries, can illuminate individual sporting experience, as well as sport's wider place in modern life. (shrink)

How do issues of form and content shape the documentary film? What role does visual evidence play in relation to a documentary’s arguments about the world we live in? In what ways do documentaries abide by or subvert ethical expectations? Are mockumentaries a form of subversion? Can the documentary be an aesthetic experience and at the same time have political or social impact? And how can such impacts be empirically measured? Pioneering film scholar Bill Nichols investigates the ways documentaries strive (...) for accuracy and truthfulness and simultaneously fabricate a form that shapes reality. Such films may rely on reenactment to re-create the past, storytelling to provide satisfying narratives, and rhetorical figures such as metaphor or devices such as irony to make a point. Documentaries are truly a fiction unlike any other. With clarity and passion, Nichols offers incisive commentaries on the basic questions of documentary’s distinct relationship to the reality it represents, as well as close readings of provocative documentaries from this form's earliest days to its most recent incarnations. These essays offer a definitive account of what makes documentary film such a vital part of our cultural landscape. (shrink)

Perhaps nowhere in the broad expanse of types of film is the old “quarrel between philosophy and poetry” more evident—and also more vitally relevant—than in the genre or mode of film known as documentary. Documentary film is just another form of poetic imitation, in its variety of instances and complexity of fabrication, it is just as much caught up with the limitations—and effects—of mimetic art, including fiction film. This book affords a prismatic perspective on documentary cinema, inviting the dynamism and (...) diversity of the arts, humanities, social sciences, and even natural sciences together into a shared conversation. (shrink)

Wars have played a momentous role in shaping the course of human history. The ever-present specter of conflict has made it an enduring topic of interest in popular culture, and many movies, from Hollywood blockbusters to independent films, have sought to show the complexities and horrors of war on-screen. In The Philosophy of War Films, David LaRocca compiles a series of essays by prominent scholars that examine the impact of representing war in film and the influence that (...) cinematic images of battle have on human consciousness, belief, and action. The contributors explore a variety of topics, including the aesthetics of war as portrayed on-screen, the effect war has on personal identity, and the ethical problems presented by war. Drawing upon analyses of iconic and critically acclaimed war films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Thin Red Line (1998), Rescue Dawn (2006), Restrepo (2010), and Zero Dark Thirty (2012), this volume's examination of the genre creates new ways of thinking about the philosophy of war. A fascinating look at the manner in which combat and its aftermath are depicted cinematically, The Philosophy of War Films is a timely and engaging read for any philosopher, filmmaker, reader, or viewer who desires a deeper understanding of war and its representation in popular culture. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze published two radical books on film: Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Engaging with a wide range of film styles, histories and theories, Deleuze's writings treat film as a new form of philosophy. This ciné-philosophy offers a startling new way of understanding the complexities of the moving image, its technical concerns and constraints as well as its psychological and political outcomes. Deleuze and Cinema presents a step-by-step guide to the key concepts behind Deleuze's revolutionary theory (...) of the cinema. Exploring ideas through key directors and genres, Deleuze's method is illustrated with examples drawn from American, British, continental European, Russian and Asian cinema. Deleuze and Cinema provides the first introductory guide to Deleuze's radical methodology for screen analysis. It will be invaluable for students and teachers of film theory, film history and film forms. (shrink)

How Superheroes Model Community examines superheroes as a community engaged in protecting the public sphere. Nathan Miczo highlights and explores the interpersonal and communicative practices that are necessary to being a member of such a community.

Vidal intertwines fond recollections of films savored in the movie palaces of his Washington, D.C., boyhood with strands of autobiography and trenchant observations about American politics. Never before has the renowned author revealed so much about his own life or written with such immediacy about the forces shaping America. 26 halftones.

The horror and psychological denial of our mortality, along with the corruptibility of our flesh, are persistent themes in drama. Body horror films have intensified these themes in increasingly graphic terms. The aesthetic of body horror has its origins in the ideas of the Marquis de Sade and the existential philosophies of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, all of whom demonstrated that we have just cause to be anxious about our physical reality and its existence in the world. This (...) book examines the relationship between these writers and the various manifestations of body horror in film. The most characteristic examples of this genre are those directed by David Cronenberg, but body horror as a whole includes many variations on the theme by other figures, whose work is charted here through seven categories: copulation, generation, digestion, mutilation, infection, mutation, disintegration and extinction. (shrink)

