An analysis of the film theory in the world viewed by stanley cavell

The debates about what the philosophy of film should look like are really just being joined. In his writing about film, Cavell first articulated this idea in Pursuits of Happiness. Philosophers of film have argued that identification is too crude a tool to use to explain our emotional engagement with characters, for there is a wide variety of attitudes that we take to the fictional characters we see projected on the screen.

Thought experiments involve imaginary scenarios in which readers are asked to imagine what things would be like if such-and-such were the case. Oxford University Press, — Absolute Age and Youth The goal of the critic should not be to reconstruct the intentions of the author but to display the various different contexts that explain the production of the work as well as its limitations.

Bazin ; For Bazin, the important dichotomy is not that between the sound and the silent film but rather between films that focus on the image and those that emphasize reality. See Sinnerbrink for a discussion of this idea.

After retiring, he taught courses at Yale University and the University of Chicago. Philosophers working in the Continental tradition have advocated a more sweeping account of film's contribution to philosophy.

Indeed, the term "film-philosophy" has been introduced to refer to the allegedly new form of philosophizing that takes place on film. He includes film and literary study in philosophical inquiry. The first was that early contexts for the exhibition of films included such venues as the vaudeville peep show and the circus side show.

Philosophers of film have generally opposed this view, seeing film as a source of knowledge and, even, as potential contributor to philosophy itself. Philosophers have also begun to pay attention to a strand of avant-garde filmmaking known as structural films. What this means is that, when I have an emotional response like anger to an imagined situation, I feel the same emotion that I would normally feel only I am not inclined to act on this emotion, say, by yelling or responding in an angry way, as I would be if the emotion was a full-fledged emotion.

The well-known psychologist of art, Rudolph Arnheim, made the surprising claim that the talkie represented a decline from the highpoint of silent cinema. When moviegoing was casual and we entered at no matter what point in the proceedings during the news or short subject or somewhere in the feature—enjoying the recognition, later, of the return of the exact moment at which one entered, and from then on feeling free to decide when to leave, or whether to see the familiar part through againwe took our fantasies and companions and anonymity inside and left with them intact.

Until recently, there have been few adherents to the idea that films can make a philosophical contribution. In a series of consecutive, dated entries, Cavell inquires about the origins of his philosophy by telling the story of his life.

Austin, Thoreau or Emerson; or movies. See Chatman and Gaut The first is that film scholars who are not professional philosophers have made many contributions to the field. The Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: College English Perhaps more than in any other country, film studies in the United States have been hampered by a tradition of casual reporting and a smuggish academic refusal to allow a mass entertainment art any serious intellectual status.

The simulation theorist says that the reason for this is that, when we experience an emotion off-line that would be distressing in real life, we may actually enjoy having that emotion in the safety of the off-line situation.

Although there is disagreement on the precise details of such a proposal, its adherents urge that the study of film be treated as a scientific discipline with an appropriate relationship between theory and evidence.

Actors, cinematographers, screenwriters, composers, and art directors all make significant contributions to films that the auteur theory underestimates.

On Film as Philosophy, Oxford: In this way, the actual character of the social domination assumed by such a view to be rampant in contemporary society was obscured in favor of a rosy picture of the realities of human social existence.

the work Stanley Cavell has done in film genre, but it is also about his work in philosophy, chiefly his concern in a second mind at work in film theory. While I find Cavell's work to be excellent on its own, I also have a in the analysis of film. These economic considerations. As a result of this surge in interest in film as a subject for philosophical reflection, the philosophy of film has become an important area of research in aesthetics.

This entry is organized around a number of issues that are central to the philosophy of film. Interspersed with these books are a substantial number of pieces on film collected in the volume Cavell on Film ().

Already in The World Viewed, Cavell argued that there is a serious moral philosophy that was not imposed on movies from the outside, like the Production Code, but was internal to the stories that movies are forever telling.

“Every teacher knows the excitement, and chaos, in learning about a subject by undertaking to teach it.” So writes Stanley Cavell of his decision in to teach a seminar on film.

The idea struck him as pedagogically promising, in that all present would have memories of their experiences with movies, and no established body of criticism.

Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film (); 2nd enlarged edition. () ISBN X ISBN Stephen Mulhall. The Stanley Cavell Special Issue: Writings and Ideas on Film Studies, An Appreciation in Six Essays, Film International, Issue 22, Vol. 4, No.

4 (), Jeffrey Crouse, guest editor. The essays include those by Diane Stevenson, Charles Warren, Anke Brouwers and Tom Paulus, William Rothman, Morgan Bird, and George Toles.

An analysis of the film theory in the world viewed by stanley cavell