The following is my Journal for PHI350: Philosophy and Cinema.  There's quite alot of content here so I've whittled it down to the most relevant content, that which directly relates to my assessment and that which most impacted me.  I'm quite a fan of Aristotle and I think that it shows in the first few entries.  Also, I happened to come accross a contemporary scholar of Aristotle in general and virtue ethics in particular through another course that I took this semester (PHIL2400: Ethics and the Passions - the University of Queensland).  Lisa Tessman writes heavily upon virtue ethics under oppression and this is another area that I focus on in the final entry of this journal.  I haven't edited the journal entries at all so they may not flow from one another in the sense of a narrative.  They will, however, illustrate the main points that I have taken from the course and how I have applied them both in the study of this course and elsewhere.

Entry One

As part of my assessment for PHI350: Philosophy and Cinema I have to keep a journal which can be presented in whatever creative fashion one desires (although a basic text only, handwritten journal is fine too).  What I've proposed is that I keep my journal online, as an aspect of this website, part of my blog, as there are numerous benefits to doing so.  My T.A. agreed.  The main benefit that I see is the potential for interactivity.  Now I know that my website is fairly new and has a limited readership but the potential still remains.  The journal doesn't actually have to begin until week two however I will share some of my reactions and thoughts relating to week one too.  Also, if you click this link you'll be presented with a list of all of my journal entries.  This will be fairly boring at the moment (March 2008) as you're reading my first journal entry.

The film for this week was Jonathan Demme's Silence of the Lambs (1991), a film about, for the very few of you who don't know, the relationship between a Psych. (I think?) student working for the F.B.I. and her search for a serial killer.  This relationship is mediated via an incarcerated serial killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecter who has had a relationship with serial killer being pursued.  I'm not entirely certain why this particular film was chosen for week one other than it is a popular film and perhaps it would keep the students on side.  Anyhow, the lectures this week dealt with two fundamental concepts, Plato's Cave and the nature of Cinema.

The nature of Cinema was debated via Noël Carroll's 'Towards an Ontology of the Moving Image' which attempts to provide four necessary conditions of cinema without providing an essentialist model.  These four conditions are: 'Disembodied Viewpoints', 'Moving Images', and the last two come under the heading of 'A Difference in Performances'.  I'll paste in my responses to the tutorial questions below which provides greater detail as to what these mean.

Plato's Cave seems to always be the first point of call when studying art or anything that may be perceived as subjective.  The main aspect of Plato's Cave that I was interested in was representations of reality.  This was discussed in the lecture in relation to to the above mentioned text and the Silence of the Lambs.  The particular concept was looking at film as either a prosthetic device or as a mimetic device, how film represents the reality that it is portraying.  This was looked at through a particular scene of the film where a prosthetic device is used to enhance the vision of one of the characters.  I was more interested in how this concept related to film more generally as Plato's Cave provides a great vision of how the true world can be filtered and projected, as in cinema, into the material world.  I doubt that cinema projects a true world, however I would argue that cinema attempts to project true ideas.

Anyhow, we did have the option to watch a supplementary film this week, La Jetèe.  This film does a very good job of representing Plato's Cave and brings into question how to define film itself as it's composed almost entirely of still images.  Some of what I wrote on the PHI350 discussion board is as follows:

... This relates to film in numerous ways, ways that are apparent in La Jetèe.  Jetèe presents us, from not far in to the film, with a group of persons inhabiting a world where their perception of reality is filtered; they are living in Plato's 'physical cave', and their knowledge of the 'real world' post WWIII is filtered as they are unable to leave the cave due to a physical barrier - radiation.

Further, the main character is almost madly focused, even obsessed, with his memories, memories that shape his conception of reality, rather than for empirically gained conceptions of reality and purpose such as the experimenters' desire for wealth. Such memories, internal conceptions of reality that were 'deposited' before the main character entered the cave, are similar to Plato's distinction between the reality of the real world and the filtered reality of the cave. We even see the main character, via the progressive visits into the past, view this reality, a reality outside of the cave, a reality based upon his internal memory, come to believe that that reality is the real reality. His obsession with this new ontological world of objects that fascinate him (such as in the market scene where he looses the woman due to his obsession) becomes more important for him.  Interestingly, this last scene also occurs in Plato's cave allegory where one of the inhabitants of the cave gets the opportunity to leave and is initially blinded by the light of the sun...

I won't present much more here for this week however I've opened comments below for discussion on anything presented here.  Also, as I mentioned above, below are my responses to this week's tutorial questions.

Tutorial Questions

 

1. What are the necessary conditions an art object or event must satisfy to be called 'cinema'?

Carroll outlines four necessary conditions of cinema. These are:

Disembodied viewpoints

Carroll argues that one cannot orient their physical being with the objects being represented or communicated via the medium of film like one can with prosthetic devices such as binoculars. One doesn't claim to have seen the great wall of China unless one has been in physical proximity of the great wall of china. Carroll does place a small disclaimer relative to this condition however. He states that the Disembodied viewpoint cannot be seen as a necessary condition of film on its own for other mediums such as painting can potentially share it. This is where Carroll's other necessary conditions become apparent.

Moving Images

Carroll explores Danto's claim that for a given X to be a moving picture, a film, it is reasonable to expect to see movement in X. Danto claims that this explains the difference between films composed of still images such as La Jetèe and slide shows for, according to Danto it is logically OK for the viewer of a film of still images to expect movement at any given moment but this is not the case for slide shows.

Carroll has a few reservations with this position and, therefore, refines it as follows. 'X, then, is a moving image only if X possesses a disembodied viewpoint (or – to state it less anthropomorphically – only if X is a detached display), and only if it is logically justifiable to expect movement in X when the spectator of X is informed about its nature. Carroll does have a reservation with this position because he sees some dramatic representations as fulfilling these criteria. I don't necessarily agree for I feel that his disembodied viewpoint clause limits this possibility (although this may be satisfied by Carroll's next clause). Also I feel that if this definition is followed then once the viewer watches a film such as La Jetèe for the first time, of which it would be a film by this definition, any subsequent viewing would no longer constitute it being a film. I find it logically unsound to claim that X can both be Y and Z, where Y and Z are contradictory properties, without changing its substance.

