Thinking Reality and Time through Film


Book Description

Over the last few decades, film has increasingly become an issue of philosophical reflection from an ontological and epistemological perspective, and the claim “doing philosophy through film” has raised extensive discussion about its meaning. The mechanical reproduction of reality is one of the most prominent philosophical questions raised by the emergence of film at the end of the nineteenth century, inquiring into the ontological nature of both reality and film. Yet the nature of this audio-photographic and moving reproduction of reality constitutes an ontological puzzle, which has widely been disregarded as a main line of enquiry with direct consequences for philosophy. Regarding this background, this volume brings together the best papers from the Lisbon Conference on Philosophy and Film: Thinking Reality and Time through Film, held in 2014. What they all have in common is the discussion of new aspects and approaches of how philosophy relates to film. Whether by philosophizing through concrete examples of films or whether looking at film’s ontological reliance on time and image, or its intra-active entanglement with reality or truth, this book explores grasp film’s nature philosophically, and provides new insights for the film philosopher and the filmmaker, as well as for the freshman fascinated by film for philosophical reasons.




Refractions of Reality: Philosophy and the Moving Image


Book Description

This is the first book to explore all central issues surrounding the relationship between the film-image and philosophy. It tackles the work of particular philosophers of film (Žižek, Deleuze and Cavell) as well as general philosophical positions (Cognitivist and Culturalist), and analyses the ability of film to teach and create philosophy.




The Real of Reality: The Realist Turn in Contemporary Film Theory


Book Description

Reality has become an increasingly prominent topic in contemporary philosophy. The book’s contributors are responding to the challenge to use the philosophically underexplored potential of film to disclose what the editors propose to call “the real of reality.”




Thinking Revolution Through Film


Book Description

This book aims to redefine the relationship between film and revolution. Starting with Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on the American and French Revolution, it argues that, from a theoretical perspective, revolutions can be understood as describing a relationship between time and movement and that ultimately the spectators and not the actors in a revolution decide its outcome. Focusing on the concepts of ‘time,’ ‘movement,’ and ‘spectators,’ this study develops an understanding of film not as a medium of agitation but as a way of thinking that relates to the idea of historicity that opened up with the American and French Revolution, a way of thinking that can expand our very notion of revolution. The book explores this expansion through an analysis of three audiovisual stagings of revolution: Abel Gance’s epic on the French Revolution Napoléon, Warren Beatty’s essay on the Russian Revolution Reds, and the miniseries John Adams about the American Revolution. The author thereby offers a fresh take on the questions of revolution and historicity from the perspective of film studies.




Being and Film


Book Description

This book develops the so-called “solaristic ontology” of film by building a philosophical system based on an inquiry into the nature of film, being and reality. This “solaristic system” appropriates the aesthetic ideas and principles of thought present in the 1972 sci-fi movie Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky. This movie is the main center of analysis here since it is highly symptomatic of the medium’s philosophical self-reflexivity and its intriguing correlation with reality and being. The “solaristic science” is a fictional science introduced in the movie’s diegesis and dedicated to the investigation of the planet Solaris, an unattainable challenge. In this sense, the solaristic system closes the film’s narrative by telling a philosophical story on the planet Solaris. The book thus details a philosophical form of concept art, and, at the same time, builds on previous results of film philosophy, as well as the speculative turn in contemporary philosophy.




Flicker


Book Description

How is it that a patch of flickering light on a wall can produce experiences that engage our imaginations and can feel totally real? From the vertigo of a skydive to the emotional charge of an unexpected victory or defeat, movies give us some of our most vivid experiences and most lasting memories. They reshape our emotions and worldviews--but why? In Flicker, Jeff Zacks delves into the history of cinema and the latest research to explain what happens between your ears when you sit down in the theatre and the lights go out. Some of the questions Flicker answers: Why do we flinch when Rocky takes a punch in Sylvester Stallone's movies, duck when the jet careens towards the tower in Airplane, and tap our toes to the dance numbers in Chicago or Moulin Rouge? Why do so many of us cry at the movies? What's the difference between remembering what happened in a movie and what happened in real life--and can we always tell the difference? To answer these questions and more, Flicker gives us an engaging, fast-paced look at what happens in your head when you watch a movie.




Thinking Through Film


Book Description

THINKING THROUGH FILM Thinking Through Film provides the best introduction available to the diverse relationships between film and philosophy. Clearly written and persuasively argued, it will benefit students of both film and philosophy. Thomas E. Wartenberg, Mount Holyoke College, author of Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy Cox and Levine’s admirable Thinking Through Film picks up where Philosophy Goes to the Movies left off, arguing that films not only do philosophy but, in some cases, do it better than philosophers! The result is a rich and rewarding examination of films – from metaphysical thought experiments, personal identity puzzles, to reflections on the meaning of life – that shows, in bracing, no-nonsense fashion, how popular cinema can do serious philosophy. —Robert Sinnerbrink, Macquarie University Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies examines a broad range of philosophical issues though film, as well as issues about the nature of film itself. Using film as a means of philosophizing, it combines the experience of viewing films with the exploration of fundamental philosophical issues. It offers readers the opportunity to learn about philosophy and film together in an engaging way, and raises philosophical questions about films and the experience of films. Film is an extremely valuable way of exploring and discussing topics in philosophy. Readers are introduced to a broad range of philosophical issues though film, as well as to issues about the nature of film itself – a blend missing in most recent books on philosophy and film. Cox and Levine bring a critical eye to philosophical-film discussions throughout.




Introducing Philosophy Through Film


Book Description

Philosophy Through Film offers a uniquely engaging and effective approach to introductory philosophy by combining an anthology of classical and contemporary philosophical readings with a discussion of philosophical concepts illustrated in popular films. Pairs 50 classical and contemporary readings with popular films - from Monty Python and The Matrix to Casablanca and A Clockwork Orange Addresses key areas in philosophy, including topics in ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, free will and determinism, the problem of perception, and philosophy of time Each unit begins with an extensive introduction by the editors and ends with study questions linking readings to films Features chapter by chapter discussion of clips from films that vividly illustrate the critical philosophical arguments and positions raised in the readings




Plotinus and the Moving Image


Book Description

Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging “Cinema of Contemplation.” Plotinus' search for the "intelligible" that can be grasped neither by sense perception nor by merely logical abstractions leads to a fluent way of seeing. Parallels that had so far never been discussed are made plausible. This book is a milestone in the philosophy of film. Contributors are: Cameron Barrows, Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Michelle Phillips Buchberger, Steve Choe, Stephen Clark, Vincenzo Lomuscio, Tony Partridge, Daniel Regnier, Giannis Stamatellos, Enrico Terrone, Sebastian F. Moro Tornese and Panayiota Vassilopoulou.




Sculpting in Time


Book Description

A director reveals the original inspirations for his films, their history, his methods of work, and the problems of visual creativity