In Selfless Cinema?, Sarah Cooper maps out the power relations of making, and viewing, documentaries in ethical terms. The ethics of filmmaking are often examined in largely legalistic terms, dominated by issues of consent, responsibility, and participantse(tm) or film-makerse(tm) rights, but Cooper approaches four representative French film-makers e" Jean Rouch, Chris Marker, Raymond Depardon, and Agns Varda e" in a far less juridical way, drawing on the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. She argues that, in spite of Levinase(tm)s iconoclastic, anti-ocular (...) thinking, his concept of visage is richly applicable to film, and especially to documentary. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore the early stages of American film theory, wherecinephiliabecame a site of aesthetic interest and criticism thanks to the theorization of cinema as a conversational medium. Following Stanley Cavell’s analysis of a distinct form of moviegoing in America, based on the casual conversation about movies, I argue that a reinterpretation of Emerson’s ordinary aesthetics has been at the core of early film theory, especially in Vachel Lindsay’s writings. In order to illustrate the relation between the (...) defence of a new medium and the attempt to define a quintessentially American art form, this article focuses on the concept of “conversation” that Lindsay uses to describe film spectatorship and to provide a new critical apparatus to grasp the specificity of film aesthetics. (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.

Demonstrates that slapstick film comedies display a canny and sometimes profound understanding of their medium. Slapstick film comedy may be grounded in idiocy and failure, but the genre is far more sophisticated than it initially appears. In this book, Burke Hilsabeck suggests that slapstick is often animated by a philosophical impulse to understand the cinema. He looks closely at movies and gags that represent the conditions and conventions of cinema production and demonstrates that film comedians display a canny and sometimes (...) profound understanding of their medium—from Buster Keaton’s encounter with the film screen in Sherlock Jr. (1924) to Harpo Marx’s lip-sync turn with a phonograph in Monkey Business (1931) to Jerry Lewis’s film-on-film performance in The Errand Boy (1961). The Slapstick Camera follows the observation of philosopher Stanley Cavell that self-reference is one way in which “film exists in a state of philosophy.” By moving historically across the studio era, the book looks at a series of comedies that play with the changing technologies and economic practices behind film production and describes how comedians offered their own understanding of the nature of film and filmmaking. Hilsabeck locates the hidden intricacies of Hollywood cinema in a place where one might least expect them—the clowns, idiots, and scoundrels of slapstick comedy. “From its analysis of the vaudevillian Victorian origins to early Hollywood expressions, and from defining classical performances by the likes of Keaton to recent postmodern recapitulations, Hilsabeck’s theoretically rigorous and wide-ranging study masterfully weaves a path through the historical, technical, and philosophical art of slapstick comedy. A must for scholars working in this field.” — Daniel Varndell, author ofHollywood Remakes, Deleuze and the Grandfather Paradox. (shrink)

This book examines spectral haunting through the philosophies of Levinas and Derrida. Arguing that moral obligation can appear terrifying to the complacent self, the text interrogates ethical responsibility in contemporary horror genres.

ArgumentI argue through an analysis of spectacle that the relationship between wildlife documentary films’ entertainment and educational mandates is complex and co-constitutive. Accuracy-based criticism of wildlife films reveals assumptions of a deficit model of science communication and positions spectacle as an external commercial pressure influencing the genre. Using thePlanet Earth series as a case study, I describe spectacle's prominence within the recent blue-chip renaissance in wildlife film, resulting from technological innovations and twenty-first-century consumer and broadcast market contexts. (...) I connect spectacle in contemporary wildlife films to its relevant precursors within natural history, situating spectacle as a central feature of natural history display designed to inspire awe and wonder in audiences. I show that contemporary documentary spectacle is best understood as an opportunity for affective knowing rather than a constraint on accuracy; as a result, spectacle contributes to the virtuous inter-reinforcement of entertainment and education at work in blue-chip wildlife films. (shrink)

An analysis of Japanese horror films from the 1990s and 2000s using Deleuzian concepts.

Invoking key concepts from the philosophical writings of Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben, The Dark Interval examines an iconography of radical passivity and temporal rupture that recurs in film noir, while examining the emergence of a specific cinematic figure - the 'intervallic' noir protagonist exposed to the redemptive force of his or her own passion.

This book begins at the intersection of Dracula and War of the Worlds, both published in 1897 London, and describes the settings of Transylvania, Mars, and London as worlds linked by the body of the vampire. It explores the "vampire from another world" in all its various forms, as a manifestation of not just our anxieties around alien others, but also our alien selves. Unsurprisingly, many of the tropes these novels generated and particularly the themes they have in common have (...) been used and adapted by vampire narratives that followed. From Nosferatu to Alien, Interstellar, Stranger Things, and many others, this book examines how these narratives have evolved since the end of the nineteenth century. Bringing together texts and films from across the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, from the far reaches of outer space and the distant future, it concludes that the unexpected and the unknown are not always to be feared, and that humanity does have the power to write its own future. (shrink)