A Difference in Performances

This is actually Carroll's final two necessary conditions. He lists them as '3) only if performance tokens of X are generated by templates and 4) only if performance tokens of X are not artworks.

By tokens Carroll is referring to how a motion picture or play relates to its source. For example the the video I watched today was a token of the Silence of the Lambs by Jonathan Demme. You'll notice that Carroll argues that to meet the necessary condition of a motion picture the token must be generated by templates. These templates may be such things as a film print, a DVD or even a piece of flash code. They all exist in a spatial location and are of substance. If the original motion picture copy is destroyed the motion picture may still exist in the form of one of its other possible templates. A play, while being a token, is not a template, it is an interpretation. If the given interpretation does not exist then the token does not exist. The interpretation, while in action, may have a spatial location, that is no longer apparent when the given interpretation is over. Even in subsequent performances of the play for each subsequent performance is a new interpretation with its own unique, and temporary, spatial location.

The last condition is an interesting one and by this Carroll is not meaning that there can be no artistic merit within a motion picture. What Carroll is arguing is that when one views a play one is watching a piece of art in action in that particular spatio/temporal location whereas when one watches a motion picture it is not art in how it is represented to the viewer; it is simply a mechanical process of delivery that will be, mechanical failures aside, represented identically upon every viewing.

2. How does film performance differ from theatrical performance? What is a 'performance', in the context of motion picture theatre?

I'll directly quote Carroll here. 'One difference between the performance of a play and the performance of a film, then, is that the former is generated by an interpretation and the latter is generated by a template. Moreover, this difference is connected to another, which is perhaps more interesting, viz., that performances of plays are artworks in their own right and can be aesthetically appreciated as such, whereas performances of films and videos are not artworks, nor does it make sense to evaluate them as such (p.78). Performances in motion pictures differ to those of plays, for example, as the 'recipe and the interpretations are constituents of the same artwork' whereas in a play each is its own separate artistic entity.

I was not originally fond of this idea. I was, however, inclined towards Carroll's claim that motion pictures are not performances in their own right like a play is. this led, in a way, to seeing that Carroll was correct to claim that there is a fundamental difference in performance between plays and motion pictures. A performance of a play is a spontaneous event that the actor begins and cannot finish until the scene is over. A motion picture on the other hand at east has the possibility of allowing the actors to retake scenes until everyone is satisfied and post production artists are involved in enhancing the storyline through audio and video editing. Even if one were to make a video recording of a play performance it would be different because of these elements. Further the play is a dynamic entity whereas the motion picture is a static representation.

3. What does Carroll perceive as the advantages of a non-essentialist definition of cinema?

Carroll claims that cinematic essentialism, as he calls it, 'holds that the essence of a medium, such as film, determines what style should prevail in that medium. Andrè Bazin wrote, for example, that “The realism of cinema follows from its photographic nature”. ...it regards artistic media as natural kinds equipped with unalterable, gene-like mechanisms that propel their destiny along one vector of stylistic development (p. 68).'

Carroll has two main objections to this position. Primarily he argues that artistic media are conducive to 'multiple, nonconverging and even potentially conflictive stylistic projects' and secondly that artistic media cannot be thought of as natural kinds because they are 'made by humans to serve human purposes'. Carroll uses the example of the development of the piano to illustrate that human desire is able to shape, and reshape, the development of the medium: 'it is not, ...[as with] essentialism, the pre-existing shape of the medium that dictates style, but style that dictates the very structure and shape of the medium.'

Carroll has reservations about assigning essentialist characteristics to cinema for he feels that in doing so it will limit any stylistic direction open to film makers. Rather than incorporate his four necessary conditions into an essentialist sufficient condition, Carroll instead argues for their use as interpretation tools rather than classification tools that '[legislate] what film and video artists should and should not do'.

Entry Two

This week's material was actually quite wide ranging.  We had readings by Rancière on Artistic Regimes and the Shortcomings of the Notion of Modernity, Jarvie, more broadly, on the Philosophy of film, Aristotle on what makes a good plot, and, of course, Plato's cave and a little on art theory (such as his simile of the chair).  The film for this week was either Buster Keaton's 'Our Hospitality' or 'The General', I chose 'The General' as I own a copy.  And, as usual, my tutorial question responses follow at the end.

I really enjoyed the Aristotle reading this week, although I feel he'd be a little shocked if he were to find himself situated in the Post-Modern world that Rancière describes.  Aristotle, although defining that which makes a good story (plot) is based upon subjective experiences, is quite an absolutist.  Maybe he'd even be considered, if he were around, as one of Jarvie's 'Protectors'.  The most fundamental difference between Aristotle's perspective and a post-modern perspective is that the post-modernist, through a devotion to egalitarian principles, allows a mixing, as it were, of genres and other aspects of 'art' that Aristotle would have seen as abhorrent.  I'm sure that Aristotle would have been a fundamental critic of Michael More's post-modern documentary style that allows for a mixing of historical facticities and poetic verse.  Although were Plato still here he'd likely criticise both for focusing upon mere mimeses/mimesis' (I don't know what the plural for mimesis is), representations, rather than suppressing the passionate desire for sensual pleasure (artistic experience) and focusing the mind upon the true world.  It would certainly make for a fascinating debate!

Anyhow, that's enough of my historical judgmentalism.  Let's have a look at the film for the week.

Buster Keaton's 'The General' is perhaps my favorite slapstick film, if you haven't seen it it's a must!  'The General' is a train and Keaton plays the engineer, or is it the assistant engineer, I'll have to double check.  Anyhow, in true slapstick style the hero is an object of objects, in 'The General' Keaton becomes the object of the train, amongst other objects.  This poses some interesting cinema related metaphysical questions.  As I mention below Aristotle argues that what makes a good plot is not the story of the hero but the actions that are focused upon.  'The General'  has the train as the main hero with Keaton as an accidental recipient of praise towards the end.  It seems throughout the entire film that the train has a desire upon the world around it and possesses a certain power to act within this world.  I won't go into too much of a spiel about this film as Noel Carroll has written a brilliant piece that I just couldn't compete with, 'Interpreting the Moving Image' of which chapters four and five deal specifically with Buster Keaton and 'The General'.

Below are my responses to the tutorial questions for this week.  Perhaps I'll be blessed with a comment or two as I'm yet to receive any on the tutorial discussion board.

