Philosophy of Film

Philosophy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Thomson-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Film Theory ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Experimental Film ◽  
Nonfiction Film ◽  
Unified Field ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Artistic Medium ◽  
Art Philosophy ◽  
Digital Film ◽  
The Individual

For almost as long as there have been films, there have been philosophical theories about their art status, inherent realism, and distinctive aesthetic character. But philosophy of film did not become a unified field of study until the 1990s, the period in which analytic aesthetics generally began to pay more attention to the individual arts. Among the various philosophies of art, philosophy of film is distinguished by the degree to which it draws on a broader theoretical tradition. Many scholars in film studies are important contributors to philosophy of film. There is a particularly rich and productive collaboration between cognitive film theorists and philosophers on our engagement with films. In addition, some of the most influential views in the tradition of film theory influenced by psychoanalysis and semiotics have been subject to philosophical critique. It is important to note that philosophy of film is not the same thing as the increasingly popular practice of “doing philosophy” with film—using particular films to illustrate philosophical problems. There is some overlap, however, in interpretive work that also sheds light on distinctive features of the art form—for example, on how film narration works. There is also overlap in the growing subfield of film as philosophy: with the use of particular films as case studies, authors develop general accounts of the way film, as a distinctive artistic medium, can prompt and sustain philosophical reflection. Work in this subfield involves careful analysis both of the nature of philosophical activity and the nature of film as an art. Given the relative youth of the field, there is still plenty of work to be done in philosophy of film. The focus so far has been on narrative fiction film, and so more work is needed on nonfiction film—for example, documentary—as well as on experimental film. The main topics currently pursued in philosophy of film are described below, but with more work on different kinds of film, as well as on specific film genres and filmmaking traditions, new topics will undoubtedly emerge. Another important source of growth and development in the field is reflection on the significance of technological changes in filmmaking. Most notably, the ongoing shift from filmstrip-based to digital film has profound implications for our understanding of the art form. Philosophers have only just begun to explore these implications.

scholarly journals Cinematic “Pas de Deux”: The Dialogue between Maya Deren's Experimental Filmmaking and Talley Beatty's Black Ballet Dancer in A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945)

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-403
Author(s):  
HANNAH DURKIN
Keyword(s):  
Film History ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Experimental Film ◽  
Ballet Dancer ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Us ◽  
Artistic Vision ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Ballet Dancing

A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) is a collaborative enterprise between avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren and African American ballet dancer Talley Beatty. Study is significant in experimental film history – it was one of three films by Deren that shaped the emergence of the postwar avant-garde cinema movement in the US. The film represents a pioneering cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary dialogue between Beatty's ballet dancing and Deren's experimental cinematic technique. The film explores complex emotional experiences through a cinematic re-creation of Deren's understanding of ritual (which she borrowed from Katherine Dunham's Haitian experiences after spending many years documenting vodou) while allowing a leading black male dancer to display his artistry on-screen. I show that cultures and artistic forms widely dismissed as incompatible are rendered equivocal. Study adopts a stylized and rhythmic technique borrowed from dance in its attempt to establish cinema as “art,” and I foreground Beatty's contribution to the film, arguing that his technically complex movements situate him as joint author of its artistic vision. The essay also explores tensions between the artistic intentions of Deren, who sought to deprivilege the individual performer in favour of the filmic “ritual,” and Beatty, who sought to display his individual skills as a technically accomplished dancer.

scholarly journals Interpretation of an Epoch in the Novel "the Big Green Tent" by L. Ulitskaya: Linguistic-Cultural Analysis of Verbal Lexicon

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Ildar Ch. Safin ◽  
Elena I. Kolosova ◽  
Tatyana A. Gimranova
Keyword(s):  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Russian Verb ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Emotional Style ◽  
Illustrative Material

<p> This article is the verbal lexicon analysis based on the text of the novel "The Big Green Tent" by L. Ulitskaya. The creative manner of the contemporary writer attracts the attention of researchers, her writings describe the emotional experiences of the heroes and also give a generalized image of time full of historical details and features. The language of her stories and short stories is characterized by a special style in the description of time realities. A verb in the text allows the author to express the events and the circumstances that characterize an action in its dynamics due to the fact that verbal categories reflect the real reality in our consciousness. The method of linguistic cultural analysis of verbal lexicon in the novel "The Big Green Tent" made it possible to single out exactly those language units that the writer carefully selects for the creation and interpretation of the era. A special emphasis in the study is made on the creation of an expressive-emotional style of narration using the stylistic capabilities of the Russian verb. The individual author's methods of narration expressiveness creation are singled out: synonymous series, euphemisms, colloquial lexicon, etc. The conducted study and a careful analysis of the selected factual material testifies that, recreating an epoch, the master of the word invariably uses that language arsenal that brightly and fully conveys the color of time. L. Ulitskaya is able to be not only an indifferent witness of the epoch, but also her tenacious observer and interpreter. The analyzed factual material and the main points of this research can be used in the courses on stylistics and linguistic culturology, and also as an illustrative material during the classes on the linguistic analysis of a literary text.</p>

