- Department of Philosophy
Macquarie University
W6A Building
Balaclava Rd
North Ryde NSW 2109
Sydney, Australia - 612 9850 9935
Robert Sinnerbrink
Macquarie University, Dept. of Philosophy, Department Member
- Macquarie University, Senior Lecturer, Philosophy, Faculty Memberadd
- Film-Philosophy, Film and Philosophy, Philosophy of Film, Aesthetics, Continental Philosophy, Film Theory, and 26 moreFilm Studies, Phenomenology, European Cinema, Critical Theory, Social Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Catherine Malabou, Philosophy, French Cinema, Film Analysis, Cinematic Affect, Gilles Deleuze, Contemporary French Philosophy, Slavoj Žižek, Ethics, G.W.F. Hegel, Santiago Zabala, Film, Lars von Trier, Film Aesthetics, Extended Mind, Melodrama, and Terrence Malickedit
- After studying medicine, creative writing, film, and philosophy, Robert was awarded his PhD on Hegel, Heidegger, and ... moreAfter studying medicine, creative writing, film, and philosophy, Robert was awarded his PhD on Hegel, Heidegger, and the Metaphysics of Modernity at the University of Sydney in 2002 (http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5710). During his postgraduate research candidature he spent six months studying at the Humboldt Universität in Berlin. He has taught philosophy at a number of institutions, including the University of Sydney, UTS, UNSW, The College of Fine Arts, and Macquarie University, before joining the Macquarie Department of Philosophy in July 2002.
Robert’s research areas of interest include Continental Philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of film, critical theory, romanticism, Heidegger, and social philosophy. He has recently been awarded an ARC Discovery Grant (with Dr Lisa Trahair and Dr Gregory Flaxman) on ‘Film as Philosophy: Understanding Cinematic Thinking’, commencing in 2010. He is currently co-writing a new book with Trahair and Flaxman on philosophical approaches to cinematic thinking.
Robert is a former Chair of the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy (ASCP) and is currently a serving member of the ASCP’s executive committee. He is a book review co-editor for the journal Critical Horizons, has been a member of the Sydney Society for Literature and Aesthetics, the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, and a former co-convenor of the Sydney Seminar for the Arts and Philosophy. He is currently on the editorial board of the journal Film-Philosophy (http://www.film-philosophy.com/index.php/f-p), the editorial advisory board of Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy (http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/edboard.html), and the general editorial board of the journal Derrida Today (Edinburgh University Press).edit
The relationship between film and philosophy has become a topic of intense intellectual interest. But how should we understand this relationship? Can philosophy renew our understanding of film? Can film challenge or even transform how we... more
The relationship between film and philosophy has become a topic of intense intellectual interest. But how should we understand this relationship? Can philosophy renew our understanding of film? Can film challenge or even transform how we understand philosophy? New Philosophies of Film explores these questions in relation to both analytic and Continental philosophies of film, arguing that the best way to overcome the mutual antagonism between these approaches is by constructing a more pluralist film-philosophy grounded in detailed engagement with particular films and filmmakers. Sinnerbrink not only provides lucid critical analyses of the exciting developments and contentious debates in the new philosophies of film, but also showcases how a pluralist film-philosophy works in the case of three challenging contemporary filmmakers: Terrence Malick, David Lynch, and Lars von Trier.
Table of Contents
Preface \ Introduction: Why Did Philosophy Go To The Movies? \ Part I: The Analytic-Cognitivist Turn \ 1. The Empire Strikes Back: Critiques of “Grand Theory" \ 2. The Rules of the Game: New Ontologies of Film \ 3. Adaptation: Philosophical Approaches to Narrative \ Part II: From Cognitivism to Film Philosophy \ 4. Cognitivism Goes to the Movies \ 5. Bande à part: Deleuze and Cavell as Film-Philosophers \ 6. Scenes from a Marriage: Film as Philosophy \ Part III: Cinematic Thinking \ 7. Hollywood in Trouble: David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE \ 8. ‘Chaos Reigns’: Anti-cognitivism in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist \ 9. Song of the Earth: Cinematic Romanticism in Malick’s The New World \ Coda: ‘The Six Most Beautiful Minutes in the History of Cinema’\ Bibliography \ Filmography \ Index.
Reviews:
Reviewed by Jason M. Wirth in Notre Dame Philosophy Reviews (November 2012): http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/35702-new-philosophies-of-film-thinking-images/
Reviewed by Deborah Knight in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol 70, no. 4 (Fall 2012): 401-403.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6245.2012.01531_5.x/abstract [DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6245.2012.01531_5.x]
Reviewed by Adam Melinn in Philosophy in Review, vol. 32, no. 5 (2012): 428-430 http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/pir/article/view/11591
Reviewed by Jane Stadler in the British Journal of Aesthetics: http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/07/31/aesthj.ays025.extract"
"Both an excellent introduction and an original contribution to the field, New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images covers a large range of theoretical positions with impressive adroitness. By offering incisive philosophical analyses alongside brilliant film readings, Sinnerbrink achieves that rare thing, a true marriage of the abstract and the concrete that will be of huge value to scholars and students alike."
Professor John Mullarkey, Kingston University, London, UK
"Robert Sinnerbrink’s New Philosophies of Film is a captivating, challenging, smart, and highly readable exploration of the aesthetic encounter between cinema and philosophy. As an introduction to the recent philosophical turn in film studies, the book offers a rich and insightful critical perspective on many influential developments in film theory such as cognitivism. As a contribution to the emerging field of philosophical engagement with film New Philosophies of Film shows that films can do more than just illustrate or serve as metaphors for philosophical ideas. Films are philosophically valuable in themselves insofar as they can engage in philosophizing as ‘thinking agents’. Furthermore, films can invite us to invest in them philosophically, to meet them in dialogue as philosophical discussion partners. This idea comes alive in Sinnerbrink’s exceptionally vivid examples, in which he analyzes the philosophical-aesthetic receptivity to the work of such filmmakers such as David Lynch, Lars von Trier and Terrence Malick. This book is a ‘must read’ not only for philosophers and film scholars, but also for anyone seriously enthusiastic about cinema."
Tarja Laine, Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
"New Philosophies of Film is an ambitious attempt to overcome the Analytic-Continental divide in theorizing about film and to develop a new understanding of the relationship between film and philosophy. Beginning with a critical overview of recent developments in the philosophy of film and ending with interpretations that present film as a new mode of thinking, this book breaks new ground and will have to be reckoned with by anyone interested in film and philosophy."
Thomas E Wartenberg, Professor of Philosophy, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA."""