Jarvie Reading

In what way does Plato's parable of the cave anticipate cinema?

There is a particular quote within the Jarvie excerpt (p. 48) that illustrates the relationship between Plato's cave parable and it's relationship with cinema, both the content of cinema and one's relationship with cinema. The quote is as follows (and was neatly indicated with parentheses by a previous reader!):

Cinema goers are not fettered, but they do concentrate their attention on the frontward source of light and sound and attempt to exclude 'distractions'. There is a single source of light above and behind them that casts shadows on the front wall. The shadows are artifacts, only some being reproductions of objects in the real world. Sounds are generated that appear to come from the direction of and hence out of the shadows. We are, then, re-enacting Plato's thought experiment every time we experience a film.

Jarvie goes on to argue that just as in Plato's cave parable if one were to take the shadows, the cinema projection, the projected reality, to be actual reality then he or she would be considered mad. One should not substitute the false reality of films for actual reality (p. 48).

Why is the situation of the 'cave people' in Plato's parable different from that of cinema goers? And why does Jarvie think this is significant for an understanding of cinema?

To begin with the people of Plato's cave have been there since birth and, even though the concept didn't exist in Plato's time, were not there of their own free will. The person who engages with cinema moves in and out of the world around him or her and the cinematic world akin to Plato's cave and thus routinely experiences the differences between the two 'worlds', allowing the person to discriminate upon both 'worlds'. Those whose discriminatory ability is limited in this relationship we designate as mad, as in the answer to the above question (p. 50). Also, and of fundamental importance, when we enter the cinema we are aware of the possibility of deception. This, argues Jarvie, is one of the qualities that make cinema going desirable (p. 52).

Jarvie does turn to a point that is instantly awakened upon reading his above defence of cinema in relation to Plato's cave parable, how does one actually know which is the real world and which isn't? What features designate cinema as non real that subsequently judge our other everyday experiences as real for isn't cinema just an aspect of the 'real' world? We aren't actually shifting between two distinct worlds when we participate in cinema, are we? These concepts are discussed in the answer to the following question (p. 50).

What is the phenomenological dimension of cinema? What characterizes cinema from the point of view of the viewer/listener, in terms of the boundaries between real/unreal, and imagination/reason?

Phenomenologically cinema is an aspect of our 'real' world. Many of the experiential qualities of participating in cinema are to be found outside of cinema too. One doesn't think that the chair she's sitting on in the cinema is a different ontological entity than the chair at her work desk, neither does one conceive of the darkness present in the cinema as different to that in his wine cellar. Cinema is, therefore, ontologically the same as our other 'real' world experiences.

What does happen in cinema, argues Jarvie, is that we create 'real' conditions within our 'real' world that allow us to to experientially engage with a non real world within our minds. We therefore know that this created world is a non real world (p. 51). We are not deluded when we participate in cinema, we subject ourselves to voluntary illusion that we are at all times aware of (p. 54).

Because cinema is an aspect of the natural world but differs from it certain ways it becomes nested within our perception of the natural world (p. 54-55). Cinema becomes a sub class of phenomenological experience that exists under and within what conditions we know are apparent within the natural world. because we are always aware of this relationship, cinema, like other nested attributes of the natural world, elements such as dreams and drama performances that seem to allow us entry into an other world, accentuates the characteristics of the natural world through highlighting the differences between the natural, or 'real' world, and the non real worlds these nested experiential conditions present (p. 55).

Rancière Reading

What are the three major 'regimes of art'? How are they characterized, and what sets them apart from each other?

Rancière (p. 20) argues that '[w]ith regard to what we call art, it is in fact possible to distinguish, within the Western tradition, three major regimes of identification'. These three regimes are the 'Ethical Regime of Images', the 'Poetic Regime', and the 'Aesthetic Regime'.

The Ethical Regime of Images.

Under this regime art is understood based upon its relationships. Ethics is fundamentally concerned with relationships, relationships between one's passions and one's rational mind, between one's desires and the desires of the community, and the relationship, and hence classification of an almost teleological kind, between the different origins and ontological statuses of the varied aspects of the relationship. Ethics analyses these relationships and postulates what the likely outcomes will be. Rancière argues that art can be perceived within such an ethical framework as questions arise as to the origin of the artwork and the truth of its content, and what the end, purpose, or result of the artwork will be (p. 20). Rancière (p. 21) uses a Platonic model to analyse ideas relating to the origin of artworks, the Platonic concept of representation, and how their end, their result, allows a value to be placed upon them:

These imitations...are distinguished by their end or purpose, by the way in which the poem's images provide the spectators, both children and adult citizens, with a certain education and fit in with the distribution of the city's occupants.

In this way, Rancière argues, people and art exist in a kind of relationship of which art is able to exert an influence. Because of this relationship art must be thought of in terms of ethics.

The Poetic Regime.

The

Poetic Regime

looks at the substance of art. Art's substance, the components that combine to create the final artwork, are defined through methods of doing and methods of constructing which therefore constitute, what Rancière (p. 22) calls, 'proper ways of doing and making as well as means of assessing imitations'. Rancière uses the example of the poem as an example here, an example that I needn't go into, but one that shoes how artworks contribute to a discourse of representing truth and images and, perhaps more importantly for this definition, how artworks are defined by their substance as in the poem's plot which constructs elements in certain ways that impact upon the essence of the image being represented or imitated (pp. 21-22).

Rancière also add that the Poetic Regime contains an element he calls Representative. Artworks are Representative in so far as they organise 'ways of doing, making, seeing, and judging' (p. 22). Artworks are fundamentally about being visible to the senses; how the artwork achieves this goal becomes classified under Rancière's Representative clause.

The Aesthetic Regime.

Rancière claims that the Aesthetic Regime exists in contrast to his position on Representation discussed above (p. 22). This regime is best outlined via a direct quote of Rancière (p. 23):

The Aesthetic regime of the arts is the regime that strictly identifies art in the singular and frees it from any specific rule, from any hierarchy of the arts, subject matter, and genres. Yet it does so by destroying the mimetic barrier that distinguished ways of doing and making affiliated with art from other ways of doing and making, a barrier that separated its rules from the order of social occupations.