The Godfather and Philosophy is comprised of twenty-eight chapters by philosophers, who reflect upon the ethical and metaphysical issues raised in The Godfather novels and movies, beginning with the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo and the 1972 movie by Francis Ford Coppola. The Godfather saga has had a profound impact on American cinema, storytelling, thinking about crime, and popular culture. Aimed at thoughtful fans of The Godfather franchise, among the questions tackled in these provocative philosophical chapters are the immigrant experience (...) in America, the relation between ethics and the law, the nature of moral corruption, private justice and vigilantism, organized crime and the American Dream, betrayal and forgiveness, religion and family values, the difficulties of breaking out of a dysfunctional way of life, and the uncertain consequences of vice laws. Joshua Heter teaches philosophy at Jefferson College, Missouri. He co-edited Punk Rock and Philosophy (2022). Richard Greene teaches philosophy at Weber State University, Utah. He wrote the definitive and highly acclaimed book, Spoiler Alert! (It's a Book about the Philosophy of Spoilers) (2019). (shrink)

In The Othering of Women in Silent Film: Cultural, Historical, and Literary Contexts, Barbara Tepa Lupack explores the rampant racial and gender stereotyping in early cinema and demonstrates how that imagery helped shape American attitudes and practices.

In the beginning was the night. All light, shapes, language, and subjective consciousness, as well as the world and art depicting them, emerged from this formless chaos. In fantasy, we seek to return to this original darkness. Particularly in literature, visual representations, and film, the night resiliently resurfaces from the margins of the knowable, acting as a stage and state of mind in which exceptional perceptions, discoveries, and decisions play out. Elisabeth Bronfen investigates the nocturnal spaces in which extraordinary events (...) unfold, and casts a critical eye into the darkness that enables the irrational exploration of desire, transformation, ecstasy, transgression, spiritual illumination, and moral choice. She begins with an analysis of classical myths depicting the creation of the world and then moves through night scenes in Shakespeare and Milton, Gothic novels and novellas, Hegel's romantic philosophy, and Freud's psychoanalysis. Bronfen also demonstrates how modern works of literature and film, particularly film noir, can convey that piece of night the modern subject carries within. From Mozart's "Queen of the Night" to Virginia Woolf 's oscillation between day and night, life and death, and chaos and aesthetic form, Bronfen renders something visible, conceivable, and comprehensible from the dark realms of the unknown. (shrink)

In the beginning was the night. All light, shapes, language, and subjective consciousness, as well as the world and art depicting them, emerged from this formless chaos. In fantasy, we seek to return to this original darkness. Particularly in literature, visual representations, and film, the night resiliently resurfaces from the margins of the knowable, acting as a stage and state of mind in which exceptional perceptions, discoveries, and decisions play out. Elisabeth Bronfen investigates the nocturnal spaces in which extraordinary events (...) unfold, and casts a critical eye into the darkness that enables the irrational exploration of desire, transformation, ecstasy, transgression, spiritual illumination, and moral choice. She begins with an analysis of classical myths depicting the creation of the world and then moves through night scenes in Shakespeare and Milton, Gothic novels and novellas, Hegel's romantic philosophy, and Freud's psychoanalysis. Bronfen also demonstrates how modern works of literature and film, particularly film noir, can convey that piece of night the modern subject carries within. From Mozart's "Queen of the Night" to Virginia Woolf 's oscillation between day and night, life and death, and chaos and aesthetic form, Bronfen renders something visible, conceivable, and comprehensible from the dark realms of the unknown. (shrink)

Can films philosophize rather than simply represent philosophical ideas developed outside of the cinematic medium? Taking up this question crucial to the emergent field of film philosophy, this book argues that the films of the American avant-garde do "do" philosophy and illuminates the ethical and political stakes of their aesthetic interventions. The book traces the avant-garde's philosophy by developing a history and theory of its investment in dimensional, conceptual, and material in-betweens, clarifying how this cinema's reflections on (...) the creation and reception of images construct an ethics of perception itself, a responsibility to perpetuate thought in an enduring re-encounter with the world and with meaning's unfinished production. This entails the avant-garde's locating of cinema's-and thought's-ends or meanings in their means, and their advancement of an image of truth that is made rather than found that unites their films with the philosophies of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Ralph Waldo Emerson who believed the "journey's end is found in every step of the road" (Cavell). Rectifying film-philosophy's neglect of the American avant-garde, the book demonstrates how rather than showing their interest in the revelation of authoritative truths, the avant-garde's interest in the re-encounter and review of the seen and known emerges from an American Transcendentalist tradition that opposes such notions. Sheehan reads the avant-garde's interest in the contingencies of spectatorial experience as also an extension of Pragmatism's commitment to replacing the authority of a priori knowledge with that of individual experience. She also shows how Emerson's influence on Friedrich Nietzsche connects the American avant-garde's philosophies to Deleuze's time-image, premised largely upon Nietzsche's "powers of the false.". (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Opera and film. Though these two cultural forms are not often thought of together, they have actually existed in an interesting symbiosis, ...