Table of Contents
Preface \ Introduction: Why Did Philosophy Go To The Movies? \ Part I: The Analytic-Cognitivist Turn \ 1. The Empire Strikes Back: Critiques of “Grand Theory" \ 2. The Rules of the Game: New Ontologies of Film \ 3. Adaptation: Philosophical Approaches to Narrative \ Part II: From Cognitivism to Film Philosophy \ 4. Cognitivism Goes to the Movies \ 5. Bande à part: Deleuze and Cavell as Film-Philosophers \ 6. Scenes from a Marriage: Film as Philosophy \ Part III: Cinematic Thinking \ 7. Hollywood in Trouble: David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE \ 8. ‘Chaos Reigns’: Anti-cognitivism in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist \ 9. Song of the Earth: Cinematic Romanticism in Malick’s The New World \ Coda: ‘The Six Most Beautiful Minutes in the History of Cinema’\ Bibliography \ Filmography \ Index.
Reviews:
Reviewed by Jason M. Wirth in Notre Dame Philosophy Reviews (November 2012): http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/35702-new-philosophies-of-film-thinking-images/
Reviewed by Deborah Knight in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol 70, no. 4 (Fall 2012): 401-403.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6245.2012.01531_5.x/abstract [DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6245.2012.01531_5.x]
Reviewed by Adam Melinn in Philosophy in Review, vol. 32, no. 5 (2012): 428-430 http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/pir/article/view/11591
Reviewed by Jane Stadler in the British Journal of Aesthetics: http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/07/31/aesthj.ays025.extract"
"Both an excellent introduction and an original contribution to the field, New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images covers a large range of theoretical positions with impressive adroitness. By offering incisive philosophical analyses alongside brilliant film readings, Sinnerbrink achieves that rare thing, a true marriage of the abstract and the concrete that will be of huge value to scholars and students alike."
Professor John Mullarkey, Kingston University, London, UK
"Robert Sinnerbrink’s New Philosophies of Film is a captivating, challenging, smart, and highly readable exploration of the aesthetic encounter between cinema and philosophy. As an introduction to the recent philosophical turn in film studies, the book offers a rich and insightful critical perspective on many influential developments in film theory such as cognitivism. As a contribution to the emerging field of philosophical engagement with film New Philosophies of Film shows that films can do more than just illustrate or serve as metaphors for philosophical ideas. Films are philosophically valuable in themselves insofar as they can engage in philosophizing as ‘thinking agents’. Furthermore, films can invite us to invest in them philosophically, to meet them in dialogue as philosophical discussion partners. This idea comes alive in Sinnerbrink’s exceptionally vivid examples, in which he analyzes the philosophical-aesthetic receptivity to the work of such filmmakers such as David Lynch, Lars von Trier and Terrence Malick. This book is a ‘must read’ not only for philosophers and film scholars, but also for anyone seriously enthusiastic about cinema."
Tarja Laine, Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
"New Philosophies of Film is an ambitious attempt to overcome the Analytic-Continental divide in theorizing about film and to develop a new understanding of the relationship between film and philosophy. Beginning with a critical overview of recent developments in the philosophy of film and ending with interpretations that present film as a new mode of thinking, this book breaks new ground and will have to be reckoned with by anyone interested in film and philosophy."
Thomas E Wartenberg, Professor of Philosophy, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA."""
Research Interests:
Understanding Hegelianism explores the ways in which Hegelian and anti-Hegelian currents of thought have shaped some of the most significant movements in twentieth-century European philosophy, particularly the traditions of critical... more
Understanding Hegelianism explores the ways in which Hegelian and anti-Hegelian currents of thought have shaped some of the most significant movements in twentieth-century European philosophy, particularly the traditions of critical theory, existentialism, Marxism and poststructuralism.
REVIEWS:
“Twentieth-century continental philosophy can best be understood as a series of responses to Hegel and yet that simple fact is often invisible to students. Robert Sinnerbrink’s eminently accessible study opens up that perspective in a most impressive way and thereby promises to make a genuine contribution to how the next generation sees that history.” – Robert Bernasconi, University of Memphis
"Admirably clear and precise. As a new generation of teachers and students emerge, one constant is the need for us all to continue to come to terms with Hegel's thought, and its legacy. Sinnerbrink's Understanding Hegelianism is a very useful prolegomena to any such attempt. More prosaically but no less importantly, it is a concise introduction for new students, in effect, to European philosophy since Kant, its dramatis personae, and its leading debates." – Parrhesia
"Le but de ce livre destiné en priorité aux étudiants est de proposer un panorama synthétique de l’impact profond et multiple de l’œuvre hégélienne sur une grande partie de la philosophie des XIXe et XXe siècles."
-- Archives de Philosophie, Bulletin de Littérature hégélienne XVIII (2008)http://www.archivesdephilo.com/Bulletins/BLH/BLH18/BLH18Liste.php
REVIEWS:
“Twentieth-century continental philosophy can best be understood as a series of responses to Hegel and yet that simple fact is often invisible to students. Robert Sinnerbrink’s eminently accessible study opens up that perspective in a most impressive way and thereby promises to make a genuine contribution to how the next generation sees that history.” – Robert Bernasconi, University of Memphis
"Admirably clear and precise. As a new generation of teachers and students emerge, one constant is the need for us all to continue to come to terms with Hegel's thought, and its legacy. Sinnerbrink's Understanding Hegelianism is a very useful prolegomena to any such attempt. More prosaically but no less importantly, it is a concise introduction for new students, in effect, to European philosophy since Kant, its dramatis personae, and its leading debates." – Parrhesia
"Le but de ce livre destiné en priorité aux étudiants est de proposer un panorama synthétique de l’impact profond et multiple de l’œuvre hégélienne sur une grande partie de la philosophie des XIXe et XXe siècles."
-- Archives de Philosophie, Bulletin de Littérature hégélienne XVIII (2008)http://www.archivesdephilo.com/Bulletins/BLH/BLH18/BLH18Liste.php
Research Interests:
What are the tasks and potentials of critical theory today? How should we critique the present? Critique Today brings together a variety of perspectives in critical social philosophy that question our social and historical constellation.... more
What are the tasks and potentials of critical theory today? How should we critique the present? Critique Today brings together a variety of perspectives in critical social philosophy that question our social and historical constellation. It includes contributions by Genevieve Lloyd, Shane O’Neill, Paul Patton, Paul Redding, Emmanuel Renault, and Nicholas Smith, and examines critical intersections in the work of Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, and Giorgio Agamben. Critique Today aims to further the ongoing dialogue between German critical theory and French post-structuralism, explores the relationship between philosophy and social theory, and develops new approaches to Hegel and theories of recognition, the theme of social hope, and contemporary discussions of rights and power.
REVIEWS:
"Critique Today provides a fine set of essays and each in their own way presents novel insights on the state of critical theory today and how critical theory might develop and contribute towards a theory of emancipation."
-- Journal of Critical Realism
http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/JCR/article/viewArticle/3550
REVIEWS:
"Critique Today provides a fine set of essays and each in their own way presents novel insights on the state of critical theory today and how critical theory might develop and contribute towards a theory of emancipation."