This may all seem a bit long winded, and perhaps it is, but what Rancière is attempting to explain is that art, under the Aesthetic Regime, no longer needs to conform to artistic genres, classifications and rules relating to subject representation. Art becomes singular, each artistic representation is its own unique entity that is its own expression, can portray its own unique style, and represent any subject in any way it sees fit. However, as the lecture this week explained, the Aesthetic Regime, through asserting its singularity and defining itself based upon concepts such as creativity, allows all sorts of paradoxical situations to arise. For example, the increasingly common assertion that 'my young child could have painted that'. Perhaps this need not be seen as negative however. Perhaps this is an example of how art can be an egalitarian enterprise. It still remains, though, that if no barriers are to be placed upon the Aesthetic Regime it will be increasingly difficult to define what an artwork is for what defines an artwork shifts from the artwork representing itself as art to the individual perceiving something as art. Perhaps my description of a tree, a naturally occurring entity, to an audience defines that particular tree as an artwork because now it is seen through a certain aesthetic perspective dictated my myself, a now self designated artist.

Rancière has a big problem with the notion of 'modernity'. Why?

Rancière (p. 26) claims that '[t]he notion of modernity...seems to have been deliberately invented to prevent a clear understanding of the transformations of art and its relationships with the other spheres of collective experience'. Rancière argues that there are two variations in the understanding of modernity and its relationship with art.

The first is that of the autonomous nature of art, of art being identified with an 'anti-mimetic revolution' (p, 26). This would see artworks explore, and only explore, what is intrinsic about themselves such as painting exploring only the use of various coloured pigments and brush strokes and poetry exploring only communication (p. 26). Rancière has issues with this position as it is severely limiting. Rancière (p. 26) claims that there has been an 'overwhelming defeat of this simple modernist paradigm, which is forever more distant from the mixtures of genres and mediums as well as from the numerous political possibilities inherent in the arts' contemporary forms'.

Rancière (pp. 26-27) calls the second variation, or form of modernity, Modernatism by which is meant 'the identification of forms from the aesthetic regime of the arts with forms that accomplish a task or fulfil a destiny specific to modernity'. Modernatism seeks to expand upon Schiller's concept of a dichotomous ontological distribution and promote an almost Aristotle like middle ground. The concept of aesthetic autonomy, however, displays the limitations of Modernatism through illustrating the primacy of freedom and pure thought, perhaps some early form of contemporary egalitarian theory.

Aristotle Reading

What is the ideal length of a plot or story? Why?

Aristotle (p. 53) argues that 'just as organized (sic.) bodies and animals, if they are to be beautiful, must have size and such size as to be easily taken in by the eye, so plot, for the same reason, must have length and such length as to be easily held in the memory'. Now for Aristotle there is no rule of a set limit of time, as far as the concept of time is concerned, such as a performance being timed with a clock. What Aristotle does argue for is that the intrinsic nature of the plot or story, or in the case that he is most explicitly referring, a tragedy, will itself define the ideal length. It would be absurd to say that the ideal length of a plot, for example, is X minutes across all plots, for some plots will possess far more characters, or many more relationships, than others and to effectively communicate a beginning, middle, and end (see question below) would be impossible in these circumstances. So the ideal length of a plot for Aristotle occurs, in his own words, '[i]f the length is sufficient to permit a change from bad fortune to good or from good fortune to bad to come about in an inevitable or probable sequence of events, this is a satisfactory limit of magnitude (p. 53)'.

You'll notice that Aristotle is here referring to the tragedy. This needn't his summary of an ideal plot length to just tragedies however. This statement may be read as follows: A satisfactory length for any given plot occurs when the length is sufficient to fulfil the criteria of the genre and for the beginning, middle, and end to occur in a natural fashion. Of course this places the concept of the ideal length of a plot upon the viewer thus making it very subjective. Do remember, however, that Aristotle is arguing that the ideal plot length is akin to beauty and, after-all, isn't beauty a subjective phenomenon? (excuse the rhetorical question)

What confers unity to a plot?

There are multiple aspects to a good, and unified, plot in Aristotle's Opinion. To begin with a plot necessarily has three temporal characteristics, a beginning (that which has something following it), a middle (that which occurs after something and also has something else following it), and an end (that which follows something but has nothing following it). 'A well constructed plot' says Aristotle (p. 52) '...will neither begin at some chance point nor end at some chance point, but will observe the principles [above]'. Further it is not sufficient for a plot to be centred around a character for the main aspect of a plot, and more specifically the plot of a tragedy, is the action.

Aristotle provides the example of Homer's plots that focus on an action rather than the hero himself (p. 53). The Odyssey, for example, while certainly having a main and central character, is devoted to the action of this character rather than every event experienced by the character over a given time period. It is true that the Odyssey focuses upon a hero, Odysseus, but what is of prime importance for Aristotle is the fact that the epic narrates a single action of Odysseus, namely his return to Ithaca following the fall of Troy, rather than every event that occurred during this time frame.

The goal of a plot is, therefore, to communicate an action, a unified action, and, as Aristotle (p. 54) says, the plot 'must be the imitation of a unified action comprising a whole [Odysseus' journey for example]; and the events which are parts of the plot must be so organised that if any one of them is displaced or taken away, the whole will be shaken and put out of joint...'.

What are the differences between history and poetry?

Aristotle (p. 54) argues that 'the poet's function is not reporting things that have happened, but rather to tell of such things as might happen, things that are possibilities by virtue of being in themselves inevitable or probable'. Further, and from the same paragraph, Aristotle states that historians deal in prose and that poets deal in verse, and that poetry is of a much more universal form, being philosophical in nature, and being of a higher class than history as history deals with a particular given fact (such as it was 33 degrees Celsius in Brisbane on labor day 2007), whereas poetry is much more expressive and descriptive, good poetry doesn't just state a fact but will describe relationships with a given fact, or what a given person would likely do in relation to the fact.