Aesthetics, Japanese

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meera Viswanathan
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Spiritual Awareness ◽  
Heian Period ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Japanese Art ◽  
Single Moment ◽  
Taxonomic Approach ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Individual

While the terms ‘aesthetics’ and ‘philosophy’ were only introduced into Japan during the Meiji Period (post 1868), Japanese culture has nevertheless witnessed the proliferation of various arts and theories of art for over a millenium. Given that ‘aesthetics’ generally connotes a scientific, often taxonomic approach to the inquiry into beauty and art, it may be preferable to consider Japanese art and theories of art from the perspective of different ways of artistry, rather than impose on it alien categories and assumptions. Even our understanding about what constitutes art must alter when we consider such arts as the production of incense, the tea ceremony, the martial arts or flower arrangement, most of which do not have precise analogues in the West; or if they do, are not considered arts alongside poetry, drama, music and painting. One of the hallmarks of Japanese art is the emphasis on an awareness of nature. Not only is the natural world a rich storehouse of images and metaphors for use as subject matter, but it is also the means whereby the practices, values and aspirations of the art are defined. Significantly, art itself is seen to be catalysed directly by an encounter with the natural world. All living beings, we are told, are given to song. Yet the natural world also came to be a shibboleth in society among the members of the Japanese court, where a finely honed seasonal awareness came to attest to the refinement and sensibility of the individual. Of all the arts, poetry was seen as pre-eminent, in part because of poetry’s powers to influence the spirits inherent in the natural world. Even the emphasis on place and place-names in Japanese art may be traced to an understanding of the Japanese landscape and language as sacredly imbued. Another feature of Japanese art and theories of art is its orientation toward the human. In other words, we may define Japanese art as ‘expressive–affective’ in its configuration, stressing the experience of the artist as well as the response of the audience in encountering such a work. In fact, the two roles of artist and audience are related through the focus of the work of art, which usually frames a single moment and its quintessential significance, hon-i, which is unchanging. The quality which ideally characterizes both artist and audience is makoto or sincerity, underlining the point that the function of most Japanese art is to make us feel, rather than think. As in a number of other traditions, Japanese ways of art are bound up inextricably with issues of religion and religious practice. Not only did Shintō animatism have a profound impact on how Japanese viewed their landscape as well as their own lives, but other imported systems of belief also influenced the course of artistic development, especially Buddhism. Buddhism darkened the hues of classical Japanese art by introducing ideas such as mappō (Latter Days of the Law), which saw the present as degraded and corrupt with respect to the past, and mujō (inconstancy), or the awareness of the ephemerality of this phenomenal world. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, art was perceived as a means of religious awakening, both in the case of poetry viewed as a form of intense meditation (shikan) and as parables whereby the truth could be disseminated obliquely (hōben). This paved the way for the pursuit of various forms of art to become a path (michi) to spiritual awareness. The relation of teacher and student in an art form closely resembled the relation of spiritual master to disciple, a feature which is echoed in the various ‘secret’ artistic treatises whose form, approach and significance suggest esoteric Buddhist manuals setting forth precepts for future generations. Japanese theories of art also concerned themselves with various aesthetic ideals, distillations of the changing notion of beauty in each era. From aware (the beauty inherent in transience) and miyabi (courtly beauty) during the Heian Period (784–1185), to yūgen (the beauty of mystery and overtones) and sabi (the beauty of desolation and loneliness) in the medieval period, finally to wabi (the beauty of dearth and the humble) and karumi (the beauty of playful lightness) during the Edo Period (1600–1868), to mention only a few of the many ideals, we see an evolution of ideals as a response to cultural and historical change. What becomes evident in any survey is the assumption of an underlying unity, as in the notions that the impulse toward art is natural and universal; that art functions as a bridge mediating the experience of artist and audience; that sincerity and heart are to be privileged above all other qualities; and that the discipline of art can be a means of spiritual awakening. But we also discover that ideas, such as play, are critical to all forms of art in Japan. Other issues have surfaced periodically in various art forms in the course of Japanese history, such as the struggle between tradition and innovation or the debate about art as spontaneous versus art as the product of careful cultivation (that is, the question of artifice in art), or the question of the singularity of Japanese art.

Visualizations in Time for a New Look at the Movies

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-61
Author(s):  
Ana Jorge ◽  
Teresa Chambel
Keyword(s):  
Web Application ◽  
Time Dimension ◽  
Tag Clouds ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Complex Information ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Movies are considered an important art form, a source of entertainment, and a powerful method for educating, having great power to affect us, perceptually, cognitively, and emotionally. A huge amount of movies and related information are becoming increasingly available due to technological advances, demanding new and more powerful ways to search, browse, and view this interesting but complex information space that changes over time. Time-oriented visualization can help to capture, express, understand, and effectively navigate movies over time: both the time when they were released, or viewed, and the time along which their contents are weaved, in each movie. This paper presents the design and evaluation of the authors' work towards the inclusion of the time dimension in 2D and 3D visualizations, based on colors and tag clouds, at the movies space level, and down to the individual movies in an interactive Web application to access, explore, and visualize movies based on the information conveyed in the different tracks or perspectives of its content, especially audio and subtitles where most of the semantics is expressed. Moreover, it is the authors' aim to help provide insights through analytical, ludic, or artistic uses, since it is the aim of these visualizations to provide non-usual kinds of search, whether the user wants a movie to watch or to be aware of the properties in its content. The authors tested the pertinence and effectiveness of the main visualizations, and the results provided a better understanding of what is more effective and appreciated, and encouraged them to continue extending and refining their work.

