As a film aficionado, I love the philosophy of film. It brings together two studies I enjoy, showing the many ways they overlap. When at its best, it enables me to see both film and philosophy in a different way. Films become exercises in making abstract concepts manifest for our senses, while philosophy is experienced at a level more visceral than monographs allow. Philosophy of film creates an experience for the mind and body, and as such it directly engages with culture. As someone who believes that everyone in society benefits from exposure to philosophy, I see this as a positive thing.
A good example of what I mean is the recent French film titled I am Not an Easy Man. The movie begins by introducing a relatively misogynistic executive who makes women feel uncomfortable and thinks nothing of it. After hitting his head on a street sign for a road beginning with the French word for father, he wakes up on the same street, but which now begins with the word for mother. He quickly realizes he is in an alternate universe where women hold the most powerful positions, men can’t get jobs without significantly altering their appearance, and so on. The film effectively shows the way subtle differences (e.g. Kings being greater than Queens in poker) aggregate to a powerful system of oppression.
Here are some papers that use philosophy to explore film, and vice versa.
- Katherina Thomson-Jones, “How to Teach Philosophy of Film,” Teaching Philosophy, September 2016.
- Ed Cameron, “The Film Noir Doppelganger: Alienation, Separation, Anxiety,” Interdisciplinary Humanities, Spring 2016.
- Nicholas Diehl, “Socratic Film,” Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, Winter 2016.
- Milosz Paul Rosinski, “Touching Nancy’s ethics: death in Michael Haneke’s Amour,” Studies in French Cinema, June 2015.
- Laura D’Olimpio, “Thoughts on Film: Critically engaging with both Adorno and Benjamin,” Educational Philosophy & Theory, June 2015.
See the Routledge APA member page for more books on the Philosophy of Film. APA members get a 20% discount on all books.
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Dear Nathan, I am an advocate of philosophy being more attentive to fiction in all forms. As for film and as you indicate, they often embody topics and insights of philosophical significance. Consider Hitchcock, for example, as there is much more involved in his films than horror. There are many underlying philosophical beliefs expressed in them. One is that our destiny is often governed by pure caprice or blind chance. In ‘North by Northwest’, an advertising executive during a routine meeting happens to raise his arm to call for the bellboy at the same time that an announcement for a Mr. Kaplan is heard over the loud speaker. Two spies then falsely believe that he is this Mr. Kaplan which leads this unfortunate advertising executive into a web of intrigue and murder. In ‘Strangers on a Train’, a tennis player, by pure chance, happens to sit near a psychopath
whom he speaks to which ultimately results in the murder of his former wife and the destruction of his career. In ‘Psycho’, a woman who steals money gets caught in a rainstorm and stops, due to the adverse conditions, at the Bates Motel where she is murdered. This idea is similar to Heraclitus’ belief that the universe is a scrapheap scattered at random. Of course, there are many other examples as the one you express.
Thanks for your thoughts, Edward. I agree with what you say about philosophy engaging with all fiction. I’ve occasionally made connections between philosophy and comics that I think comic readers would value learning about.
Your views on Hitchcock movies and Heraclitus are an insightful addition to the post. I appreciate you sharing them.