There is quite a lot said in the above statement. To begin with it may appear that Aristotle is arguing for a temporal distinction between history and poetry, he says that historians report things that have happened (past temporal locations) and poets report, or perhaps it's better to say write, things that might happen (future temporal location). This is not what's occurring here however. Poets have just as much liberty to compose their prose in any temporal setting they desire, poems are not only set in future temporal locations and Aristotle would think it absurd to argue so. What Aristotle means when he claims that poetry deals with things that might happen, things that are possibilities, he is arguing that the poet uses his or her intellect and imagination to project likely situations, reactions, events, etc., onto a given occurrence, of which the occurrence may be a historical fact. It was a historical facticity that it was 33 degrees Celsius in Brisbane on labor day 2007, it was not a historical facticity but a piece of poetic verse that:

...The winds stirred overhead, the trees, tall and rebellious witness, ever opposed to the irrational whim of the unseen. His hand was gently swathed by the supple hem of his father's jeans, encased, secure, comfort. 33 degrees cried the busker, sweat down his nose, glistening and serene...

Entry Three

This week was of PHI350 was much more interesting and engaging than the other weeks so far.  The title for the week was 'The Question of Realism', looking for an answer via the writings of Andrè Bazin and Rudolf Arnheim.  Two films were prescribed for the week, The Spy by Lang, and Bicycle Thieves by De Sica.  Unfortunately I couldn't source either of these films in full so had to settle on excerpts.

It was an interesting choice of Bazin and Arnheim for the readings this week.  Bazin's contribution was his The Ontology of the Photographic Image and Arnheim's was Film as Art.  Both Bazin and Arnheim view film as, as my lecture notes refer, the culmination of the arts of representation.  By this is meant that film is as far as the art of representation can go, film is as 'real' an art form as can be produced.  Bazin and Arnheim differ, however, in how film should be used, be applied.  Is what makes a good film attention to portraying realism (as in De Sica's Bicycle Thieves) or is what makes a good film attention to portraying meaning, or expressing reality (as in Lang's The Spy)?  We'll call this distinction realism vs. expressionism.

Bazin seems to identify more with the primary of the two positions identified above.  Bazin defended and promoted film's application in realist applications. Bazin was especially fond of Italian Neo-Realist film and this, no doubt, is why De Sica's Bicycle Thieves was chosen this week, a classic example of this form of film and one that Bazin directly commented upon.  The following quote (from my lecture notes) highlights Bazin's opinion quite well:

Bicycle thief is one of the first examples of pure cinema. No more actors, no more story, no more mise en scène, in other words, at last the perfect aesthetic illusion of reality: no more cinema.

Arnheim, on the other hand, differed quite drastically from Bazin.  Arnheim felt that for film to be an art form it had to exploit all of its capabilities as a medium.  Arnheim (from my lecture notes again) claimed that:

In order that the film artist may create a work of art it is important that he consciously stress the peculiarities of his medium. This, however, should be done in such a manner that the character of the objects represented should not thereby be destroyed but rather strengthened, concentrated and interpreted

Arnheim is here arguing that film be used to interpret and strengthen aspects of reality.  This position we may term impressionist.

Are the two positions here represented mutually exclusive however?  I'm not so sure that they are.  I do say not so sure because I'm not certain, I haven't read nearly enough of either Bazin or Arnheim to make a conclusive decision.  What I can say, however, is that from the readings presented this week, and the lectures for the week, I don't think that the two positions exclude each other.

Bazin and Arnheim just seem to differ in their personal tastes relating to cinematographic art.  Bazin thinks that film, through its virtue of being as close to reality as art can get, should stick with portraying reality without human intervention.  Arnheim agrees that film is as close to reality as art can get but because of this it can, no should, be used to draw attention to detail and enhance aspects of reality that are overlooked in every day experience.  Certain aspects of reality can be expressed, perhaps better, by being expressionist, according to Arnheim.

Good film can therefore be both realist and expressionist, but, and this is my personal interpretation, it depends upon the context.  We can flip back to Aristotle say we need a good plot, and certainly both realist and expressionist film can produce this, but can they both do this in all given situations?  Would both Bazin and Arnheim agree that what makes a good film is always realism or expressionism?  I don't think so.

Documentaries are, in my opinion, generally desired to be realist.  That is the audience desires to see a realistic representation of the natural world, one that has as little of the producer's/director's hand in the film as possible.  When film makers such as Michael Moore come along and make films such as Roger and Me various viewers become upset or offended as, all of a sudden, there is some expressionism present.

This is an extreme example as it is (or probably more correcly, perceived as) a cultural norm for documentaries to only represent what is true and real.  But most documentaries are cut and only shots are taken of certain subject matter, and can't more be represented with a little enhancement?  In a particular scene of Lang's The Spy there is depicted a motorcycle rider speeding along the road.  A standard realist shot could have been taken but because of the expressionist representation of the rider, the shot is taken from the 'worm's eye view' and the actor's facial expression and body language is over acted, much more is represented, much more reality is represented.

Perhaps the documentary example is a little unfair to Bazin but I feel the above is still valid.  Certain situations demand a realist approach to film while others demand a more expressionist approach.  It woud be quite absurd to argue an absolutist position that only either realist film or expressionist film is good film all of the time and in every situation.

Anyhow, that's enough for this week, and quite late too.  I've had a few setbacks this last week with my Mother-in-Law arriving from Canada for a holiday.  As usual I'll post my reply to the tutorial questions below.  I only posted responses to the Bazin questions this week due to the fact that, as I've just mentioned, my Mother-in-Law's arrival set me back a little and also this decision was a little out of a mixture of respect, curiosity, and disappointment.  These last three emotions reflect the lack of discussion in the tutorials/online discussion board.  I've been the only one presenting answers to the tutorial questions.

What differentiates film from photography in terms of the medium's relation to reality?

At the very beginning of his discourse Bazin pursues a discussion of an almost evolutionary perspective, a Teleology of you like, of painting. This quasi evolution culminates in realist painting reaching its end. Painting could go no further in its appetite for the reproduction of reality as even though it could now effectively engage with the three dimensions of sight it lacked a necessary 'psychic' fourth dimension, movement. Of course, through certain symbolic techniques, painters have been able to allude to movement within their works but movement was never an actual characteristic of their work.

Now painting is not photography, as you'll see in more detail in the following answer, but there is at least one positively relevant similarity between painting and photography that is applicable in this situation, both mediums are static. Painting and photography both render their content immovable. Of course it is then easy to see that film differs in this respect. But this doesn't really answer the question, what aspects of the medium's relation to reality sets film apart from photography, or does it?