-- Journal of Critical Realism
http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/JCR/article/viewArticle/3550
Research Interests:
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This issue of Scan presents an interdisciplinary exploration of recent approaches to the idea of film as philosophy. These approaches differ from much established work on the relationship between philosophy and film, which has tended to... more
This issue of Scan presents an interdisciplinary exploration of recent approaches to the idea of film as philosophy. These approaches differ from much established work on the relationship between philosophy and film, which has tended to focus on how film and film studies might be relevant to understanding various philosophical issues and arguments. For some philosophers, this has taken the form of an aesthetic inquiry into the nature of cinematic art; others have taken a more pedagogical approach to how films might “ ...
This issue of Scan presents an interdisciplinary exploration of recent approaches to the idea of film as philosophy. These approaches differ from much established work on the relationship between philosophy and film, which has tended to... more
This issue of Scan presents an interdisciplinary exploration of recent approaches to the idea of film as philosophy. These approaches differ from much established work on the relationship between philosophy and film, which has tended to focus on how film and film studies might be relevant to understanding various philosophical issues and arguments. For some philosophers, this has taken the form of an aesthetic inquiry into the nature of cinematic art; others have taken a more pedagogical approach to how films might “ ...
The films of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu explore the moral uncertainties and political complexities of everyday life in multicultural societies. His two most recent features, Babel (2006) and Biutiful (2010), present... more
The films of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu explore the moral uncertainties and political complexities of everyday life in multicultural societies. His two most recent features, Babel (2006) and Biutiful (2010), present contrasting narratives that make explicit, in dramatic and aesthetic terms, the challenges confronting marginalised subjects in a global context marked by social, religious, economic, and geopolitical conflicts. These films appear, moreover, in a cultural-historical moment of intense reflection—not ...
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Research Interests: Ethics and Documentary
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In a fascinating recent article,“The Ethical Turn in Aesthetics and Politics,” Jacques Rancière (2006) cites von Trier's Dogville, along with Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), as filmic instances of the contemporary ethical... more
In a fascinating recent article,“The Ethical Turn in Aesthetics and Politics,” Jacques Rancière (2006) cites von Trier's Dogville, along with Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), as filmic instances of the contemporary ethical turn in cinema. Dogville, Rancière claims, depicts the “avatars of justice in a local community”(2006: 2), displaying the contemporary retreat or eclipse of politics in art in favour of a post-political aesthetics that either attempts to reforge the ethical and social bonds of community in a pluralistic manner, or else bears witness to ...
Macquarie University ResearchOnline.
Macquarie University ResearchOnline.
Macquarie University ResearchOnline.
Macquarie University ResearchOnline.
According to tradition, philosophy begins in wonder. We might add that it usually ends in one of two ways, either in self-assured mastery or in thoughtful perplexity. Philosophical reflection on film presents an intriguing variation on... more
According to tradition, philosophy begins in wonder. We might add that it usually ends in one of two ways, either in self-assured mastery or in thoughtful perplexity. Philosophical reflection on film presents an intriguing variation on this theme. Here too we find wonder at the cinema: what it is or how it works, what makes it so arresting, enchanting, or overwhelming. Nonetheless, like traditional philosophical reflection on art–think of Plato's anxiety over the role of poetry in thepolis–philosophers of film often end up ...
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Macquarie University ResearchOnline.
Description Understanding Hegelianism explores the ways in which Hegelian and anti-Hegelian currents of thought have shaped some of the most significant movements in twentieth-century European philosophy, particularly the traditions of... more
Description Understanding Hegelianism explores the ways in which Hegelian and anti-Hegelian currents of thought have shaped some of the most significant movements in twentieth-century European philosophy, particularly the traditions of critical theory, existentialism, Marxism and poststructuralism. The first part of the book examines Kierkegaard's existentialism and Marx's materialism, which present two defining poles of subsequent Hegelian and anti-Hegelian movements. The second part looks at the ...
Critical Horizons, Vol 8, No 1 (2007). ...
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Research Interests: Critical Theory, Liberalism, Continental Philosophy, Hegel, German, and 13 moreFrench, Alienation, Difference, Reification, System, Becoming, Thought, NEO, Existential, Hegelianism, Philosophical, Social, and M
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Macquarie University ResearchOnline.
Description The relationship between critical theory and psychoanalysis has a long and interesting history. The first generation of Frankfurt School philosophers, particularly figures such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, embraced... more
Description The relationship between critical theory and psychoanalysis has a long and interesting history. The first generation of Frankfurt School philosophers, particularly figures such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, embraced psychoanalysis in order to explain why, given seemingly propitious historical circumstances (the Russian revolution, the socialist struggles of the 1920s, and the stock market crash of 1929),'the masses' opted for fascism rather than communism during the 1930s. Following the rise of Nazism and the ...
This book deals with a diverse range of developments in French critical theory and within its various dialogues. The first chapters engage most with post-structuralism; the middle section with German critical theory; and the final... more
This book deals with a diverse range of developments in French critical theory and within its various dialogues. The first chapters engage most with post-structuralism; the middle section with German critical theory; and the final chapters with Durkheim and classical French ...
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Page 1. Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory 10(2), August 2009, 153 © Acumen Publishing Ltd. 2009 Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance: Simon Critchley's Infinitely Demanding Robert... more
Page 1. Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory 10(2), August 2009, 153 © Acumen Publishing Ltd. 2009 Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance: Simon Critchley's Infinitely Demanding Robert Sinnerbrink and Philip A. Quadrio ...
“Romanticism,” wrote Baudelaire “is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth but in a mode of feeling”. This would make a fitting epigraph for Nikolas Kompridis's excellent collection of essays,... more
“Romanticism,” wrote Baudelaire “is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth but in a mode of feeling”. This would make a fitting epigraph for Nikolas Kompridis's excellent collection of essays, Philosophical Romanticism, which admirably articulates a novel way of understanding our contemporary philosophical and cultural situation. 1 More than a scholarly or historical retrospective, Philosophical Romanticism proposes a striking image of philosophy as a transformative cultural practice capable of ...
Research Interests: History, Metaphysics, Logic, German, French, and 14 moreAlienation, Difference, Existentialism, Morality, Freedom, System, Becoming, Thought, Existential, Hegelianism, Hegelian, Commodity, M, and Speculative
Why do philosophers (of film) assume that films only represent reality rather than being a part of it? Why does contemporary theory denigrate some films as 'illusory'while valorizing others as closer to 'reality'?... more
Why do philosophers (of film) assume that films only represent reality rather than being a part of it? Why does contemporary theory denigrate some films as 'illusory'while valorizing others as closer to 'reality'? Richard Rushton takes up these questions and more in his excellent new book, The Reality of Film, which forges a new conception of 'filmic reality'via bold rereadings of 'classic'film theorists such as Bazin, Metz and Lacan, as well as contemporary film philosophers such as Cavell, Deleuze, Rancière and Žižek. ...
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Macquarie University ResearchOnline.
