“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
In The Wizard of Oz (1939), a cyclone transports Dorothy and her dog Toto from small-town Kansas into a fantastic realm, Oz. The audience witnesses the terrible consequences: Dorothy’s falling farmhouse crushes the Wicked Witch of the East, sending her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West, into a fit of rage and on a quest for vengeance.
Films create fantastic worlds, unique characters and novel ideas that transform our consciousness, and they accomplish this through a medium that’s usually far more accessible than a standard philosophical tract. Likewise, writing about philosophical themes in films can generate novelty, enriching our knowledge of cinema in unforeseen ways. So, a Philosophy of Film themed blog series has the potential to be many things to many people; to cultivate a broader appreciation of film as both an object of inquiry and as a consummatory experience; as well as to build a coalition of scholars dedicated to the enterprise of exploring film through philosophy.
As an academic sub-field of Aesthetics, Philosophy of Film touches on a wide swath of topics, ranging from—according to Thomas Wartenberg (entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)—“the idea of philosophy of film,” “the nature of film,” “film and authorship,” “emotional engagement,” “film and society,” and “film as philosophy”. Issues in ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, meta-ethics, philosophy of technology, educational philosophy, philosophy of mind, and even social, political, and legal philosophy, can emerge through the analysis of a film. It’s difficult to watch films like The Matrix (1999), Memento (2000), and Waking Life (2001) without appreciating their distinctively philosophical themes.
Philosophy of Film overlaps with the subfield of Film Studies known as ‘Film Theory,’ incorporating critical, literary, and philosophical studies of film and its institutional counterpart, cinema. As the Golden Age of the silver screen recedes from view, remakes of classic films, never-ending sequels, streaming series, and comic-book super-hero trilogies fill the void. As contemporary cinema blooms, the quality doesn’t always stack up to the classics. So, perhaps this is as good a time as any to step back and ask pressing, fundamental questions about the enterprise: What is film? What are its philosophical implications? How do films generate meaning in our daily lives?
The plan for this new blog series is for the majority of posts to contain philosophical treatments of specific films or scenes from a single film, classic or contemporary. Bloggers bring diverse methodological approaches to the subject matter, from the critical and analytical to the literary and genealogical. Excellent philosophical writing emphasizes clarity and concision of expression as well as rigor of analysis. This blog series is no different. It also welcomes work informed by diverse philosophical traditions, schools of thought, and historical as well as current philosophical figures.
As the blog series editor, my vision won’t surprise anyone familiar with my academic scholarship and public-facing philosophical work. I am a pragmatist and a John Dewey scholar. For me, Philosophy of Film is at its best when it resembles Philosophy through Film. Christopher Falzon’s entry in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the concept in this way:
“Film is understood not so much as an object of philosophical reflection as a medium for engaging in philosophy [including] debates over the extent to which film can really be understood to be ‘doing’ philosophy, as opposed to merely serving a s a source of inspiration or example for philosophical reflection.”
Film is at its best, I believe, when it operates as a media res for philosophical practice. Similar to John Dewey, I’m critical of the distinction between high and low art, as well as film and movie or art house and popular cinema. Likewise, Philosophy of Film isn’t restricted to the contemplative, arm-chair activities of professional philosophers. My hypothesis is that those who ‘do’ film—whether film industry insiders or outsiders—usually have their own guiding philosophical commitments (although they might not resemble a consistent philosophical system).
For some posts, I propose to interview workers in the film industry, often referred to as ‘creatives’—whether actors, camera operators, directors, producers, or script writers—probing their beliefs for an underlying philosophy of film—or better yet, a philosophy through film. In that spirit, John Dewey writes in Art as Experience:
“The intelligent mechanic engaged in his job, interested in doing well and finding satisfaction in his handiwork, caring for his materials and tools with genuine affection, is artistically engaged.”
No matter how mundane her work, the “intelligent mechanic,” performing as an “artistically engaged” practitioner, projects her craft into the world around her for others to enjoy. Film-makers are no different. Besides creative doers, they are also creative thinkers.
In a nutshell, the aim of this blog series is to explore what makes film philosophically interesting and engaging from a multitude of perspectives.
Shane Ralston, Ph.D., is a Teaching Fellow and Dean of Wright College, Woolf University. He is the author of two monographs: John Dewey’s Great Debates—Reconstructed (2011) and Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of Eco-Justice (2013). He also edited the collection Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations: Essays for a Bold New World (2013). He has authored over fifty articles, book chapters and popular essays on topics ranging from the philosophy of film to philosophical pragmatism to the history of American political thought.