Perhaps the following quote will illuminate this situation a little further. Bazin (p. 14) claims that:

Viewed in this perspective, the cinema is objectivity in time. The film is no longer content to preserve the object, enshrouded as it were in an instant, as the bodies of insects are preserved intact, out of the distant past, in amber. The film delivers baroque are from its convulsive catalepsy. Now, for the first time, the image of things is likewise the image of their duration, change mummified as it were. Those categories of resemblance which determine the species photographic image likewise, then, determine the character of its aesthetic distinct from that of painting.

There is one theme in this quote that is important here and it directly reflects to what we were looking at above. This theme is stasis (in the pathological application of the term). While photography presents an image as a static phenomenon film, on the other hand, has an added element. Above we called this the 'fourth dimension', and I will continue this term here. This 'fourth dimension' of movement, as mentioned above, allows cinema to differ in its relationship to reality from photography. Both mediums, as you'll see below, are an objective process and, according to Bazin, are just as much an ontological aspect of reality as their 'objects', however, film presents an aspect of reality over time that photography just can't accomplish.

What is the basis for the superior aesthetic and creative power of photography?

Photography, Bazin argues, is objective while painting cannot loose its subjective nature: 'No matter how skillful (sic.) the painter, his work was always in fee to an inescapable subjectivity' (p. 12). Further, there is an ontological aspect possessed by photography that enhances it's aesthetic appeal. I'll present a direct quote from Bazin illustrating this point:

Only a photographic lens can give us the kind of image of the object that is capable of satisfying the deep need man has to substitute for it something more than a mere approximation, a kind of decal or transfer. The photographic image is the object itself, the object freed from the conditions of time and space that govern it. No matter how fuzzy, distorted, or discolored, no matter how lacking in documentary value the image may be, it shares, by virtue of the very process of its becoming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model.

Bazin is here arguing that photography has a certain aesthetic appeal that is lost in other artistic mediums. Mediums such as painting present only a rough approximation, an ersatz of the object, that removes the viewer from the object. For Bazin the photograph is the object however. Photography presents the viewer with the actual object and hence there is a superior ontology and aesthetic appeal. Photography, by virtue of it's more objective means of becoming, does not 'create eternity', as painting does for example, but renders a moment of time still, stagnating the object against the ever present and never tiring jaws of change possessed by the natural world.

But Bazin goes even further arguing that photography, because of its ontological status, mentioned above, actually contributes to the order of nature rather than, like painting for example, simply reproducing instances and creating a mere substitute (p. 15).

Entry Four

This week was of PHI350 was much more interesting and engaging than the other weeks so far.  The title for the week was 'The Question of Realism', looking for an answer via the writings of Andrè Bazin and Rudolf Arnheim.  Two films were prescribed for the week, The Spy by Lang, and Bicycle Thieves by De Sica.  Unfortunately I couldn't source either of these films in full so had to settle on excerpts.

It was an interesting choice of Bazin and Arnheim for the readings this week.  Bazin's contribution was his The Ontology of the Photographic Image and Arnheim's was Film as Art.  Both Bazin and Arnheim view film as, as my lecture notes refer, the culmination of the arts of representation.  By this is meant that film is as far as the art of representation can go, film is as 'real' an art form as can be produced.  Bazin and Arnheim differ, however, in how film should be used, be applied.  Is what makes a good film attention to portraying realism (as in De Sica's Bicycle Thieves) or is what makes a good film attention to portraying meaning, or expressing reality (as in Lang's The Spy)?  We'll call this distinction realism vs. expressionism.

Bazin seems to identify more with the primary of the two positions identified above.  Bazin defended and promoted film's application in realist applications. Bazin was especially fond of Italian Neo-Realist film and this, no doubt, is why De Sica's Bicycle Thieves was chosen this week, a classic example of this form of film and one that Bazin directly commented upon.  The following quote (from my lecture notes) highlights Bazin's opinion quite well:

Bicycle thief is one of the first examples of pure cinema. No more actors, no more story, no more mise en scène, in other words, at last the perfect aesthetic illusion of reality: no more cinema.

Arnheim, on the other hand, differed quite drastically from Bazin.  Arnheim felt that for film to be an art form it had to exploit all of its capabilities as a medium.  Arnheim (from my lecture notes again) claimed that:

In order that the film artist may create a work of art it is important that he consciously stress the peculiarities of his medium. This, however, should be done in such a manner that the character of the objects represented should not thereby be destroyed but rather strengthened, concentrated and interpreted

Arnheim is here arguing that film be used to interpret and strengthen aspects of reality.  This position we may term impressionist.

Are the two positions here represented mutually exclusive however?  I'm not so sure that they are.  I do say not so sure because I'm not certain, I haven't read nearly enough of either Bazin or Arnheim to make a conclusive decision.  What I can say, however, is that from the readings presented this week, and the lectures for the week, I don't think that the two positions exclude each other.

Bazin and Arnheim just seem to differ in their personal tastes relating to cinematographic art.  Bazin thinks that film, through its virtue of being as close to reality as art can get, should stick with portraying reality without human intervention.  Arnheim agrees that film is as close to reality as art can get but because of this it can, no should, be used to draw attention to detail and enhance aspects of reality that are overlooked in every day experience.  Certain aspects of reality can be expressed, perhaps better, by being expressionist, according to Arnheim.

Good film can therefore be both realist and expressionist, but, and this is my personal interpretation, it depends upon the context.  We can flip back to Aristotle say we need a good plot, and certainly both realist and expressionist film can produce this, but can they both do this in all given situations?  Would both Bazin and Arnheim agree that what makes a good film is always realism or expressionism?  I don't think so.

Documentaries are, in my opinion, generally desired to be realist.  That is the audience desires to see a realistic representation of the natural world, one that has as little of the producer's/director's hand in the film as possible.  When film makers such as Michael Moore come along and make films such as Roger and Me various viewers become upset or offended as, all of a sudden, there is some expressionism present.

This is an extreme example as it is (or probably more correcly, perceived as) a cultural norm for documentaries to only represent what is true and real.  But most documentaries are cut and only shots are taken of certain subject matter, and can't more be represented with a little enhancement?  In a particular scene of Lang's The Spy there is depicted a motorcycle rider speeding along the road.  A standard realist shot could have been taken but because of the expressionist representation of the rider, the shot is taken from the 'worm's eye view' and the actor's facial expression and body language is over acted, much more is represented, much more reality is represented.