Simon Critchley's Infinitely Demanding makes a timely contribution to contemporary debates in ethics and political philosophy. For all its originality, however, one can raise critical questions concerning Critchley's account of... more
Simon Critchley's Infinitely Demanding makes a timely contribution to contemporary debates in ethics and political philosophy. For all its originality, however, one can raise critical questions concerning Critchley's account of the forms of resistance possible within liberal democratic polities. In this article I question the adequacy of Critchley's ethically based neo-anarchism as a response to neo-liberalism, critically analysing the role of ideology in his account of the motivational deficit afflicting capitalist liberal democracies.
Such criticisms, so I wish to show, are interesting more for the assumptions they reveal than for any insight they might afford. At the very least they tend to misunderstand or distort the complex moral, political, and aesthetic purpose... more
Such criticisms, so I wish to show, are interesting more for the assumptions they reveal than for any insight they might afford. At the very least they tend to misunderstand or distort the complex moral, political, and aesthetic purpose of Haneke's work. Indeed, his films are better understood, I argue, as examining the socially disorienting and subjectively disintegrating effects of our post-humanist world of mass-mediatised experience. At the same time, they are highly reflexive cinematic works that question the nature of our relationship with screened ...
... moment, but the continuity of the movement which describes the figure' (quoted in Ambrose and Khandker 2005, 84). Schaffer notes that animation is distinguishable from cinema in that it does in fact depend upon... more
... moment, but the continuity of the movement which describes the figure' (quoted in Ambrose and Khandker 2005, 84). Schaffer notes that animation is distinguishable from cinema in that it does in fact depend upon 'privileged instants' (individual drawings) rather ...
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This article analyses some of the aesthetic and philosophical strands of Lars von Trier's Melancholia, focusing in particular on the film's remarkable Prelude, arguing that it performs a complex ethical critique of rationalist optimism in... more
This article analyses some of the aesthetic and philosophical strands of Lars von Trier's Melancholia, focusing in particular on the film's remarkable Prelude, arguing that it performs a complex ethical critique of rationalist optimism in the guise of a neo-italictic allegory of world-destruction. At the same time, I suggest that Melancholia seeks to “work through” the loss of worlds – cinematic but also cultural and natural – that characterises our historical mood, one that might be described as a deflationary apocalypticism or melancholy modernity. From this perspective, Melancholia belongs to a genealogical lineage that links it with two earlier films important for von Trier: Ingmar Bergman's Shame [Skammen] (1968) and Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice (1986). All three films share a concern with apocalypticism, world-sacrifice, and historical melancholia; but they also explore different responses to the imagined experience of a catastrophic loss of world. By examining these films in relation to Melancholia we can trace the logic of this loss, culminating in Melancholia's radical gesture of world-sacrifice; this aestheticisation of world-destruction has the paradoxical ethical meaning, I suggest, of preparing for a post-humanist beginning.
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In this paper I offer some ‘Cavellian meditations’ on how philosophy might strive to capture the ways film think; how the thought of movies—the manner in which they elicit and express thought—can prompt philosophy to reflect on its own... more
In this paper I offer some ‘Cavellian meditations’ on how philosophy might strive to capture the ways film think; how the thought of movies—the manner in which they elicit and express thought—can prompt philosophy to reflect on its own means of expression, its own possibilities for self-reflection. At the same time, however, Cavell’s work has left many philosophers and film theorists distinctly unsettled or even deeply unconvinced. How can Cavell eschew argument or ‘theory’ and yet still be regarded as engaging in philosophical work on and through film? What reasons does Cavell give for avoiding argument, and affirming philosophical style as a means of securing conviction in a reader? In what follows I seek to address these questions, offering a sympathetic defence of Cavell’s approach to writing philosophically on film, while also acknowledging the problem of the ‘avoidance of argument’ that continues to dog his work. My suggestion is that the performative aspect of Cavell’s writing—the manner in which his prose attempts to emulate, evoke, or mirror the experience of its object—should be supplemented by the invitation to critical reflection and philosophical reorientation that Cavell’s work extends.
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What happens to philosophy and the way we think, which is to say write, once philosophy opens itself to an encounter with film? What happens to our experience of film once we approach it as a philosophically creative medium of... more
What happens to philosophy and the way we think, which is to say write, once philosophy opens itself to an encounter with film? What happens to our experience of film once we approach it as a philosophically creative medium of communication? In what follows I offer some fragmentary remarks in response to these questions, suggesting that we can find a more robust and meaningful way of understanding Cavell’s claims concerning the kinship between film and philosophy by entertaining the possibility that both stand to be transformed by their mutual engagement. [A shorter version of my Cavellian Meditations: How to Do Things with FIlm and Philosophy]
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This chapter examines Alejandro Inárittu’s film Biutiful (2010) as a case of post-secularist cinematic ethics: an exploration of how cinema can evoke forms of ethical experience that resonate strongly with the post-secularist turn in... more
This chapter examines Alejandro Inárittu’s film Biutiful (2010) as a case of post-secularist cinematic ethics: an exploration of how cinema can evoke forms of ethical experience that resonate strongly with the post-secularist turn in contemporary cultural discourse. Biutiful crystallises the conflicting forces of globalisation in the story of a dying man’s attempts to reconcile faith, family, and survival in the socio-economic underworld of Barcelona. I contrast Biutiful with the Dardenne brothers’ La promesse, suggesting that these two films show complementary differences between secularist and post-secularist approaches to ethical experience. My aim in considering Inarittu’s film is thus to explore its capacity to elicit an ethical experience that is transformative rather than illustrative, performative rather than abstract, experiential rather than didactic.
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The recent ‘philosophical turn’ in film theory is often described as commencing during the 1990s, thanks to the growing film studies’ reception of works by Stanley Cavell (The World Viewed (1971/1979), Pursuits of Happiness (1981)) and... more
The recent ‘philosophical turn’ in film theory is often described as commencing during the 1990s, thanks to the growing film studies’ reception of works by Stanley Cavell (The World Viewed (1971/1979), Pursuits of Happiness (1981)) and Gilles Deleuze (Cinema 1 (1983/1985), Cinema 2 (1985/1989)). Thomas Elsaesser (2010), for example, credits Deleuze’s Cinema books as having inaugurated the current wave of interest in the intersection between film and philosophy. Although it is true that Cavell and Deleuze are key sources for what is often called the ‘film and philosophy’ or ‘film as philosophy’ approach, what I am calling ‘film-philosophy’ in fact has a much longer and more complex history that can be traced back to the very origins of film theory.
Drawing on pioneering work by Francesco Casetti, in what follows I make some observations and conjectures about the conceptual ‘logic’ linking the ideas of some of the key thinkers – such as Giovanni Papini, Ricciotto Canudo, and Jean Epstein – included within the history of early film theory (1907-1930). This is a remarkable period, spanning the consolidation of early cinema, emergence of avant-garde film, and the transition to narrative and talkies. As Casetti remarks, many of the essential motifs, tropes, and concepts that we can identify in current debates in philosophically-oriented film theory were already well articulated in early years of theorising on film. These include the idea of cinema as mind, cinema as writing, cinema as brain, cinema as thinking, cinema as philosophy, and cinema as overcoming traditional (film) theory in favour of an ‘anti-philosophy’ – many of which have returned or reappeared in the work of contemporary theorists, inspired by thinkers such as Deleuze, concerned to explore the complex relationship between cinema and philosophy.