In the Classroom: “The Bohemian Life”: Opera and Gifted Education

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-64
Author(s):  
David A. White ◽  
Cynthia Sprague
Keyword(s):  
Gifted Education ◽  
Gifted Students ◽  
Aesthetic Idea ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Artistic Medium ◽  
Practical Reality ◽  
Grand Opera

Opera is considered by its devotees to be the highest form of art. Grand opera, to give the art form its more venerable name, is so praised because it represents an especially vibrant intersection of words, music, and stagecraft. In theory then, opera becomes a natural artistic medium to present to gifted students, since it offers an opportunity to introduce them to an intricately visual and aural experience, which will considerably broaden their awareness of how artful words joined with powerful music can enrich their world. The problem then is to transform this grand pedagogical and aesthetic idea into practical reality.

Cinema's Bodily Illusions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott C. Richmond
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Habits Of Mind ◽  
Experimental Film ◽  
Representational Approach

Before it is a technology for representation, the cinema is a technology for the modulation of its viewers’ perception. Cinema’s Bodily Illusions offers a theory of the cinema as a proprioceptive technology: the cinema makes its art by modulating viewers’ embodied sense of space. Grounded in phenomenology and media theory, the book offers a non-representational approach to the cinema that is in close conversation with theories of media and mediation, experimental film, and broader currents in cultural theory. Disputing against the deeply ingrained modernist habits of mind in film theory and aesthetics, and the attendant proclamations of cinema’s death (or at least its irrelevance), Cinema’s Bodily Illusions argues that the cinema’s proprioceptive aesthetics make it an urgent site of contemporary inquiry. In a moment when technologies seem to be disappearing from view, the cinema orchestrates an encounter with technology that is simultaneously an encounter with a world onscreen.

Realism about Film and Realism in Films

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Frank Boardman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Film Theory ◽  
Ontological Realism ◽  
Art Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
Andre Bazin

Realism has a significant place in the history of film theory. The claim that film is essentially a realistic art form has been employed to justify the art-status of films as well as the distinctness of film as a form. André Bazin and others once used realist ontologies of film to try to establish realist teleologies and universal critical standards. I briefly sketch this history before considering the prospects for various versions of realism: Bazin’s, as well as Kendall Walton’s and Gregory Currie’s less ambitious but more plausible accounts. I argue that these theories, though they are the best cases we have for realism, are not adequate ontologies of film. However, while prior realist philosophers and critics were wrong to think that realism can provide a critical standard for all films, realism is nonetheless a praiseworthy filmic achievement - one that the opponent of ontological realism should not dismiss.

Hegel’s Bathetic Sublime

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-236
Author(s):  
Martin Donougho ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Safe Distance ◽  
Objective World ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Persian Poetry ◽  
The Individual

Little attention has been paid to Hegel’s version of the sublime. I argue that the sublime plays a very marginal role in the Berlin lectures on aesthetics and on religion; in particular, Hegel ignores the “Romantic” sublime popular among his contemporaries. The sublime he locates in Persian poetry and more properly in Biblical Psalmody. After surveying his various articulations of the sublime, I turn to Hegel’s careful analysis of how the Psalms achieve their peculiar effects and note his focus on the “individual.” Paradoxically, while close to Romantic “subreption” (Kant’s term for subjective projection on objective world or word), their complex play with voice—and Hegel’s explication—both keep a safe distance, I contend. Turning finally to the question of anachronism and the sublime as a historical category, I suggest in a brief postscript how effects analogous to the Psalms’ rhetoric may nevertheless be detected in Terry Malick films.

Chinoiserie: An Unrequited Architectural Affair

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Denison
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
Collective Group ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Architectural Modernism ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Chinoiserie’s stylistic repertoire in Britain over recent centuries has encompassed a wide range of art practices, but it has remained conspicuously absent from one art form in particular: architecture – the slow art. Despite a promising, prominent and pioneering entrance onto Chinoiserie’s stage in the mid-eighteenth century, most notably through the work of Sir William Chambers, reverence for China in the field of architecture has been negligible when compared with decorative, visual and literary art forms. While acknowledging this relative obscurity, this chapter examines the long and complex architectural relations between Britain and China up to the mid-twentieth century, a seminal epoch in which Chinoiserie was gaining approbation in other art practices, architectural Modernism was at its height internationally, British architects were travelling to or being raised in China in greater numbers than at any time in history, and the first Chinese architects were returning from an education in various foreign countries, including Britain. These myriad architectural interrelations have received relatively little scholarly attention as a collective group in comparison to other art practices while the individual architects, Chinese (such as Luke Him Sau) and British, and their work remain underexplored.

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