Motion pictures - Philosophy ; Motion pictures -- History and criticism ; Motion picture plays -- History and criticism.

This is a collection of highly engaging and provocative essays by top scholars in the increasingly interrelated fields of Philosophy, Film Studies, and Communication Arts that deal with the epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and ...

The Philosophy of Film Noir explores philosophical themes and ideas inherent in classic noir and neo-noir films, establishing connections to diverse thinkers ...

In this study, David Bordwell offers the first comprehensive account of how movies use fundamental principles of narrative representation, unique features of ...

' Armoured with his philosophical nunchakus, Bowman goes to battle with anyone who may doubt Lee's ongoing importance, and this book will undoubtedly become ...

Body, Soul and Cyberspace explores how recent science-fiction cinema addresses questions about the connections between body and soul, virtuality, and the ways in which we engage with spirituality in the digital age. The book investigates notions of love, life and death, taking an interdisciplinary approach by combining cinematic themes with religious, philosophical and ethical ideas. Magerstädt argues how even the most spectacle-driven mainstream films such as Avatar, The Matrix and Terminator can raise interesting and important questions about the human (...) self and our interaction with the world. Apart from these well-known science fiction epics, her analysis also draws on recent works, such as Inception, The Thirteenth Floor, eXistenZ, Aeon Flux, Total Recall (2012), Transcendence and TRON: Legacy. These films stimulate an engaging discussion on what makes us human, the role memory plays in understanding ourselves, and how virtual realities challenge the moral concepts that govern human relationships. (shrink)

Introduction -- Trapped by oneself in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the past -- "A deliberate, intentional fool" in Orson Welles's The lady from Shanghai -- Sexual agency in Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street -- "Why didn't you shoot again, baby?": concluding remarks.

Essays explore philosophical themes in The Planet of the Apes films including human-animal relationships, science and ethics.

Understanding how meaning mechanisms are unleashed in film has been at the center of numerous theoretical surveys of the last few years. Emphasis has especially fallen on seeing as a constructive, meaningful activity and on the diegetic implications of vision. This book is an attempt to extend film theorizing into a new realm, where hearing proves as important as seeing and where the relevance of filmic narrative is differently explored. New paths for future research are suggested by means of associations (...) with the works of linguists or philosophers who have never addressed film theory directly in their writings. Nonetheless, several concepts posited by them (relevance, natural versus non-natural meaning or the notion of Mental spaces) find their application in the present survey. A wide range of examples starting with point-of-view and editing occurrences, passing through the use of music and sound and culminating with the study of whole filmic ensembles, enables the reader to re-examine code-bound or, on the contrary, deviational structures. These are often drawn from familiar sources, proving that not only art films of the Eisenstein or Godard type enhance innovative meaning spaces. Finally, the viewer is seen as a «silly little kitty», an active not passive receiver of textual structures who relies on patterns of known visual or aural backgrounds open to an unlimited field of perspectives. (shrink)

This essay offers a critical examination of two recent Holocaust films that exemplify contrasting approaches to Holocaust representation: Peter Forgacs’s 1997 The maelstrom: A family chronicle and Quentin tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious basterds. One film is historical; the other translates history to figurative exaggeration. The essay explores how The maelstrom positions viewers within the constructed subjunctive spaces of the film, while Inglourious basterds positions viewers as spectators of history as comic book. Looking at these films together illuminates (...) competing rhetorical claims to expertise in film production and reception, and, in the context of Holocaust memory, the levels of expertise required of viewing audiences. Moreover, the analysis reveals that rhetorical aporia no longer dominates inventional possibilities for cinematic memory construction of the Holocaust. (shrink)

This book takes Hollywood's disaster movies and their codified versions of natural disaster, post-apocalyptic survival, and extra-terrestrial threat as the starting point for an analytical trajectory toward new understandings of how cinema shapes and informs our conceptions of disaster and catastrophe. This book examines a range of films from distinct regional and industrial contexts: Hollywood, indie movies, different kinds of documentaries, and auteurist-realist cinema. Moving across and beyond critical and industrial categories that inform thinking about cinema, it contends that (...) different approaches to film style can push us to imagine disaster in distinct ways, with distinct ethical connotations. (shrink)

In Soul of the Documentary, Ilona Hongisto stirs current thinking about documentary cinema by suggesting that the work of documentary films is not reducible to representing what already exists. By close-reading a diverse body of films - from The Last Bolshevik to Grey Gardens - Hongisto shows how documentary cinema intervenes in the real by framing it and creatively contributes to its perpetual unfolding. The emphasis on framing brings new urgency to the doumentary tradition and its objectives, and (...) provokes significant novel possibilities for thinking about the documentary's ethical and political potentials in the contemporary world. -- Provided by publisher. (shrink)