Drawing on pioneering work by Francesco Casetti, in what follows I make some observations and conjectures about the conceptual ‘logic’ linking the ideas of some of the key thinkers – such as Giovanni Papini, Ricciotto Canudo, and Jean Epstein – included within the history of early film theory (1907-1930). This is a remarkable period, spanning the consolidation of early cinema, emergence of avant-garde film, and the transition to narrative and talkies. As Casetti remarks, many of the essential motifs, tropes, and concepts that we can identify in current debates in philosophically-oriented film theory were already well articulated in early years of theorising on film. These include the idea of cinema as mind, cinema as writing, cinema as brain, cinema as thinking, cinema as philosophy, and cinema as overcoming traditional (film) theory in favour of an ‘anti-philosophy’ – many of which have returned or reappeared in the work of contemporary theorists, inspired by thinkers such as Deleuze, concerned to explore the complex relationship between cinema and philosophy.
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The idea of ‘film-philosophy’ has gained currency in recent decades as an original contribution to film theory. Inspired by Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze, film-philosophers argue that film and philosophy can mutually illuminate each... more
The idea of ‘film-philosophy’ has gained currency in recent decades as an original contribution to film theory. Inspired by Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze, film-philosophers argue that film and philosophy can mutually illuminate each other, opening up new ways of thinking. Stephen Mulhall and Thomas Wartenberg claim that films can make creative contributions to our philosophical understanding via cinematic means. This ‘film as philosophy’ thesis has generated a lively debate over film’s capacity to contribute to philosophy, and raises deeper questions about how philosophy can be done, the relation between image and thought, and the language of philosophizing on film.
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Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), the second film in what one is tempted to call his ‘trauma trilogy’ (if descriptions of his next film, The Nymphomaniac, are correct) is a remarkable fusion of melodrama, apocalyptic disaster movie,... more
Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), the second film in what one is tempted to call his ‘trauma trilogy’ (if descriptions of his next film, The Nymphomaniac, are correct) is a remarkable fusion of melodrama, apocalyptic disaster movie, and Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk. Combining Schopenhauerian pessimism with German romanticism, Bergmanesque psychodrama with art cinema experimentation, von Trier creates an enchanted cinematic world consecrated to the disenchanting metaphysical idea of ‘world-sacrifice’. It does so by presenting a devastating portrait of depressive melancholia, dramatising the main character Justine’s [Kirsten Dunst’s] pathological experience of a ‘loss of world’ that finds its objective correlative in a sublime cinematic fantasy of world-annihilation. My discussion will analyse these various aesthetic and philosophical strands of Melancholia, arguing that it performs a complex ethical critique of rationalist optimism in the guise of a neo-romantic allegory of world-destruction.
Few cinephiles would deny the importance of mood in film; yet the aesthetics of mood are curiously overlooked today. On the one hand, mood is an essential dimension of cinema; we define certain genres, for example, by gesturing towards... more
Few cinephiles would deny the importance of mood in film; yet the aesthetics of mood are curiously overlooked today. On the one hand, mood is an essential dimension of cinema; we define certain genres, for example, by gesturing towards the moods they evoke (suspense, the thriller, the romance). On the other, words frequently fail us when we try to articulate such moods in a more abstract or analytical vein. In this paper, I offer some critical reflections on the aesthetic significance of mood, arguing that it primes us for appropriate emotional responses to film narrative by the aesthetic disclosure of cinematic worlds. To explore different variations in the aesthetics of mood—what I call disclosive, episodic, transitional, and autonomous moods—I shall consider some selected mood-sequences from recent films including Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005), Fa yeung nin wa/In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000), Habla con ella/Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002), and Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001). My aim is to suggest the virtues of a phenomenological approach to the aesthetics of mood, understood as a means of aesthetic world-disclosure (the revealing of a cinematic fictional world), and to show how mood remains essential to our aesthetic and emotional engagement with film.
One of the more original contributions to contemporary aesthetics is the idea that film can engage in its own distinctive kind of thinking: film as philosophy. Defenders of the ‘film as philosophy’ idea have argued that certain kinds of... more
One of the more original contributions to contemporary aesthetics is the idea that film can engage in its own distinctive kind of thinking: film as philosophy. Defenders of the ‘film as philosophy’ idea have argued that certain kinds of film are capable of screening philosophical thought-experiments (Thomas Wartenberg); that film can philosophise on a variety of topics, including reflection on its own status, in ways comparable to philosophy (Stephen Mulhall); or that film has its own affective ways of thinking that alter the manner in which film and philosophy can be sensuously experienced (Daniel Frampton). Critics of the ‘film as philosophy’ idea, by contrast, have argued that such claims are merely metaphorical: that since film, as a visual narrative art, does not give reasons, make arguments, or draw conclusions, it cannot be understood as ‘philosophical’ in the proper sense (Julian Baggini, Bruce Russell, Murray Smith). Alternatively, critics argue that any philosophy to be gleaned from a film is either due to the philosophical acumen of the interpreter, or else is confined to the expression of an explicit aesthetic intention on the part of its maker(s) (Paisley Livingston). The difficulty with such debates, I shall argue, is that they typically presuppose a reductive conception of what counts as philosophy, or fail to reflect on the variety of ways in which philosophy and film—or indeed philosophy and art—can be thoughtfully related. My suggestion is that the most productive way of exploring the idea of film as philosophy is as an invitation to rethink the hierarchical relationship between philosophy and art, and to explore novel ways in which our conventional understanding of philosophy—and aesthetic receptivity to new philosophical experience—might be transformed through the encounter between film and philosophy.
"Terrence Malick is, perhaps, unique: a film director who is well-trained in philosophy and who has published an English translation of a book by the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger. But should we see his movies as philosophical... more
"Terrence Malick is, perhaps, unique: a film director who is well-trained in philosophy and who has published an English translation of a book by the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger. But should we see his movies as philosophical statements? In particular, what are we to make of his latest, The Tree of Life, which is set in Texas in the fifties but also takes us back to the creation of the world and the age of the dinosaurs? Metaphysics or pretension? This week, a philosophical investigation of Malick's work." [From ABC Radio website]
Few cinephiles would deny the importance of mood in film; yet the aesthetics of mood are curiously overlooked today. On the one hand, mood is an essential dimension of cinema; we define certain genres, for example, by gesturing towards... more
Few cinephiles would deny the importance of mood in film; yet the aesthetics of mood are curiously overlooked today. On the one hand, mood is an essential dimension of cinema; we define certain genres, for example, by gesturing towards the moods they evoke (suspense, the thriller, the romance). On the other, words frequently fail us when we try to articulate such moods in a more abstract or analytical vein. In this article, I offer some critical reflections on the aesthetic significance of mood, arguing that it primes us for appropriate emotional responses to film narrative by the aesthetic disclosure of cinematic worlds. To explore different variations in the aesthetics of mood—what I call disclosive, episodic, transitional, and autonomous moods—I shall consider some selected mood-sequences from recent films including Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005), Fa yeung nin wa/In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000), Habla con ella/Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002), and Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001). My aim is to suggest the virtues of a phenomenological approach to the aesthetics of mood, understood as a means of aesthetic world-disclosure (the revealing of a cinematic fictional world), and to show how mood remains essential to our aesthetic and emotional engagement with film.