Perhaps the documentary example is a little unfair to Bazin but I feel the above is still valid.  Certain situations demand a realist approach to film while others demand a more expressionist approach.  It woud be quite absurd to argue an absolutist position that only either realist film or expressionist film is good film all of the time and in every situation.

Anyhow, that's enough for this week, and quite late too.  I've had a few setbacks this last week with my Mother-in-Law arriving from Canada for a holiday.  As usual I'll post my reply to the tutorial questions below.  I only posted responses to the Bazin questions this week due to the fact that, as I've just mentioned, my Mother-in-Law's arrival set me back a little and also this decision was a little out of a mixture of respect, curiosity, and disappointment.  These last three emotions reflect the lack of discussion in the tutorials/online discussion board.  I've been the only one presenting answers to the tutorial questions.

What differentiates film from photography in terms of the medium's relation to reality?

At the very beginning of his discourse Bazin pursues a discussion of an almost evolutionary perspective, a Teleology of you like, of painting. This quasi evolution culminates in realist painting reaching its end. Painting could go no further in its appetite for the reproduction of reality as even though it could now effectively engage with the three dimensions of sight it lacked a necessary 'psychic' fourth dimension, movement. Of course, through certain symbolic techniques, painters have been able to allude to movement within their works but movement was never an actual characteristic of their work.

Now painting is not photography, as you'll see in more detail in the following answer, but there is at least one positively relevant similarity between painting and photography that is applicable in this situation, both mediums are static. Painting and photography both render their content immovable. Of course it is then easy to see that film differs in this respect. But this doesn't really answer the question, what aspects of the medium's relation to reality sets film apart from photography, or does it?

Perhaps the following quote will illuminate this situation a little further. Bazin (p. 14) claims that:

Viewed in this perspective, the cinema is objectivity in time. The film is no longer content to preserve the object, enshrouded as it were in an instant, as the bodies of insects are preserved intact, out of the distant past, in amber. The film delivers baroque are from its convulsive catalepsy. Now, for the first time, the image of things is likewise the image of their duration, change mummified as it were. Those categories of resemblance which determine the species photographic image likewise, then, determine the character of its aesthetic distinct from that of painting.

There is one theme in this quote that is important here and it directly reflects to what we were looking at above. This theme is stasis (in the pathological application of the term). While photography presents an image as a static phenomenon film, on the other hand, has an added element. Above we called this the 'fourth dimension', and I will continue this term here. This 'fourth dimension' of movement, as mentioned above, allows cinema to differ in its relationship to reality from photography. Both mediums, as you'll see below, are an objective process and, according to Bazin, are just as much an ontological aspect of reality as their 'objects', however, film presents an aspect of reality over time that photography just can't accomplish.

What is the basis for the superior aesthetic and creative power of photography?

Photography, Bazin argues, is objective while painting cannot loose its subjective nature: 'No matter how skillful (sic.) the painter, his work was always in fee to an inescapable subjectivity' (p. 12). Further, there is an ontological aspect possessed by photography that enhances it's aesthetic appeal. I'll present a direct quote from Bazin illustrating this point:

Only a photographic lens can give us the kind of image of the object that is capable of satisfying the deep need man has to substitute for it something more than a mere approximation, a kind of decal or transfer. The photographic image is the object itself, the object freed from the conditions of time and space that govern it. No matter how fuzzy, distorted, or discolored, no matter how lacking in documentary value the image may be, it shares, by virtue of the very process of its becoming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model.

Bazin is here arguing that photography has a certain aesthetic appeal that is lost in other artistic mediums. Mediums such as painting present only a rough approximation, an ersatz of the object, that removes the viewer from the object. For Bazin the photograph is the object however. Photography presents the viewer with the actual object and hence there is a superior ontology and aesthetic appeal. Photography, by virtue of it's more objective means of becoming, does not 'create eternity', as painting does for example, but renders a moment of time still, stagnating the object against the ever present and never tiring jaws of change possessed by the natural world.

But Bazin goes even further arguing that photography, because of its ontological status, mentioned above, actually contributes to the order of nature rather than, like painting for example, simply reproducing instances and creating a mere substitute (p. 15).

Entry Five

Ramblings is the title and ramblings is what's likely to follow.  I've just finished watching Buster Keaton's The General again.  I've decided on this film for my PHI350: Philosophy and Cinema film review for the simple fact(s) that I love this film and I already own a copy.  The film review is only to be 500 words, needs to be a philosophical review, and it may be of the entire film or just a single scene.

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to focus upon the philosophy of slapstick acting as Keaton exemplifies in this film.  Anyhow, this review will need to be very brief, only 500 words, so I limited my notes quite drastically.  I know the film inside-out so shoud anything else pop into my head in the meantime I shouldn't have too much trouble accessing it.

Perhaps the first thing that the viewer notices when watching The General is that the camera is almost always static, it doesn't move.  Further, most of the movie is shot from quite a distance allowing much of the film's world into each scene.  I'm not quite sure where I'll take this point, if I do, but it certainly helps to have some perspective like this in silent films.  The 'action' of each scene substitutes the viewer's expectation for sound (this point is a little historically judgmental as it would not have been noticed before there were 'talkies').

In slapstick film (a little bit of philosophy here) the actor not only becomes an object but often becomes an object of objects.  This does raise some Metaphysical questions that I wont go into here, although I think I may have here.  The General is no different with Keaton basically becoming an object of objects throughout the entire film.  Predominantly Keaton becomes an object of his train, The General, which seems to almost possess a will (more philosophy).  There is a particular quote from the film that I will be exploring in this context.  The quote is: 'There is only one man on that engine'.  I'm not certain upon the direction I'd like to take this quote but it automatically registered as referring to this metaphysical situation I'm currently talking about.  The scene that this quote occurs in is set as follows.  Keaton is advancing upon enemy territory in pursuit of 'their' train.  The enemy is fleeing as they think that the train that is following them has carriages of military/militia troops on board.  The enemy come to realise that the train has a single occupant, Keaton, and the above mentioned quote appears on screen.  What I'm interested in in this quote is that Keaton is the object of the train in this film so it is not just Keaton that the enemy need to worry about but the train too.  The train, by virtue of its nature, may perhaps be a much more formidable opponent.

