2,045 research outputs found
Embodied transculturation and the subversive potential of virtual empathy in the interactive art project 'The Machine to be Another' (2014)
Introduction: tarrying with disgust
Introduction for the special issue of Film-Philosophy on cinematic disgust
Bringing bodies back in: for a phenomenological and psychoanalytic film criticism of embodied cultural identity
This article reassesses the concept of identification in line with the increased importance phenomenology has taken on in film-philosophy of the 1990s and 2000s. In the 1970s and 1980s, a Lacanian psychoanalytic interpretation of identification dominated film theory and criticism, and spectatorial engagement with elements of films was understood as what psychoanalysis calls secondary identification â the identification with stable subject-positions (characters) in the film-text. But non-Lacanian psychoanalysis and Merleau-Pontyâs existential phenomenology offer film-philosophy a very different understanding of identification as a non image-based, âblindâ, bodily affective tie that is established between spectators and what Vivian Sobchack describes as âthe sense and sensibility of materiality itselfâ (Sobchack 2004, 65). By first exploring how this more bodily (for psychoanalysis, primary) identification is theorized by psychoanalysts (Freud, Paul Schilder, Henri Wallon) and by film theorists (Kaja Silverman), the article proposes that film criticism make greater use of it in order to engage more meaningfully with the visible cultural specificities â size, skin colour, age, sex â of the images of bodies viewed on cinema screens. It is not just âtheâ body that needs bringing back into thinking about film spectatorship, but culturally differentiated bodies, both on the screen and in the auditorium. A psychoanalytic and phenomenological film criticism of embodied cultural identity, one that attends to the materiality of the film and of the body-images and objects on the screen, may be the most culturally and politically useful successor to âscreenâ theory of the 1970s and 1980s
"The Violence of the Frame: Image, Animal, Interval in Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac"
Building on the film philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques RanciĂšre, this essay develops a queer naturalist account of film form centered on the ontogenetic dimensions of Lars von Trierâs film Nymphomaniac (2013)
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The politics of gift-giving and the provocation of Lars Von Trier's Dogville
In what follows, I wish to use the circumstances and dynamics of the nocturnal scene of destruction at the Old Mill and the subsequent scene of carnage at the house of Chuck and Vera in Dogville as a springboard for developing some reflections on the âpolitics of gift-givingâ, and the relationship between friendship and hostility in the exchange of social goods. The term âspringboardâ is no doubt too vague, here, because I intend to approach the two scenes, and the film as a whole, as a radical provocation, thus distinguishing my approach from the traditional methodology of âapplicationâ, in which a work of art is used in order to exemplify a certain theoretical construction. As it happens, âprovocation vs. illustrationâ in itself constitutes one of the key âmoralâ antagonisms of von Trierâs film and, as I shall argue, it is the dogged determination of Tom Edison Jr. (Paul
Bettany), the townâs amateur-philosopher, moral lecturer and self-crowned âminer of the human soulâ, to illustrate the human problem and his failure to be provoked which brings unrest to the township of Dogville and which finally makes it go to the dogs
The Denazification of MH: The Struggle with Being and the Philosophical Confrontation with the Ancient Greeks in Heideggerâs Originary Politics
James T. Hongâs experimental documentary, The Denazification of MH (2006) is neither an apology for Heideggerâs involvement with National Socialism nor a condemnation of that involvement. Rather, the film is a critical philosophical confrontation (Auseinandersetzung) with Heideggerâs thought and the issue of his involvement with National Socialism. The film addresses the perennial concern as old as philosophy itself: the relationship between the philosopherâs life and his philosophy. While the film does not adopt a definitive position regarding Heidegger, Nazism, and the issue of personal responsibility, it does suggest an affirmative response to the question posed by both Levinas and Blanchot regarding the possibility of philosophizing after Auschwitz
The Wartenberg-Smith Film as Philosophy Debate: Review of Current Controversies in Philosophy of Film
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