James Quandt coined the phrase ‘new French extremity’ to describe an emerging wave of explicit sex and extreme violence in French cinema during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Commencing with Gaspar Noe’s visually brilliant and brutal... more
James Quandt coined the phrase ‘new French extremity’ to describe an emerging wave of explicit sex and extreme violence in French cinema during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Commencing with Gaspar Noe’s visually brilliant and brutal first feature, I Stand Alone [Seul contre tous] (1998), and Catherine Breillat’s transgressive explorations of feminine sexuality in Romance (1999), this intriguing wave spans various genres including psychological horror, realist drama, and the rape revenge story. Included under this rubric are films such as Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trihn Thi’s Baise Moi (2000), Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day (2001), Patrice Chereau’s Intimacy (2001), Marina de Van’s In My Skin (2002), Noe’s Irreversible (2002), and Breillat’s Anatomy of Hell (2004). Marked either by extreme violence or graphic sexuality, indeed often by both, these films were accompanied by predictable moral outrage, media controversy, even public bans (Romance and Baise Moi, for example, were both banned briefly in Australia). Far from gratuitous—or indeed ‘unacceptable’—attempts to shock complacent arthouse audiences, such films, I wish to suggest, deploy explicit sex and violence in order to stage a subterranean form of traumatic critique. Despite their surface shock effects, their aesthetic of extremity conceals a deeper critical-political significance, which finds cinematic expression in traumatic and transgressive ways. I consider some examples of this kind of traumatic critique in the films of Gaspar Noe and Catherine Breillat, offering some reflections on the ethics and aesthetics of their provocative, yet perversely pleasurable, cinematic interventions.
What is the relationship between violence and the image? In my talk I shall explore how some contemporary filmmakers (like Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier) challenge Hollywood representations of violence as 'entertainment', and seek... more
What is the relationship between violence and the image? In my talk I shall explore how some contemporary filmmakers (like Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier) challenge Hollywood representations of violence as 'entertainment', and seek instead to restore the traumatic dimension to images of violence. Such 'trauma' films aim to provoke thought via intensive affect rather than intellectual reflection.
"This week, The Philosopher's Zone goes to the movies. In the second of two programs devoted to the great French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, we examine what he had to say about cinema. He was one of the first philosophers to turn their... more
"This week, The Philosopher's Zone goes to the movies. In the second of two programs devoted to the great French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, we examine what he had to say about cinema. He was one of the first philosophers to turn their attention to films and he saw film as a philosophical medium. But what did that mean and why, in his view, did film become more philosophical after World War II?" (from ABC Philosopher's Zone website)
"Gilles Deleuze, who died by his own hand in 1995, was one of the most influential and prolific French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. He wrote influentially not just on philosophy, but on literature, film, fine... more
"Gilles Deleuze, who died by his own hand in 1995, was one of the most influential and prolific French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. He wrote influentially not just on philosophy, but on literature, film, fine art and the environment as well. But his writing style - highly allusive, peppered with neologisms - is not easy-going. This week, we try to get to grips with a significant and important thinker." (from the ABC, Philosopher's Zone website).
Deleuze’s two Cinema books have had a profound impact on the study and theorisation of film. Although Deleuze insists that he is doing philosophy (rather than film theory) and creating concepts specific to film (rather than doing... more
Deleuze’s two Cinema books have had a profound impact on the study and theorisation of film. Although Deleuze insists that he is doing philosophy (rather than film theory) and creating concepts specific to film (rather than doing “philosophy of film”), the question remains as to how film and philosophy are related in his work. Both film and philosophy are forms of thought; the intersection between them involves a creative dissonance between concept and image. How, then, is philosophy transformed in this encounter with film? Instead of offering yet another dutiful analysis of Deleuze’s texts, I shall explore this question by staging an encounter between Deleuze’s philosophy and David Lynch’s recent film, INLAND EMPIRE. Lynch’s film engages in a “cinematic thinking” that is remarkably resonant with Deleuze’s thought, and can even be described as an enigmatic case of “film as philosophy”. The aim of my talk will thus be to show how film and (Deleuzian) philosophy can work together in a mutually transformative encounter.
A number of recent cognitivist approaches to theorising affect and emotional response in film have proposed solutions to the so-called “paradox of negative emotions”: why do we seek out certain films that evoke negative or unpleasant... more
A number of recent cognitivist approaches to theorising affect and emotional response in film have proposed solutions to the so-called “paradox of negative emotions”: why do we seek out certain films that evoke negative or unpleasant emotional or affective responses in us? For Noël Carroll, the (Humean) answer is to be found in the aesthetic and intellectual pleasures afforded by contemplating a well-wrought plot or by satisfying our narrative curiosity concerning a film’s monstrous presentation of horror; the viewer’s pleasure in solving such narrative puzzles or understanding ‘the monster’ trumps our negative affective experience of watching the film. For Carl Plantinga, the answer lies in a cognitive ‘reconceptualization’ or ‘working through’ of the negative emotional experience elicited by such films; the cognitive conversion of negative into positive emotions reframes the former’s negativity in such a way that “their overall impact is both cognitively and emotionally satisfying, comforting, and pleasurable (2009: 179). But of what of films that resist such aesthetic sublimation, intellectual puzzle-solving, or emotional conversion? In my discussion I consider two such cases, Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997 and 2007) Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009); films that, in their explicit treatment of horror, trauma, and intractable forms of affective response, resist such cognitivist resolutions of the paradox of negative emotions. Indeed, these films perform, I argue, a cinematic critique of precisely the kind of intellectualist theories of emotional response that currently dominate contemporary philosophical film theory.