I also felt that the following scenes may be worth using as examples etc.  I'll provide very brief outlines.

At the beginning when the train departs with Keaton seated upon its wheel thingy (very complicated term here.  It's the bar that joins old steam train wheels together).

The rail thing going backwards against Keaton's will (More complicated terminology.  Looks like I need to do some rail based research!  Anyhow, this thing is the platform on rail wheels with a bar that a user can push and pull to progress along the tracks).

The canon scene where Keaton 'accidentally' disconnects the canon carriage and the canon drops its aim, almost of its of will, which scares Keaton in hiding.  The canon appeared to know about this entire situation as certain acts unfold and the canon successfully fires at the enemy train, seemingly at a time of its own choosing.

The scene with the bear trap, Keaton seems to become an object of the object again.

Towards the end there is the scene involving Keaton's sword while he's engaged in discourse with some canon technicians.  The sword directs Keaton around the scene and saves the day.

There is one further point that I'd possibly like to draw attention to although I fear I won't have the opportunity due to the tiny word limit.  There is a scene that I thought drew attention to a mind/body dichotomy.  If we accept the thesis that Keaton is an object of objects in this film then this particular scene seems to illustrate that Keaton's mind (self) is an object of his body.  This scene occurs under a table and features Keaton's body attempting to sneeze.  The situation is dire and were Keaton to sneeze the results would be terrible.  The suspense in this scene is great as the viewer watches Keaton's mind try and regain control of its body.

That'll do for now, I think I'll treat myself to an early night.

Entry Six

I haven't written a journal entry for PHI350: Philosophy and Cinema in a few weeks so this is a first attempt to catch up.  I'm catching up on my reading material today so I'll likely follow this post with another reflecting upon that material.  What I would like to focus this post upon is my second piece of assessment, a short essay.

The question I chose asked about Rancière's three 'regimes of the arts' in relation to cinema.  I loved this topic and there is such a wealth of information out there.  This, of course, was my first problem.  Because I had a passion for the topic and the depths that I could see it reaching a short essay couldn't do it justice.  My notes alone were twice as long as the essay was allowed to be, and if I included all of the topics I desired to cover then a rather detailed book would have been the result.

You may have noticed that above I mentioned my first problem, well my second was much worse (Andrès, if you're reading before you've marked this particular essay then this paragraph is not for you).  When I first read the course outline back at the start of the semester I entered all of the assessment details in my calendar.  Due to some oversight, or plain stupidity, I wrote down that the length of the essay was to be 3500 words.  I happily wrote a 3500 word essay which I felt was still too short, long enough though to communicate my main ideas etc..  Well, when I went over my checklist before hitting the send button I discovered that the essay was onlly to be 2500 words!  Shock!  I spent an entire day pulling bits from one section, writing new linking sections and, in the end, being left with an essay that I'm utterly disappointed with.  I needed to rewrite the whole thing but didn't have the time.

I won't repeat my arguments here as I'll put the essay up over the weekend.  Hopefully it doesn't read like it has been cut and pasted all over the place.

Anyhow, back to some Merleau-Ponty and Zizek.  More reflections to follow.

Entry Seven

As this is my final journal entry I think it important to discuss what I will be focusing on in my major assessment item.  This assessment item is going to be, basically put, a philosophical film review.  The question that my assessment item will be based upon is as follows:

Using any one of the films we have considered in the course, discuss how the film in question engages in a form of cinematic philosophy, combining philosophical ideas with visual images and film narrative. In your response you may want to consider how, for example, aesthetic, phenomenological, psychological, cultural, and metaphysical dimensions of our experience of the world are explored in the film (drawing on readings discussed in the course). In what senses, then, can certain films be regarded as philosophical? Give reasons to support your view.

The film I will be reviewing is Fight Club.  My aim is to explore Aristotle's virtue ethics as it manifests in Oppressed groups and individuals.  My inspiration for this came from reading Lisa Tessman's Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles for another course I'm taking this semester, PHIL2400: Ethics and the Passions at the University of Queensland.  One of Tessman's many convincing arguments is that what is virtuous for those under oppression may in fact be different from what is virtuous for those in non-oppressed groups.  Anger, for example, may be considered a virtue for those suffering oppression, whereas it would be considered a vice otherwise.

Tessman's argument is not exactly consequentialist but, as she is a neo-Aristotlian, what is important is Human flourishing or eudamonia.  If the cultivation of anger under oppression leads to flourishing then anger should be considered a virtue.  Of course, there are issues with this line of reasoning.  What happens, for example, when the oppressed begin to be liberated from their oppression?  Can the passion anger just be given up?  Anger, in a sense, becomes part of the oppressed facticity and can be a very dangerous passion, particularly when allowed free reign while the person or group is no longer oppressed.

It is my intention to explore this phenomena in Fight Club.  To put it basically, I am aiming to explore how anger in particular, and perhaps other passions that are traditionally known as vices in Aristotle's virtue ethics, are developed in an oppressed group, and within an oppressed individual in particular, and the phenomenology of their development.  I'm interested in the positive aspects of the adoption of anger etc. in the early stages of resisting oppression and how this/these passion/s take control of the individual and the group and lead to all sorts of trouble.  Perhpas, even, how a particular passion can both be a vice and a virtue and how, even in the particular situations where certain passions are virtues where they would usually be vices, they can lead to behaviour and other consequences that are defined as vices.

The one area that I will have to pay particular attention to in this assessment item is that I'm analysing a film, which is much more than just a narrative.  The story in Fight Club, I feel, excellently outlines where I would like to take my essay but I do need to be careful to make sure I include other aspects of film philosophy.  At the time of writing this journal entry I'm not exactly sure where I'll go with this dimension.  I'll probably begin with arguing that the film is an example of neo-noir and bring in a little film theory explaining who each character group is portrayed via the film medium.  Another interesting aspect is hallucination.  I'm not likely to go into too much detail regarding the philosophy of hallucination in particular but I would probably enjoy incorporating some philosophy of mind with the film philosophy to examine how and why hallucination has been employed and the philosophical dimensions of its use in this particular film.  I'm really yet to decide on this point yet.  Perhaps when I watch the film again tomorrow I'll know in more detail where I'd like to take this point.