Amy Kofman and Kirby Dick’s fascinating philosophical documentary, Derrida (2002), has generated strikingly ambivalent responses among viewers and critics. David Roden, for example, acknowledges the film’s attempts to explore the boundary... more
Amy Kofman and Kirby Dick’s fascinating philosophical documentary, Derrida (2002), has generated strikingly ambivalent responses among viewers and critics. David Roden, for example, acknowledges the film’s attempts to explore the boundary between the biographical and the philosophical, and to perform a version of deconstruction via its reflexive staging of the various interviews, lectures, readings, and ‘reality TV’ vignettes composing the film. While acknowledging its sensitivity to the “constructed or mediated nature of the image”, Roden echoes many critics in lamenting Derrida’s failure to engage in “philosophical discussion and analysis”, hence dismisses the film for being “insufficiently philosophical”. I take this intriguing philosophical rejection as an invitation to ask what it means for a film depicting ‘the life of a philosopher’ to either succeed or fail as ‘philosophy’. Rather than judging Derrida according to traditional philosophical discourse, my discussion will consider the problem of understanding ‘performance philosophy’ in film: the filmmakers’ attempt to ‘screen’ philosophy by way of cinematic performance. Derrida’s ‘failure’ as philosophy, I suggest, raises the question of how to think the relationship between thought and image, film and philosophy, as a performance of thought.
There are many ways in which one can think of films philosophically. There are films that screen or perform cinematic ‘thought experiments’; there are films that treat philosophical themes within narrative scenarios; and there are films... more
There are many ways in which one can think of films philosophically. There are films that screen or perform cinematic ‘thought experiments’; there are films that treat philosophical themes within narrative scenarios; and there are films in which filmmakers draw explicitly on philosophical works or ideas. There are also films that might regarded as philosophical because of their reflection on the medium, exploration of genre or style, or questioning of the everyday. Rather than arguing that film can be philosophical in these ways, however, I wish to explore a different scenario: responding to a film that provokes yet thwarts philosophical reflection. More generally, I wish to explore the claim that there are films which ‘resist theory’, hence provide challenging aesthetic cases to test the thesis that films can engage in a distinctively ‘cinematic thinking’.
One such film is David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE (USA/Poland, 2006), which is notable for a number of reasons. It announces Lynch’s farewell to film, being entirely shot on digital video. It combines fragmentary elements from short experimental videos Lynch had recently made (using digital video). It abandons the lush cinematic aesthetic of its predecessor, Mulholland Drive (2001), and embraces instead a ‘primitive’, low-tech’ aesthetic that is at once amateurish and mesmerising. The film draws on Lynch’s decades’ long practice of Transcendental Meditation and interest in Eastern thought and religion (particularly the Upanishads). It extends Lynch’s critical meditation on the corruption of the grand tradition of Hollywood film and represents the apogee of his fascination with feminine performance. Despite its seeming incomprehensibility, INLAND EMPIRE is also the most sustained meditation on the crisis in contemporary cinema that Lynch has yet produced.
As an example of a film that ‘resists theory’, INLAND EMPIRE can be understood as coalescing three related dimensions: 1) place understood as (Lynchian) psychogeography, an aesthetic modality in which locale and subjectivity, mood and multiple temporalities commingle and communicate; 2) consciousness in an expanded sense, encompassing the fragmentary experiences of the film’s characters, those of the viewer, and that of the ‘filmind’ embracing them all; and 3) the topologically communicating filmworlds of Hollywood and European art cinema, whose broken dialogue and haunting return provides the film with something evoking a fragmentary whole—yet one that resists narrative and interpretative closure. Crucial here is the crisis that Lynch acutely diagnoses as a corruption or “putrefaction” (to use his term) of Hollywood; a failure to acknowledge or renew its subtle relationship with the dying tradition of European art cinema to which Lynch, like many other great Hollywood auteurs, owes a profound debt. From this point of view, INLAND EMPIRE is a work of film-philosophy that questions the contemporary crisis in film, seeks to reanimate the broken dialogue between Hollywood and European traditions, and gestures towards the renewal of cinema through visual experimentation and the aesthetic power of cinematic performance.
One such film is David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE (USA/Poland, 2006), which is notable for a number of reasons. It announces Lynch’s farewell to film, being entirely shot on digital video. It combines fragmentary elements from short experimental videos Lynch had recently made (using digital video). It abandons the lush cinematic aesthetic of its predecessor, Mulholland Drive (2001), and embraces instead a ‘primitive’, low-tech’ aesthetic that is at once amateurish and mesmerising. The film draws on Lynch’s decades’ long practice of Transcendental Meditation and interest in Eastern thought and religion (particularly the Upanishads). It extends Lynch’s critical meditation on the corruption of the grand tradition of Hollywood film and represents the apogee of his fascination with feminine performance. Despite its seeming incomprehensibility, INLAND EMPIRE is also the most sustained meditation on the crisis in contemporary cinema that Lynch has yet produced.
As an example of a film that ‘resists theory’, INLAND EMPIRE can be understood as coalescing three related dimensions: 1) place understood as (Lynchian) psychogeography, an aesthetic modality in which locale and subjectivity, mood and multiple temporalities commingle and communicate; 2) consciousness in an expanded sense, encompassing the fragmentary experiences of the film’s characters, those of the viewer, and that of the ‘filmind’ embracing them all; and 3) the topologically communicating filmworlds of Hollywood and European art cinema, whose broken dialogue and haunting return provides the film with something evoking a fragmentary whole—yet one that resists narrative and interpretative closure. Crucial here is the crisis that Lynch acutely diagnoses as a corruption or “putrefaction” (to use his term) of Hollywood; a failure to acknowledge or renew its subtle relationship with the dying tradition of European art cinema to which Lynch, like many other great Hollywood auteurs, owes a profound debt. From this point of view, INLAND EMPIRE is a work of film-philosophy that questions the contemporary crisis in film, seeks to reanimate the broken dialogue between Hollywood and European traditions, and gestures towards the renewal of cinema through visual experimentation and the aesthetic power of cinematic performance.
One of the more original contributions to contemporary aesthetics is the idea that film can engage in its own distinctive kind of thinking: film *as* philosophy. Defenders of the ‘film as philosophy’ idea have argued that certain kinds of... more
One of the more original contributions to contemporary aesthetics is the idea that film can engage in its own distinctive kind of thinking: film *as* philosophy. Defenders of the ‘film as philosophy’ idea have argued that certain kinds of film are capable of screening philosophical thought-experiments (Thomas Wartenberg); that film can philosophise on a variety of topics, including reflection on its own status, in ways comparable to philosophy (Stephen Mulhall); or that film has its own affective ways of thinking that alter the manner in which film and philosophy can be sensuously experienced (Daniel Frampton). Critics of the ‘film as philosophy’ idea, by contrast, have argued that such claims are merely metaphorical: that since film, as a visual narrative art, does not give reasons, make arguments, or draw conclusions, it cannot be understood as ‘philosophical’ in the proper sense (Julian Baggini, Bruce Russell, Murray Smith). Alternatively, critics argue that any philosophy to be gleaned from a film is either due to the philosophical acumen of the interpreter, or else is confined to the expression of an explicit aesthetic intention on the part of its maker(s) (Paisley Livingstone). The difficulty with such debates, I shall argue, is that they typically presuppose a reductive conception of what counts as philosophy, or fail to reflect on the variety of ways in which philosophy and film—or indeed philosophy and art—can be related. My suggestion is that the most productive way of exploring the idea of film as philosophy is as an invitation to rethink the hierarchical relationship between philosophy and art, and to explore novel ways in which our conventional understanding of philosophy—and aesthetic receptivity to new kinds of philosophical experience—might be transformed through the encounter between film and philosophy.
Over the course of at least the last hundred years the intellectual study of cinema has experienced a number of shifts towards and away from theoretical or philosophical attempts to understand the moving image. The twenty-first century... more
Over the course of at least the last hundred years the intellectual study of cinema has experienced a number of shifts towards and away from theoretical or philosophical attempts to understand the moving image. The twenty-first century sees film-philosophy resurgent, in part due to the interest in cinema that has flourished recently in disciplines like philosophy, and in part due to the interdisciplinary nature of Film Studies. At a time when it is increasingly in vogue to return to theoretical questions previously pushed off the agenda by the dominance of historical approaches to cinema, such as the perennial "What is Cinema?", we are taking this opportunity to ask, "What is Film-Philosophy?" In a context that is witnessing the rise of digital cinema, the global dominance of multi-national media conglomerates, and the worldwide spread of "world cinemas", what role does theory or philosophy play in helping us understand cinema, and indeed, what role can cinema play in transforming philosophy?
This thesis examines the problem of identity and difference in Hegel and Heidegger and thereby attempts to shed light on the relationship between the critique of metaphysics and the critique of modernity. Both Hegel and Heidegger, it is... more
This thesis examines the problem of identity and difference in Hegel and Heidegger and thereby attempts to shed light on the relationship between the critique of metaphysics and the critique of modernity. Both Hegel and Heidegger, it is argued, investigate identity and difference in relation to the problem of self-consciousness or subjectivity within the historical context of modernity. Their respective critiques of modern subject-metaphysics can for this reason also be viewed as critiques of the philosophical foundations of modernity. Two paths or lines of inquiry can be identified: Hegel’s dialectical-speculative path, which attempts to supersede modern subject-metaphysics in favour of speculative philosophy, the form of thought adequate to the experience of freedom in modernity; and Heidegger’s ontopoetic path, which attempts to detach itself from metaphysics in order to usher in a ‘non-metaphysical’ experience of technological modernity. These two paths are explored through a critical dialogue between Hegel and Heidegger as a way of showing the relationship between the critique of metaphysics and the critique of modernity. Part I of the thesis considers the philosophical background to the identity/difference problem and its relation to the principle of self-consciousness within modern philosophy. The early Hegel’s encounter with Kant and Fichte is explored as an attempt to criticise the (theoretical and practical) deficiencies of the philosophy of reflection. Part II considers Hegel’s positive project in the Phenomenology of Spirit, in particular the theme of intersubjective recognition and its significance for theorising self-consciousness in modernity. Hegel’s critique of substance- and subject-metaphysics is examined in the Science of Logic, which integrates the logic of identity and difference within the threefold Conceptual unity of universal, particular, and individual. Part III then turns to Heidegger’s explicit confrontation with Hegel, discussing Heidegger’s project of posing anew the question of Being, and examining in detail Heidegger’s “Cartesian-egological” reading of the Phenomenology. The later Heidegger’s “non-metaphysical” or ontopoetic evocation of identity and difference is further explored in light of Heidegger’s critical engagement with the nihilism of technological modernity. In conclusion, it is suggested that the critical dialogue between Hegel and Heidegger can open up new paths for exploring the problem of freedom in modernity.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Critical theory has always taken up the task of responding to historical conditions of crisis and transformation. Even during the darkest periods of the twentieth century, it attempted to articulate whatever emancipatory possibilities... more
Critical theory has always taken up the task of responding to historical conditions of crisis and transformation. Even during the darkest periods of the twentieth century, it attempted to articulate whatever emancipatory possibilities still remained viable in modernity. Critical theory, however, has fallen on hard times.
“Romanticism,” wrote Baudelaire “is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth but in a mode of feeling”. This would make a fitting epigraph for Nikolas Kompridis's excellent collection of essays, Philosophical... more
“Romanticism,” wrote Baudelaire “is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth but in a mode of feeling”. This would make a fitting epigraph for Nikolas Kompridis's excellent collection of essays, Philosophical Romanticism, which admirably articulates a novel way of understanding our contemporary philosophical and cultural situation.
Research Interests:
Nietzsche's scattered remarks on Hegel are striking, though not surprising, for their seeming disparity. On the one hand, Nietzsche praises Hegel's historical sense, his grasp of the becoming of reason in history; on the other, Nietzsche... more
Nietzsche's scattered remarks on Hegel are striking, though not surprising, for their seeming disparity. On the one hand, Nietzsche praises Hegel's historical sense, his grasp of the becoming of reason in history; on the other, Nietzsche attacks Hegel's Socratic optimism concerning the power of reason to reconcile us with the modern state. If Hegel had never existed, Nietzsche might have quipped, philosophers would have had to invent him. How do things stand, then, with these two giants of modern thought?
Perniola's marvelously succinct collection of essays on contemporary aesthetics and art practice is a welcome addition to this philosophical discussion. Art and its Shadow is not only fascinating reading for those interested in visual... more
Perniola's marvelously succinct collection of essays on contemporary aesthetics and art practice is a welcome addition to this philosophical discussion. Art and its Shadow is not only fascinating reading for those interested in visual culture and aesthetics, it is also enlightening for those readers concerned with exploring the complex relationship between philosophy and cinema.
A co-authored opinion piece with Santiago Zabala defending philosophy's contribution to critical debate in democratic society.
Can movies be ‘ethical’? Some of the most lively and innovative philosophical engagement with cinema and ethics in recent years has come from phenomenological and cognitivist perspectives in film theory. This trend reflects a welcome... more
Can movies be ‘ethical’? Some of the most lively and innovative philosophical engagement with cinema and ethics in recent years has come from phenomenological and cognitivist perspectives in film theory. This trend reflects a welcome re-engagement with cinema as a medium with the potential for ethical transformation, that is, with the idea of cinema as a medium of ethical experience. This challenges the more sceptical view according to which cinema’s power of affective and emotional engagement inevitability reproduces ideological biases through viewer manipulation. My presentation explores the phenomenological turn in film theory (with its focus on affective, empathic, and embodied responses to cinema), emphasising the ethical implications of phenomenological approaches to affect and empathy, emotion and evaluation, care and responsibility, and our experience of ‘the Other’. The oft-criticised ‘subjectivism’ of phenomenological theories, I argue, can be supplemented by recent cognitivist approaches that highlight the complex forms of affective response, emotional engagement, and moral allegiance at work in our experience of moving images. I will explore this exciting crossover between phenomenological and cognitivist approaches in regard to recent films that have attracted critical attention from both perspectives. My suggestion is that an ‘empathic ethics’ is at work in a number of films, such as Ashgar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011) and the Dardenne Brothers’ Two Days, One Night (2014), which offer striking case studies of a ‘cinematic ethics’.